I also had a snoozy job where I sat alone in an attic office waiting for the phone to ring or an email to come in. These were rare so I blogged.
I even had two blogs, one (The Blog of Plenty) for all my hilarious hot takes and another (Fear of the Blank Page) for my creative writing. I thought much about myself then.
I deleted the Blog of Plenty after getting tsk tsk'ed by my employer. I worked for a small coffee chain in central New York, Gimme! Coffee, and, at the time, their NYC shops got lots of great coverage in the NYTimes as best cup of coffee in the city. That said, there seemed to be a disconnect because while it was the hot to trot of NYC coffee, the chain was actually from lowly Ithaca, NY with all the coffee roasted in a converted barn on Route 96 between downtown and the Town of Ulysses. So it was common among the "upstate" workers to chide this split. I mentioned this on the blog and apparently the manager of the NYC shop saw that. They then called my manager who quickly (There were five of us who worked at my location) deduced who it was. Looking back, that NYC manager must have either been seven pages deep into the Google search or they needed some serious optimization to find my post.
My manager didn't ask me to delete (I don't care. Its your right to say whatever and you didn't say anything wrong) but he did ask me to never post about this phantom rivalry. But, no one read it and I was spooked (Why, I don't know, but a stupid spur of the moment thing) so why not.
The blog then cycled through ups and downs mostly serving as the lonely diary no one reads. Sure, the metrics say SOMEONE reads these but I think those are just lost people on the Internet. As I get older I realize I am not as funny or clever as I think I am. My best thoughts are found at tail ends of dreams as I wake up and the stirring takes away any memory. I fashioned myself a write, realizing I am ferociously better at making a manifest or purchase order. A work memo, etc, etc, etc.
At one point I discovered that someone(s) at my current job read this and I was a bit flattered because they seemed to like it. The flurry of activity in 2019-2021 is testament to this. However, even this waned to the point it was awkward to bring it up in conversation. How dreadful to share your diary and find people think it is just boring. Work chats in slacks and Teams? Now, that is where people are honest. This could have also been indulgence and pity reads, the kind of reading you do of the back of the tea box while waiting for the microwave to ding.
Yet, I still write. Getting 500 posts. Maybe this site will never digitally rot away and my kids will find it. See their father was boring and disappointed in how he could never have enough patience or savvy to match them. Or the hot takes on Jason DeRulo, Sailor Moon, and Spiderman. Archer's Rise takes and two decade old book reviews. This is a journal in the digital longform. It is a product of its founding time because the Internet has become all AV and listicles and slide decks.
Anyone who has read then I appreciate your visit. Likely you stumbled here from an errant search or a mistyped search for garlic, but thanks for reading.
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