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Why is LinkedIn so cringe?

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Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?

#61

Post by andrewnicolalde »

rcurry wrote: post #57
ok_dad wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminded me of the emails we constantly got with the subject “BANG A GONG!!!” at my last work place. It was only for sales achievements, and I never saw an email like that for any other department. It was nice they used the same subject every time, so I could filter them out.

Heh. Reminds me of this time a startup I worked for got acquired by a big financial firm in New York City - we roll into work the first day and at like 10:00 AM this woman starts ringing an actual cowbell and shouting “Standup! Standup Everybody!” They would literally call the developers into the daily standup like they were a herd of cattle.

I cannot stop laughing! Was the standup even about stuff developers would care about, or did they force you to listen to entirely unrelated financial status updates?

Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?

#62

Post by rcurry »

subpixel wrote: post #52

LinkedIn shares something with Facebook, in that it is a giant clusterfuck of additional bullshit on top of a few key features, and a critical mass of participants, that fulfill the promise of social networking. 100% owe my career to LinkedIn, despite having never posted or commented or liked or joined a damn thing. The access to people and information is, alas, worth the cringe.

“Worth the cringe”, ha ha. That sounds like a slogan Don Draper would save the day with in an episode of Mad Men.

Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?

#63

Post by selimthegrim »

aj7 wrote: post #31

For me, the worst cringe was when I was “recommended” for skills the recommenders didn’t understand. Being recommended by people even one level below you is cringe. Work is not like being a TA.

Well this explains why my TA deleted my LinkedIn recommendation I left him a few years later

Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?

#65

Post by fartcannon »

In my opinion, it's because a lot of work culture behaves like kingdoms and these people are either trying to pretend they have a kingdom, protect their kingdom, or signal that they'll be good servants.

Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?

#66

Post by hluska »

exdsq wrote: post #7

LinkedIn probably has a net benefit for your career by keeping up to date and checking the messages once a week, but I cannot get over the awkwardness of seeing total BS stories and thousands of replies saying "YES! AMEN!". "I was running late to an interview this morning but stopped to help a man who fell off of his bike and fixed it up for him. Afterwards I bought him a coffee and talked about life. He mentioned ho…

YES! AMEN!

It reminds of the time I was going to a job interview, saw a homeless dude and went for a coffee with him. Turns out he wasn’t homeless, he was just CTO of a funded startup. The same startup I was interviewing for. We rebuilt the whole app over coffee and they named the company after me.

(It’s not directly named after me, but the company name and my name have vowels and consonants.)

Remember to ask homeless people for their three favourite programming languages before you give them anything.

#qualifyLeads #ROI #winning

Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?

#67

Post by buttocks »

So forget about the feed. Really, who cares about that stuff?

I am not an apologist for LinkedIn but I got my last three jobs through recruiters that found me that way and think it is an awesome tool, for free.

Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?

#68

Post by adar »

exdsq wrote: post #7

LinkedIn probably has a net benefit for your career by keeping up to date and checking the messages once a week, but I cannot get over the awkwardness of seeing total BS stories and thousands of replies saying "YES! AMEN!". "I was running late to an interview this morning but stopped to help a man who fell off of his bike and fixed it up for him. Afterwards I bought him a coffee and talked about life. He mentioned ho…

My favorite riff on these is when the poster is headed to an interview but saves a dog along the way, and the dog turns out to be the interviewer.

Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?

#69

Post by jakub_g »

subpixel wrote: post #52

LinkedIn shares something with Facebook, in that it is a giant clusterfuck of additional bullshit on top of a few key features, and a critical mass of participants, that fulfill the promise of social networking. 100% owe my career to LinkedIn, despite having never posted or commented or liked or joined a damn thing. The access to people and information is, alas, worth the cringe.

Interestingly, I started following a few tech people on LI who create interesting content (no cringe) and use it similarly as Twitter, but without the 280 char limit. As a result, my LI feed is now probably more interesting than FB feed. (To be clear: It doesn't say much good about LI itself; rather the bar going really low due to FB becoming a deserted place and ads machine / self-promotion factory.)

Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?

#70

Post by emerged »

Just imagine a world where LinkedIn didn’t exist. Countless other companies could’ve formed to build something far better. But because of network effects we get stuck with whatever horrible design won because they were first and scaled up.
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