Let's Talk About Something

Comments On Commenting

Once in awhile, it happens, I have nothing to say. That doesn’t always stop me from saying something, although it should, and I think I’m not alone. This is proven when I make my occasional visits to the comments section beneath online articles.

I get it. When the internet was new (not just to me, it was new to everybody), the fact that anyone could type and potentially be read by bored and listless people everywhere was amazing. Usually, I simply told a creator how much I loved his or her work, occasionally I would correct a fact or observation that another commentor got wrong, and eventually I would write an impassioned diatribe about something being discussed as though I was delivering the closing argument for a first degree murder trial in court.

That’s when it had to stop. For me, commenting on the internet was also known as avoiding real work.

Today I look at the comments of my own work and that’s it. If I read an article on the state of the world, I know that there’s no need to go to the comment section to read the inevitable venomous political spewing. It’s the mental equivalent of eating an entire bag of Doritos, minus the fun. By contrast, if I read an article about 1950s Jell-O molds, I also avoid the comment section to avoid the inevitable venomous political spewing. My god, it’s everywhere.

Keeping my opinion to myself is not unlike spiritual fasting.

The comments on my comics are always wonderful because I block the hecklers, naturally, but there are some sites on which my comics appear where I don’t have that ability. Usually, somebody finds a way to politically spew. That’s a given. Then there are the people who love to restate the punchline (e.g. “The TV is too big to fit through the front door.”) I always wonder about those. Did they think that nobody got the punchline or are they just repeating it like people do in a bar when a funny joke is told loudly among a bunch of drunks? There are also people who write “I don’t get it.” I feel badly for those people, especially if nobody responds. Their comment is just floating in a sea of comments, never getting it.

The best comments come from people recounting their own experience from a comic they just read. Hearing what happened to you years or decades ago in a similar situation is good ol’, dag-gum community building right there, and I love it. Honestly, some people’s experiences are so wild I never would’ve imagined them, so they are invaluable. There’s always a chance that the world will be sane some day and the political spewing will be forgotten, but the crazy work experiences that people have had will be gold forever.

Now that I’ve written enough to have nothing to say, let’s write some more.

This was an odd feeling that I assumed was not common, and I was right. There are days that have one weird thing after another and I actually welcome a good, straight forward problem. Sure you were mischarged and we have to correct this, but at least there isn’t a squirrel loose in the building and a customer’s grandson is trying to capture it before animal control gets here.

This comic revisited a place Berle worked at several years ago that readers liked. I had to go back to 2019 and find the logo. Alas, you can’t go home again.

This is another odd feeling that’s hard to share. If you’re leaving a job because you’ve lined up a new and better job, the old job doesn’t seem as bad. You’re happy to leave, sure, but suddenly the day to day routine that drove you crazy is all a bit quaint. I’m not in Rusty’s position, but I hope to be.

This goes back to a declaration long ago that being a manager isn’t worth it. The increase in cash is never equal to the work. It’s not even the work, it’s the 24/7 burden of being in charge. Being a manager is often compared to parenting, but parenting theoretically has an end to it. Parents kind of go from being a Director to Producer to Executive Producer. Executive Producers never quite know what’s going on.

I really hate shopping where I work. When I worked part-time at Sheds & Dignified, I hated that coworkers got to see what reading material I was buying. “You’re getting Beatrix Potter and Stephen King? Ooookay.” Then I have to defend myself to Bucky, or whichever goof is working the counter, about what I chose to pick up that day. “Well, they have this sale going on, and this is a really good collection of Potter. Stephen King, on the other hand is…you know what? Piss off, Bucky!”

It’s always awkward. That did happen with my brother at Best Buy. A new anniversary edition of The Exorcist came out on laser disc and he bought it. The next day the complete Donald Duck theater shorts came out on laser disc and he bought that too. He got the same clerk. “Aren’t you….the guy who just bought The Exorcist?” I loved that story because it wasn’t me.

I missed Claremont and plopped him here. He actually has the personality of my old cat. He’s very sweet and happy. When he has to, however, he can act his part.

I like that Charlie the coffee cup is also asleep. Why does the coffee cup need to sleep? Simple. There’s no coffee in him.

Not being good with customers has never interfered with a promotion. Some managers, wow, are notoriously bad with customers. The person who is great with customers and all of the customers love is usually the one who is paid the least.

I liked this idea. It wasn’t a big hit, but I still liked it. The idea that Tabby appears wherever drama is being told paints her as some sort of supernatural being. Maybe she is.

This also didn’t take off, but many places have a “Pub”, a poor, overworked employee who is holding it all together by her lonesome. Pubs are amazing, yet unrecognized, super-beings.