What if weblogging was your job?

People have been talking for some time about tech stock overvaluation. What no one wants to talk about (understandably) is tech skill overvaluation. Did you really think you could spend the rest of your life making mad cash doing what you loved, while your friends have been slaving away, making an honest living while learning real skills? What happens after the shakeout?

On the flipside, what if weblogging, or even just surfing the web, weren't just an idle the-boss-isn't-looking diversion, but your actual soul-sucking vocation? Imagine the following exchange...

Me (entering my boss's office): You wanted to see me?

C.G.B. Spender: Yes. Are you familiar with the concept of weblogging?

Me: Yeah, I guess. Isn't that this sort of big web circle-jerk?

Spender: That's... funny... I was under the impression that you ran a weblog yourself.

Me: I, uh, don't know if I'd put it like that. I had this log called psychography.net. It started out as a way to share links with my friends, but as time passed, it just became an also-ran. Like Pearl Jam or the X-Files: I kind of blew my load early on and petered out from there. I realized I'd be doing a better service to my friends to just point them to a list of weblogs and be done with it. Weblogs are getting to be like coffeehouse poetry anyway: the supply far outstrips the demand. Like a lot of the detractors used to say, it's just a clique of pages, all pointing to and copping links off of each other.

Spender: I disagree. We are reliably informed that weblogs are "a selection of carefully chosen and delicately prepared morsels of web goodness."

Me: You've got to be fucking kidding me. What's this all about?

Spender: We want you to relaunch your weblog. We believe it can serve our interests.

Me: No way. I'm sick of the web. The net used to be exciting; I can remember the page that would let you check out the coffee pot at Cambridge University and how cool we all thought that was. Now the web is just this cesspool of crap; weblogs, especially. Can't I just work in the mailroom or scrub toilets or flip burgers or something?

Spender: I'm afraid you have no experience with useful work such as waiting tables and basic food prep. Maybe if you weren't finishing up a toilet-paper degree and didn't have a dime-a-dozen resume that hasn't been updated in years, you might find yourself with a little more freedom to pursue your own destiny. We haven't yet figured out how to monetize this corporate weblog idea, but that's not your concern.

Me: I don't know anything about having a successful weblog. The only time I got more than 100 hits was when Dave pointed to a discussion group post asking for feedback. A hundred people visited the site, told me it sucked, and never returned. I'm not going to do it.

Spender: That chip in the back of your neck can be easily removed.

Me: Shit. This isn't human!

Spender: I look forward to reading your visitor logs.