'Side job'

When I got lost in the "professional forum" group, I was interested to realize the strange closeness between it and... the market. The "professional" part is not too sparse, but it is also too easy to encounter flirtatious words "Hey guys, the sausage and beef jerky I made by hand are limited in quantity, please leave your phone number quickly for me". "Any love that lacked eggs last time, please remind Mi, Mi will close the deal and go back to... teaching". I foolishly left a joke on the forum "Every teacher is an online merchant". Of course, after that, I had to run away before being bruised by "online brickbats". The journey of chasing unequal wages and prices has been wonderfully supported by technology. It can be said that never before has the "second job" of civil servants exploded like this time. Life always rejects lazy people and I am not allowed to be an exception.

When I was young, I opened a workshop making conical hats, 5 years ago I was just starting out selling “container goods”. After no less than 3 times of reaching my poor hand into the “industry and trade” sector, the most valuable thing I received was the… first lessons! Business is not a thermometer to measure enthusiasm. I realized late that, whatever you do, you have to have a destiny. Although I am not talented, I started my writing career almost a few “terms”. Once my friend asked me, “With a meager salary, do you have a side job?”, I boldly said “a collaborator”. My friend opened his eyes wide. I call it a “job” because in reality it takes up a considerable amount of my time and it also brings in a not-so-cruel income. I took the pen name “Cua Dong” partly because of that “side-crawling” career.

Up to this point, when no less than 10 works are used each month, I am still a true outsider in journalism. I turned to writing by chance, not exactly passive but definitely active.

Among the large force collaborating with the newspaper, I see many veteran writers and talented faces in their prime. With all the sincerity and curiosity of an amateur, if I were to say a few words about myself, it would only be the perspective and experience of an outsider, a writer simply driven by passion.

When I first started writing, I set myself a criterion: I can write poorly, but I try not to write badly. I can write badly, but I can't write wrongly. Just like that, I fumbled, researched, learned, and improved through each article. I didn't try to create my own image. If there was a Cua Dong tone, it would only be a compatibility between the personal personality and the writer's writing style. Thinking back to the classic teaching about the qualities of the profession "bright eyes, pure heart, sharp pen", I personally am afraid that is not enough, I have to be... bold! The writer's courage creates the courage of each article, the courage of each article creates the courage of the entire newspaper. Writing can be tricky, but journalism must have determination! Most of my articles come to readers with that "straightforward" material, perhaps from that I was lucky enough to accumulate a small number of readers who love Cua Dong.

Recently, the professional department held a year-end meeting. When the chairman asked the collaborators to self-evaluate, I stated that my two strengths were open-mindedness and punctuality. For the past ten years, I have been writing two columns for Nghe An Newspaper, but I have never missed an appointment. Once, when I was on a business trip abroad, the editor of Nghe An Newspaper "demanded" an article, I had to separate the group to the park, use the phone to read it aloud for them to copy by hand. Of course, the royalties were far from equal to the money earned from selling phones! Fortunately, the "Letter from a Cow to a Tru" - the product of that expensive phone call - is still circulating on the internet today.

Just like women’s football, the left-handed profession deserves to be praised. There are hundreds of reasons why people choose a “left-handed profession”. Some are passionate, some want to improve their income, and if you ask me why, I might accidentally answer “Because I’m not right-handed”.