Wednesday, November 18, 2020

LinkedIn Is Far Out

Last week I discussed the “digital media” initiatives at my place of work. We have a new, slick website, and as the Engineering Marketing Manager, it’s my job to do multiple blog posts each week and to be actively involved with social media each day.


In the business world, the primary social media platform is LinkedIn. If you’re not familiar with LinkedIn, it’s basically Facebook for business, except without all the demonic influences. That is, you can go weeks at a time on LinkedIn without seeing a single comment equating Trump with Hitler (except that Trump is more evil), or equating Trump with Jesus (except that Trump performs more miracles). 
It’s quite refreshing that wild-eyed, foaming at the mouth political screeds are not present on LinkedIn. It almost makes the shameless self-promotion and product marketing tolerable. Oh, by the way, my main mission on LinkedIn is shameless self-promotion and product marketing.

However, since my jobs during the past four decades all have been sales and/or marketing related, I was able to fit right in quite easily.

There is one thing about LinkedIn that cracks me up. One of the main thrusts of the website is helping people connect with other business folks with the goal of getting a new and better job. So, in addition to all the sales and marketing info posted on the website, I constantly get reminders from LinkedIn to check out new job openings that are “a perfect fit” for me.

LinkedIn already knows that I graduated from Bucknell University in 1979. Which means, barring the possibility that I was a child prodigy who got through college at age nine (well, that’s certainly not the case), LinkedIn knows that I’m approximately 63 years old. And since LinkedIn is supposedly so savvy about the world of business, it certainly must know that not a single employer on Planet Earth has any interest in hiring a person my age. Yeah, yeah, I know, there’s a law against age discrimination during the hiring process. There also is a law against driving 40 mph in a 35 mph zone, too. Both laws are routinely ignored.

On the bright side, I don’t WANT anyone to want to hire me. I like my job, and I hope to keep doing it for another five years or so, and then retire.
Another humorous aspect of LinkedIn’s constant push to find a new place of employment for me are the actual job openings themselves. I’m not sure how LinkedIn defines the phrase “a perfect fit,” but some of these jobs are doozies. Here are just a few:
  • Customer Service Representative at an animal hospital in Wethersfield. Sorry, but I’m not bilingual. I don’t speak Cat.

  • Event Marketing Coordinator at WWE in Stamford. This is the professional wrestling outfit, and even if I were interested in that job, my wife would divorce me in a heartbeat because she thinks the popularity of professional wrestling is all the proof we need that our culture is about to collapse.

  • Senior Consultant, Product Development, at Lincoln Financial in Hartford. If their products include heating and ventilation equipment, then maybe I could help. But if it’s anything to do with money and finance, then my only input would be, “Hold on 17 while playing Blackjack.”

  • Director, Software Development, in Windsor. If these guys saw me on the phone for two hours with Tech Support a few months ago, when I purchased a new computer but couldn’t get the stupid Microsoft Office software to load, they wouldn’t even hire me to sweep their floors.

  • Special Agent, FBI, Hartford office. Well, this position is right up my alley. I watch so many crime and detective shows on TV, I won’t even need any training. And when I turn 93, I can retire with a full pension. 
Well, that’s enough commentary about LinkedIn. I have to get back on the website and do more shameless self-promotion and product marketing.

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