I
have just been reading some of the drivel that is on LinkedIn. Boastful fuckers
shouting their greatness to their wannabe peers. "Look at me. Look at
me!" To my shame I am amongst them - and yet it has become a bane of my
life. I rather foolishly (with the great benefit of hindsight) allowed an
Australian Journalist refer to my LinkedIn profile in an article. It was my
summary actually. She printed my name as a direct link to my profile. My
surname became a hyperlink. Who would have thought?
The
journalist is from the BRW which is an acronym for the Business Review Weekly.
It is a Fairfax publication. She writes very well and I like her material.
I
like it a lot.
When
this journalist lady asked me if it was OK to write about my LinkedIn profile
I didn't give the matter much thought. In fact I gave it as much thought
as I gave writing my summary. Which was very little. Thought that is. It was
very spur of the moment. It was done on a whim. It mentioned nothing about my
work, I just randomly scrawled down a few of my likes and dislikes. There was a
word limit and I could have written more. Much more.
This
was many months ago.
The
BRW article was published only a week or so ago.
When
I awoke the morning the article was published I was shocked at the number of
responses I had attracted. I was swamped with connection requests and messages.
There were also direct emails and Facebook friend requests. There were hundreds
and hundreds of them. They keep on coming too. Every day. Some people wrote to
me just to say that they also liked wombats for I mentioned that it was my
favorite animal. Others suggested that we go wombat spotting together! Several
dozen messages were received saying I was an inspiration. I now have a number
of cyber stalkers.
For
fuck sake.
I
put a post up on LinkedIn a couple of days ago asking people to please stop. I
told them that my inbox was being clogged. Some people were getting creepy. My
update said fairly succinctly that I am NOT inspirational and I am most
definitely NOT a guru. I informed all of these anonymous people that I do not
want anymore Facebook friends. I won't accept them. I tried to let them know
that I am just a very ordinary bloke trying to make my way quietly in this
world.
I
have asked these unknown strangers to please leave me alone but it has had no
affect. None whatsoever. The emails keep a coming. So do the requests to
connect. Some of them are hilarious but quite a few of them are alarming.
I
am joyfully heading back to Nepal for a week on Monday. It is a country I love
to go to as often as I possibly can. In Nepal being LinkedIn means walking arm
in arm with someone you love. In Nepal connections are with the mountains. The
Himalaya. They are as spectacular as they are holy to the mostly Hindi
population of the country. In Nepal ambition is the hope of putting food on the
table at the end of each day. It is not a vocational aspiration. For the
Nepalese opportunities are simply far and few between. They are definitely not
job vacancies and they are certainly not career changes.
It
is all so much more simple in Nepal. I am so looking forward to knocking the
petty out of Peter. In the mountains I will be able to LinkOut.
I
very much need to put my life back into perspective.
For a while at least.
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