I need a mental break. Let’s see what the random daily prompt gives me, shall we?

Daily writing prompt

In what ways do you communicate online?

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Don’t come APP me with that!

The prompt today feels more like an opportunity to just plug every I can be found on social media. To be honest, I am not hugely interested in this one, but it was what was chosen for me, here. I’ll let you know up front I am “hpkomic” on virtually any website where I legitimately post. With that said, my active social media accounts are linked here on the blog in the top right corner of the header.

There, plugged my social media without actually sharing a single link. Wasted opportunity? Absolutely.

Actually, you know what? Visit my links page. That’s what I want to plug.

Anyway, time to think about my preferences for online communication.

Information Superhighway Rest Stop Bathroom Stall Graffiti

As much as I post on social media, I’m not big on it, especially in the form of microblogging like Blue Sky, Mastodon, and the like. It really is more of an obligation to use these services if I desire traction in my creative work. It is, hands down, my least favorite form of online communication.

And yet, I am a contradiction in that I no longer use X, formerly Twitter, despite it having the greatest possible reach under the influence of the worst possible person.

My desire for readership? All-consuming. My tolerance of Elon Musk? Non-existent.

I don’t regret leaving X, for the most part. Losing my audience cultivated from prolific shitposting is something I’ve never really recovered from.

And that’s the thing, really, my usage of social media is primarily shitposting; it is nothing of value and is largely meaningless. But it did help me out when it came to get my work out there, too, and such a huge loss of an audience in my switch to less “Musky” platforms does smack of regret just a little bit, I think.

It’s like doing half the shitposting for a quarter of the results. Like clout chasing as two part-time jobs rather than one that pays a living-clout-wage. It is a pain in the ass to post an update across four platforms when I used to be able to do it in one.

I think I liked social media better when it was slower and contained to longer messages in specially designated discussion channels.

You know, like internet forums.

Email Me About It

My preference for online communication has been, and always shall be, email. I love email. I think email is the perfect communication tool.

Yes, spam and marketing sucks. But when you are looking for pure, online communication, email is it, baby. Not the first method of online communication, there is a whole developmental history before the first “true” email that we would recognize today – but it is pretty close comparatively. It really is the peak of online communication for me.

Emails can be as short or as long as I need them to be. I can attach whatever I want and these days most limits are unobtrusive. I can have dozens of threads of deep, documented discussion. I can answer them when I want. There’s no chasing the dragon of social media influence.

Email is great because it is just words at my own pace, in as many of as few as I want to use.

Discord: Not Quite IRC but We Can’t Really Have Nice Things Anymore, Can We?

I do want to send an honorable mention to Discord. Discord is just IRC with a fancy skin and more investor pleasing monetization. Peak fun online for me came in the form of IRC chats.

Discord does well enough for what is is (btw the SuperNatPod Discord is great and you should join!), but it lacks that kind of “jank” of IRC I love – black background, colored text, and no goddamn pictures, really. It also feels like Discord constantly wants to make money off of me, which is really the vibe internet at large today.

Feh, now I’m annoyed. I think the biggest conclusion we can draw from all of this is that I miss the old days of the internet. I’ll use the tools of my time, but my God, do I long for some janky, less time-sucking applications that offer simple communication.

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The post Prompt, Promptly #2 appeared first on hpkomics.com.

In any case, I decided to knock one of these daily prompts out for an update. Please let me know if you enjoy these sort of explorations. Hell, feel free to pitch a prompt in the comments if you feel so compelled.

Daily writing prompt

Tell us about your first day at something — school, work, as a parent, etc.

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Running on Empty

Is it a little strange that I don’t remember a lot of firsts? I am not sure how common it is to have a lot of memories of firsts like jobs and school. The kind of things where the day-to-day becomes pretty routine quickly. If I am taking on something new, my intent is to make it a part of a reliable pattern in my life. Especially when it comes to jobs or education. Like, maybe it is more about settling in quickly and not necessarily taking in the experience from the start.

Is it bad that I had to spend a few minutes to consider something, and not have something locked in for this? It feels like a social failing to me. Maybe a social unawareness of something that might be seen as “normal?” Me not processing life the way that is intended for me?

I do have something though: when I started working as a food runner at a casino restaurant for six-months.

Desperation

The food runner job for the (what will remain) unspecified casino, came at a very challenging chapter of my life a few years ago. I had wrapped up grad school and defended my thesis, and was more or less lined up for a job teaching at a community college. Things felt pretty good until they weren’t.

The college had low enrollment for the upcoming semester and had to cut the classes I was to teach. This left me with no job and no income. My partner was not working at the time either, and if you’ve read some of my recent poetry, I have anxiety about money.

It was not a pleasant time.

What followed then was about 4 months of desperate job searching. I was fortunate to land some work with a tutoring company helping kids after school on the nearby reservation, but that was not sustainable. Beyond that, commission work and freelancing helped, but it wasn’t equaling more than a tank of gas a week – which I spent heavily driving to just about every place I could find that might have work.

I even applied for work with a plumbing company which laughed in my face when they saw I had no experience, but the desperation was real.

Thankfully the local casino had expanded to a larger resort complex and was in the midst of hiring for a grand opening – especially for the dining. So I took the chance and lied about my experience. Had I run food before? I mean, I helped at a couple of public Thanksgiving kitchens and a couple of Elk Lodge spaghetti dinners. But that was the extent of my experience.

But I landed the job.

Relief

The job itself was enough to barely get by, but not very much wiggle room beyond that. I still had to lean on credit cards and loans to survive. But on the first day of the job, being walked through my duties, I felt relief.

I absolutely am not together enough to not go through unholy panic regarding finances, which is doubly rough because I am the book keeper for my household. I have gotten better at not panicking as badly, but it’s akin to exposure therapy I suppose.

But that job was a lifeline I desperately needed to feel human. And it was a job I only worked for six months. By the time I quit to move into teaching, finally, I was one of 3 runners hired from the pool of 10 on the first day. Beyond that, my food service experience rapidly accelerated. I went to being the lone “morning guy” and expo on the line, to, during my last month there, the room-service office.

For someone who had never worked food service before, the learning opportunity at the job on day one was something I had latched onto right away. I feel like somewhere I may have my notebook from my job. I had learned just about everything about food service on that job.

The specifics of the first day at that job are a bit of a blur. They in no way match what the job became for me by the end. But I do remember one thing.

I remember the overwhelming feeling of relief.

If you enjoyed reading this, please let me know. You can also support my writing and illustration work by subscribing to my Ko-Fi page for as little as $1 a month.

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