So I applied for three different gigs on UpWork this morning.
Didn’t really think about it and I definitely didn’t plan it. I just did it. Started scrolling through my job feed, saw some I liked, and submitted a proposal for them.
One person wants me to write a children’s book and get this : the main character is a fox! What are the odds?
So you can bet I pounced on that like… well…
The story is quite sweet and charming and has some good lessons in it that kids can take into the future with them, and so I really meant it when I said I would love to do it.
It’s like the gig was made with me in mind! I’ve been a fox for decades, I am a superb writer, and I have always wanted to write for children.
So I want it bad.
Another job also seems made for me because they want gamers writing about gaming. The prompt was to write about your three favorite games and why you like them, along with proof of how many hours you have played them.
And it took a lot of digging, but I was eventually able to find a URL on Steam that would lead to my list of games I’ve played the most and how many hours I’ve played them.
So that took care of proof.
Now I have never been able to list my Top Ten favorite whatevers. I have simply experienced far too much to choose. My internal list of things I have seen or done or heard or played is miles long.
Trying to rank those against one another is like trying to sort a million card deck all at once, at least for me.
So instead, I chose the game I love the most (Witcher 3, with expansions), the game I have played the most (Elder Scrolls Online, 1,670 hours), and to prove I have mad gamer cred, an incredibly obscure game (Etherlords 2) that I absolutely love.
That’s a deep cut, yo. To the point where for a while in the 2010s the game basically did not exist. Could not get it anywhere.
I started to wonder if I had hallucinated it.
Luckily it made its way to Steam eventually. And I bought it, natch.
Now if only I could uncover proof that Psychic Dust existed…. it was a really good game and it’s like it never existed!
But I’m not crazy. I’m not. Nope.
The last of the three jobs is a ghostwriting gig, so I can’t say much about it.
I am okay with ghostwriting. Not the ideal gig but work’s work. I’m just not going to invest my heart and soul in it. It would be a completely professional gig, not something I am doing to express myself.
I’ll still enjoy writing it, but I am not investing in it emotionally.
If the client is happy and the money comes through, I’m happy.
More after the break.
The role of faith in business
And I am not talking about anyone’s religion.
No, what I am talking about is the sorts of decisions a business might make that you can’t make a solid business case for and that cannot be guaranteed to work, but you do them anyway because you have faith that if you treat the customers well, they will come to you for your product and/or service.
Like paying for comfier chairs in your waiting area. Will that generate enough new revenue to cover the costs? Probably not. Will it help in attracting new customers? Not by itself, no. Will it get us press coverage? No, no news day is THAT slow.
But it will make things nicer for people and make them feel like the business cares about them and doesn’t just see them as walking wallets or sheep to shear.
It also lends a sense of warmth to what might otherwise be a sterile and alienating waiting room environment, and thus will help our customers relax and feel welcome.
And that is something that the corporate hiveminds cannot do. There is no such thing as corporate warmth. Too many of the moving parts of a corporation are cold hearted and narrow minded bean counters who absolutely cannot handle concepts like warmth and friendliness and being welcoming in any kind of real way.
They can try to fake it, but they will fail miserably and only end up creating an Uncanny Valley nightmare of fake emotion and forced conviviality.
Thus, there is still room for small independent businesses. It’s not a LOT of room, but it can still be done.
I know that I would go to a business that makes me feel warmly welcome over some heartless corporate big box with slightly better prices every single time.
And obviously, corporate hiveminds can’t do anything on faith. They need proof that the thing will work, is working, or has worked in the past. They want track records, business cases, feasibility studies, and so on,.
My late grandfather ran his business on that kind of faith. He was the single owner of the business and thus made all the decisions himself, and he would never have bothered with a business case or a cost benefit analysis or any of the rest of the things a corporate hivemind excretes and consumes.
He just treated people right, and the people in my home town were intensely loyal to him and his business as a result. He did what he thought was the right thing and made sure to have what people wanted and he supported a family of six that way.
I miss him. He was a good man. Quiet but with a deep and unshakable integrity and great inner strength that you could feel when you were around him.
And his store will always be my go-to example of business done right.
And you can take your corporate hucksterism and shove it up your ass.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.