For some unfathomable reason, I got my days muddled up this week and thought yesterday was Thursday and today Friday. As a consequence, I didn't go to work this morning and thus didn't get paid. My finances being in the dire situation that they are, I could really have done with the money I would have earned this morning. The irony is that if I had a normal work week, I would have ended up working an extra day instead of missing one. Having been sick for most of the week prior (I still have an annoying lingering cough) certainly hasn't helped. I guess I'm fortunate that it's not a high-demand or high-pressure job (and the salary reflects that) and my employer understands I'm a fallible human prone to bouts of idiocy, but it's still not a good thing by any means ...

I could really do with earning more for my writing here on Pub0x, but experience has taught me that that's unlikely to happen. (I know for a fact that there are people who read my writing and like it, but don't bother to tip. I have a problem with that, since I don't write and post solely for my or their enjoyment.) I don't have the following here that Allen Taylor, Paul Mihilache and Silvain Saurel have. I don't get over 2.5 thousand people reading my posts and tipping regularly, not even close on a good day. (I have to write at least two posts that bring in $1.25 each, per day, for posting here to be viable. That's just enough to buy food for me for a month, not factoring in my other expenses. Yet, I'm fortunate if I bring in $1.00 on the occasional popular post. It's all so hit-and-miss. I still don't know what I'm doing wrong, despite the little bit of feedback that I do sometimes get.)

Ultimately, what I need is to find a second (and possibly third) platform/site on which to post and earn for it. So far, I've had no luck for various reasons. Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that people are not willing to pay me sufficiently for my efforts, in their various forms. Nobody is willing to support me if it means that crypto/fiat has to come out of their own wallets. That's because either people are cheapskate and self-entitled rat bastards, or my efforts consistently fail to sufficiently engage them enough for them to part with crypto/money. In any case, my ability to market and promote myself clearly needs work, since I have been unable to persuade such followers as I have to migrate to other platforms and part with their cash and/or crypto.

Nobody has signed up to sponsor me through BMC or Patreon. Noise and Read.cash proved to be dead ends. Medium will not pay me, due to Stripe's racist policies. (I'm wondering if it's worth me putting in an effort there, just to establish a second fanbase and drive traffic to another platform/Website.) Nobody has minted my NFTs on Mirror, OpenSea or SolSea (possibly due to issues with the latter two NFT marketplaces), despite some people expressing interest. Maybe I should post them on Patreon and try to earn some fiat for them. Maybe I should post my short stories and tutorials on Readl in the hope that they'll get some attention there, since they've largely been ignored elsewhere (although the AI ones did well and I should write more of them). Maybe I should put my various wallet addresses at the end of my posts, in the vain hope that someone will feel generous enough to send me some crypto, instead of finding such a practice desperate and/or vulgar (although the fact remains that I do feel quite desperate, particularly towards the end of each month).

I do not earn enough here to both support myself financially and convert some of my income to Hive for posting on its network (not that I mind doing that if it will pay off to make that investment, but I have no guarantee). That was the original plan, but it never became manifest, due to the complexities and demands of my financial situation.

Finding a full-time job that'll last longer than three months, give me good job security and pay me more than I need to pay my necessary living expenses is goal #1. I've spent a couple of days applying to about fourteen job advertisements that I have received by email, from various job-posting sites. I still have many more to get through before the month is out and I have to pay bills from an empty bank account. I don't think I'm going to win that battle, but I don't see that I have any choice but to persist with that.

If only making an effort were sufficient to getting what I require in order to not only get by, but profit (but it simply isn't) ... I am slowly drowning in the sea of my inadequacies and not finding a way out. It's incredibly frustrating and disheartening, but nobody cares enough to help.

Really, what is a mediocre and useless man to do in the face of all that? I certainly don't know, but I do know that what I am currently doing certainly isn't working out for me and I need something to change, to go right for me, pretty damn soon ... Argh! It seems that the only thing I can do is to keep doing what I am doing, while hoping that persistence will ultimately pay off (despite evidence to the contrary), because it's better than not doing anything and indulging in feeling sorry for myself. I can't afford that at this stage. The same goes for worrying about things that are beyond my control, which doesn't do me any good.

I just don't know what to do with myself. I do find, however, that having appropriate reading music can be helpful.

I will continue to write, because I enjoy doing that (and I hope I'm great at it). I just want it to work out for me, which it currently isn't, since I'm not getting much financial benefit from it, barely any.

I don't have a problem with working hard for my income; I'm quite prepared to do so. I do, however, have a problem with not being adequately compensated for my efforts (and that includes being paid more than I feel they're worth; I miss the luxury of having days when I was worried someone would find out I was being overpaid, although i will be very fortunate if I ever get back to that point). Employers have ridiculous expectations of what their employees are to achieve. That's why they pay ridiculous salaries. I just want to find a job where what I earn is inline with what I do (honest pay for honest work). Unfortunately, many see that as me being lazy or having a bad attitude, rather than having practical limits on my abilities. It doesn't help that on my exceptional days I'm great to brilliant, on good days I'm mediocre at best and on my bad ones I'm practically useless, having probably as many good days as bad ones. I just can't be a flawless and tireless automated fuel cell; I will burn out (as I have done before). My best efforts are just not good enough and I know it. Unfortunately, I can't prevent others from finding out and I don't know how to have an honest conversation about it with my employer, without getting into trouble. It's not exactly an encouraged approach, since getting through interviews practically requires I play up my best qualities, to the point of lying. I really don't like doing that, because it starts things off on the wrong foot, but I don't know what choice I have; I can't simply not work and earn a living. In an ideal world, I wouldn't even have to work, but that's also not going to happen. Surely, there has to be some middle ground, somewhere, where it's possible to earn an honest living (that isn't an absolute pittance) for honest work. So far, I haven't found it, only the two extremes of having to be some super-human machine or doing very little for very little.

I'm more than ready to return to work and work hard; I just can't seem to land a long-term gig that will eventually get me off the killing floor. I just don't see any point in killing myself for it in order to make a living. I want a job where my employer understands that the days on which I'm amazing, brilliant and/or fabulous (which I certainly can be) are the exceptions, rather than the norm), that I'm typically a completely useless idiot doing my best to excel despite myself (and mostly failing terribly), not some incredible superman who always delivers and is always "winning"; it's not who/what I am, even though I want to be. I want to be paid accordingly (as long as it's enough for me to get by on it). I think that, surely, that's not too much to ask, but I'm clearly mistaken here. Somehow, I'm the insane/lazy/mad one with a bad attitude for not over-committing myself to making someone else wealthy at my expense.

As always, constructive feedback/suggestions are/is welcome. I'm pretty much at a loss here (in more ways than one).

If you liked this post (or any of my others), please consider making a small donation of crypto to one of these addresses, since tips on Pub0x are an absolute pittance:

• Bitcoin Cash (BCH): bitcoincash:bpp7utd6agdn86pcq0snujkya3x8tup39eu5384yup8
• Litecoin (LTC): MBZL1eCfeT6GxNP23yULFtuU7Y1MzihSLR
• Nano (XNO): nano_1rzx1i93oumxduxcr4ks7uybbxco8huj6aqs3t1zbtz5of5f8opixc56xs9a
• Polygon (MATIC) or DAI/USDC on Polygon: 0x7E34D99D4EfD9CBfdA379790Da9122ad2b10cfbD

Many thanks for your time and tips; they are greatly appreciated.

Update, as of 2023/06/04: This post is now also available on Mirror.

Thumbnail image: Photo by Pham Khoai on Pexels