The hardest (or saddest) part of being on LinkedIn is not seeing cringe posts by half-strangers but seeing how people you know well in real life change their behaviour or tone drastically on LinkedIn.
Why is LinkedIn so cringe?
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Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?
#72The hardest (or saddest) part of being on LinkedIn is not seeing cringe posts by half-strangers but seeing how people you know well in real life change their behaviour or tone drastically on LinkedIn.
And describe the job they left as “an incredible journey” when you know the real story.
Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?
#73LinkedIn would be so much better if it was just a web interface for your resume and a rolodex for your networking contacts. Like basically all other "social" sites, the feed is what makes the site awful and turns it into a "how can I promote myself" cringe-fest. Get rid of the feed (and messaging, and job board, and notifications, and news) and it would be great.
Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?
#74Just 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.
On a personal basis--and leaving aside the marketing benefits that companies see--it's basically a self-updating Rolodex. I selectively accept invites, haven't updated my sparse resume in over a decade, and use it to check where people are or what their titles are.
Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?
#75LinkedIn 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 homeles…
I really was once in a meeting where a homeless guy had his face against the window peering in from the outside. While we were discussing what, if anything to do about it, someone recognized the homeless guy as our corporate lawyer. In fact, he wasn't homeless at all, just disheveled. We went outside and brought him in as he was supposed to be attending this meeting.
Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?
#76Bc it's like a social network if your fucking HR department was potentially reviewing every post.
Corporate culture sucks. End of story.
Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?
#77I never understood why I always got so depressed reading LinkedIn, until I read The Gervais Principle by Venkatesh Rao. And then I saw that LinkedIn consists almost entirely of clueless people talking to other clueless people, and exclusively in posturetalk (these are Rao’s terms - “clueless” means something specific). And if you haven’t read The Gervais Principle, I highly recommend it, although it may bum you out.
I love the Gervais Principle, but only as a cynical joke that can sometimes be applied to real life. There's really no need to read the book. If you're interested in a laugh, just see the blog post [1]. The gist of it is that there are only three types of people who work in organizations: 1. At the top of the food chain are the sociopaths. Executives. 2. Below it are the clueless, the mid-manager who works nights and…
I know the book is a bit silly, but I only partially agree with your assessment, because I haven’t ever read anything that better describes existence within most large corporations. Would you be willing to elaborate on what you think it gets wrong?
Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?
#78I never understood why I always got so depressed reading LinkedIn, until I read The Gervais Principle by Venkatesh Rao. And then I saw that LinkedIn consists almost entirely of clueless people talking to other clueless people, and exclusively in posturetalk (these are Rao’s terms - “clueless” means something specific). And if you haven’t read The Gervais Principle, I highly recommend it, although it may bum you out.
I love the Gervais Principle, but only as a cynical joke that can sometimes be applied to real life. There's really no need to read the book. If you're interested in a laugh, just see the blog post [1]. The gist of it is that there are only three types of people who work in organizations: 1. At the top of the food chain are the sociopaths. Executives. 2. Below it are the clueless, the mid-manager who works nights and…
I guess it turned out to be reasonable life lesson for me. Now to be clear I am not gonna go crazy at work and tell every colleague "hey I learned the deep secret of how this company works"
Even before reading this I had this vague idea about my own 'checked out' existence that he describes as loser.
I agree though, to not take life lessons specially when people take these things very literally. Because they can really come up with statement "I have worked with some of the smartest 'clued in' managers. So on the face of it 'Gervais principle is bullshit."
Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 homeles…
I really was once in a meeting where a homeless guy had his face against the window peering in from the outside. While we were discussing what, if anything to do about it, someone recognized the homeless guy as our corporate lawyer. In fact, he wasn't homeless at all, just disheveled. We went outside and brought him in as he was supposed to be attending this meeting.
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Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?
#80The hardest (or saddest) part of being on LinkedIn is not seeing cringe posts by half-strangers but seeing how people you know well in real life change their behaviour or tone drastically on LinkedIn.
And describe the job they left as “an incredible journey” when you know the real story.
Everyone is excited too. "We're excited to announce..." and "We're excited to hire..." and "It's so exciting to work at..." and "So excited by the release of..."
It's like everyone takes a dose of Adderall with their coffee before posting.