Fujiko F. Fujio, the creator of *Doraemon*, once said, “Dream” is a naive word, while “making a dream come true” is a cruel one.
Recently, due to a corporate restructuring, my department didn’t have as much work, so I was laid off and found myself unemployed—which got me thinking about a lot of things. Back in college, I learned various programming languages and website development. I built a website and hosted it on a free platform. At the time, I really loved the site I’d created myself—it gave me a great sense of accomplishment. It was the first time in over a decade of schooling that I’d truly felt the power of a hobby.
After I graduated, I realized I couldn’t get into pure front-end development jobs because I didn’t have a formal background in the field, so I chose to work in website operations—that’s when I found out.
So many companies build websites purely for profit. I’ve come to understand concepts related to commercial websites—such as page views (PV), unique visitors (UV), impressions, clicks, click-through rates (CTR), and conversion rates—and I’ve also learned what SEO and search engine optimization are, as well as how to gain visibility, rankings, and clicks through search engines. I’ve also learned how Baidu manipulates fake websites through its infamous paid search rankings.
It’s a fully-fledged commercial system, and it ultimately affects everyone’s job performance and income. In my experience, it no longer brings me the simple joy it used to.
I still haven’t decided whether to keep looking for a job in website operations or try something else. Or maybe I should listen to my family and move back to my hometown from Xiamen—but for now, I’m still keeping my little blog, and just writing on it is enough to make me happy.
