Social media internet sites can be invaluable to writers. Even dinosaurs like me realize this, and therefore plunge into the online tar pits in search of faithful readers. I am reasonably active on a popular social media site, less so on a business and career networking site. One of the reasons I belong to both of them is to promote my writing career. I should clarify that I don’t actually have a writing career, but it makes me feel good to refer to one. At my age, I need to do whatever I can to feel good.

My interest in a business-oriented site is limited. I’m retired from my career where I pretended to be an engineer, and my only purpose in being connected to the business site is to promote my new career where I pretend to be a writer. Actually, calling it a career is sort of gilding the lily. In fact, it’s more like lying than gilding. Fortunately, lying is in style these days, particularly in politics and on social media sites. Anyway, I would need to have significantly more success before I could say I have even a failed writing career.

Therefore, I fiddle around on the business site, which we shall refer to as WonkedIn, to promote my writing. I have far less guilt about that than I should. It’s a desperate attempt to lure victims to my website blog, and other sites where my written disasters are lurking. So far, that tactic is working as unsuccessfully as my other attempts at foisting off my work on an apathetic public.

One of the main goals of WonkedIn seems to be to allow its members to easily find new employment. Therefore, WonkedIn is constantly throwing new job listings at me that I’m supposed to be interested in. Those jobs, after all, are suggested “based on your profile.” If that’s the case, then my profile must be wonked-out.

The jobs they parade in front of me range from entry-level flunky to grand exalted imperial executive. They are in many different fields, most of which I’m unqualified for, and in some cases I would be quite dangerous in. As far as I can tell, the jobs are randomly drawn from the “gigantic-slagheap-o’-jobs-we-have-on-this-wacked-out-website-so-suck-it-up-and-deal-with-it-boomer-boy.”

One of the more interesting suggested jobs for me was “laundry attendant” at a Holiday Inn Express. Some people might be offended by such a suggestion, but not me. It was, though, quite a comedown from last year, when they suggested I apply to the FBI to be a special agent.

In all honesty, I have absolutely no qualifications to be a laundry attendant. Perhaps I could be trained at Quantico to be an FBI laundry attendant, though. That might be fun. I wonder what kind of clearance would be required.

Most of the jobs WonkedIn flings in my direction are engineering oriented. In a way, that’s understandable, because I have listed my engineering experience in my site profile. However, I also show that I am retired, and list my current position as “Self-employed humor writer.” Also, the WonkedIn groups that I’ve joined are all writing-oriented.

They seem to have a clue that writing is my thing now, as they will occasionally taunt me with an email that says, “122 writer jobs were filled on WonkedIn recently.” Interesting, because they didn’t show me a single one of those 122 writer jobs.

Understand, I’m not looking for any kind of actual job. I just want WonkedIn people to read my posts and become fans of my writing. I want them to follow me, in the social media sense, and tell all their friends about my writing. In fact, I want them to also tell their enemies. I want them to look forward to my next helping of drivel that I shovel at them. I have discovered, from being on these social media sites, that people are swallowing huge amounts of drivel. I just want them to realize that my drivel is just as worthless as any other drivel, and therefore is worthy of their consumption.

So if in your meanderings on the worldwide web, you come across my writing in one form or another, please stop, look, listen, read, and fall under my spell. I know you can do it. If millions of Americans are blindly following idiot politicians and being deluded by agenda-driven news sources, then they can surely blindly follow me and be deluded by my drivel. After all, the internet has as its secondary objective for us all to connect in semi-meaningful ways.

The internet’s primary objective, of course, is to expose us to every potential crook and scammer on the face of the planet. And it’s certainly succeeding admirably.