#nina alolod

[kadervonacht]

An Uphill Battle

By: Nina Isabelle Alolod

           It’s another hectic day in The Cool Kidz Company. There are people screaming and papers scattered everywhere. In this chaotic wasteland, it’s up to newly hired intern Yoda D. Pugg to bring back the peace (not that there was ever peace in the company but it was time to change that). He begins with a swig of his coffee. It is black and it is as bitter as he feels about his career choice.

           He approaches Chief Operating Officer Sanjee Dioso first. She is screaming at her secretary Kiana Fuentes for writing her notes illegibly which caused a huge mix-up with an important shareholder meeting. Yoda places a hand on Sanjee. When she looks down at him with her glaring eyes, he tells her that the aforementioned meeting is already rescheduled. Sanjee begrudgingly thanks him and reprimands Kiana once more about her handwriting. Kiana sasses back about being overworked and a vein in Sanjee’s head almost erupts. It takes another fifteen minutes to calm the COO down and by then, the twins had already begun dancing.

           It was a silly thing when it first started—the twins declared that energizers should be played every morning to “liven up the workspace” as Kiesha said. Unfortunately but not surprisingly, employees became tired after dancing to the same strenuous K-pop dance routine every day. Angelica Tantay, once famous for winning Employee of the Month award consecutively, had to resign after breaking her ankle during a tricky dance move. Needless to say, Yoda was working very hard every day to stop the twins from dancing lest more accidents occur.        

          It took some time but Yoda managed to confiscate the Bluetooth speakers. The twins went back to their work stations to draw conceptual designs for the company’s tabletop game. He then went on to regulate other workers as he usually did.

          By the end of the day, his throat was hoarse and his feet were sore. When he arrived at his home, he turned the air-conditioning on and slid under the blankets of his bed. His work was an uphill battle and his favorite part was going back downhill to close his eyes and wake up looking up at tomorrow.

[kadervonacht]

Social media—for business or not? By: Nina Isabelle J. Alolod

Social media is a collection of websites and applications dedicated to share content or to engage in social networking. Every day, billions of people use social media to connect with others and events in different places around the globe. Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, and Twitter are one of the most popular apps used by billions. Some may say that they bear resemblance to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse due to the chaos that resides in their digital lands. Moving on from my poor attempt at a witty analogy, these applications have their purposes—Instagram was intended for an audience that were interested in photography and the lives of celebrities, Tumblr was made for bloggers and weirdos who posted varying things from the thoughts about the resurrection of Neo-Dadaism in millennial humor to questionable fanfiction of a hit Netflix show, Twitter was a space for those who were able to express themselves with a limited amount of words, and Facebook—once a place where friends and family stayed connected despite of physical distance—became a place where friends and family stayed connected despite of physical distance but with a strange, convoluted mix of all the three previous apps. So, in the midst of all the pandemonium that is the Internet, it begs the question: is social media for business or not?

In my opinion, yes—social media can be a viable tool for business. I could even say that social media itself is a business. As defined by a lazy Google search, the word ‘business’ was described as “a person’s regular occupation, profession, or trade”—This is true for some cases in which people depend on the use of social media apps for their jobs. A good example is YouTube. YouTube establishes itself as a social media website and is home to millions of content creators who depend on views to make money. By my lazy Google search, social media is technically business. Moving onto my next point: Though despite its original purpose, many social apps can become a platform for entrepreneurs and the like.

Taking the aforementioned apps from before, a travel agency can use Instagram to promote their business. They can use beautiful pictures from different countries to attract potential customers. An art supply company can demonstrate the quality of their products by sponsoring aspiring artists on Tumblr that, once has posted art created using said products, can advertise the company by giving credit to their works. Even fast food chain restaurants like Wendy appealed to the masses by insulting other fast food chain restaurants on Twitter. New businesses can promote themselves on Facebook where friends and family can tag one another in posts thereby producing numerous potential customers.

In conclusion, I definitely support the idea of businesses utilizing social media. After all, social media is not just for the selfies, fan art, and memes; it can be—and is—a place for business as well.