)

oops. if I forgot that my post would have a curved boy without a friend. Those do bad things to computers.

If you are a "content creator" or even just aspire to be one, you have to work to attract and retain an audience.

(This wasn't a job you could have when I was a kid, I wasn't able to grow up dreaming about being a VTuber.

I consider "work" to be "any task that you won't really enjoy doing." At baseline when you say work I hear that as something tedious/boring.

The purpose of automation, of industrialization, of invention, was to decrease the amount of labor required to accomplish the "work" we MUST do daily.

Because we have so little time, and we spend enough of it working.

There was a classic 90's saying. "Work sucks." That's what defines "work" versus "play" for many of us.

Why would we deliberately choose to do more things that suck?

Some of us watch basketball on our spare monitor while we catch up on documentation. My support staff would and I would do things to keep ourselves amused. You're BUSY alternating with playing catch-up and maybe breathing a little.

No one is "PRODUCTIVE" all the time. Even at work.

Normalize it.

I was well-paid for my labor.

But I did write some patient notes that used very silly alliterative word choices when it wasn't strictly necessary.

I did write (internal, colleague-directed) communications laced with (often dry) wit. I had fun when I could spare the time.

We all do. It's okay.

You DO YOUR JOB. And if that isn't your reflex you have to train yourself until it is. The whole EMS/first responder/medical provider sphere, if we have worked in a high-speed, high-energy environment, we're probably Like This Now, maybe Forever.

Hypervigilant. WOKE? Traumatized.

It's fine.

Info recorded there needed to be straight and to the point. Concise. Everyone in a hospital is BUSY, always, even when we're not. We have to be ready to BECOME BUSY, instantly.

You're on lunch break? You're about to clock out and leave? Someone drops in front of you and you're NOT on any clock?

Yes. You can be professional and have a good time. You don't have to insert dick jokes or shock value humor. You don't have to sacrifice information efficiency if you practice different techniques.

I would generate (from a template) and fill in dozens of "progress notes" daily. This adds value!

"I think about this a lot."

Broadcast vs. conversation.
Transmission vs. reception.

It's no secret from my prior posts that I think the modern internet ("Web 3.0") is a husk of its former self. Tech has gotten faster but not better (lots of nuance omitted).

We leapfrogged Windows 3.x, so my first machine with a proper GUI was running Windows 95.

You want to elaborate on how MS-DOS was your parent/friend/babysitter? :D

readers added context:
I, too, had this thought, recently.

I'm going to be gentle on Past Ford. His brain wasn't done cooking yet. (Harsh but fair if I met the guy today; context is everything.)

If you want to read any of it, you can check it out here:
secundumartem.blogspot.com/2007/11/irra...

Caveat: I wrote this in...look at the timestamps. Between 2004 and 2010. (Old.) Some viewpoints have changed; they have evolved in light of new data.

Other blogs and sites and so on share its title. I guess that makes it a bad business name or whatever; I don't have a good "internet moat." That might not be a thing anyone else thinks about, or that might not be the word they use.

Anyway it's fun sometimes to read your old writing.

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You don't actually have to pay/subscribe/whatever I will just tell you this thing.

if you enjoy my writing, when I was a student in pharmacy school I wrote a blog -- it was an anonymous blog. I have been writing my entire life in one form or another.

coda; should that be "hustleground"? Genuinely not sure.