Once a week, I get this message from a complete stranger on LinkedIn:
Since you are a person I trust, I wanted to invite you to join my network on LinkedIn
Ugh.
I’m terrified you put your trust in strangers with a social media humor blog. That’s like putting your internet business in the hands of your friend who tells a funny story about that one time they logged onto AOL back in 1997. it’s not that hard to type a quick one or two sentence introduction.
So, who should be able to send that message? There’s one clear answer. Pets.
Just look at how adorable it is:
How can anyone say no to that?
So, from now on when I get that “Since you are a person I trust message,” regardless of what the avatar is, I’m going to image you are a friendly animal I met in my lifetime. Only our furry, adorable friends should send that message.
People should be forced to use their meager social skills to connect with people so they can further advance their careers. How else are we going to expect them to get ahead if they can’t send an introductory email?
Ah, good old Linked In… where 99% of the messages I get are spam inviting me to join their cool club or buy their amazing product. Sigh.
Don’t you want to be a member of cool clubs with amazing products?
What happened to the days when you could click on how you know this person? It was a really easy way to connect and keep the generic LinkedIn Message. It’s a nice way of saying “Hey, I see that we worked at K-Mart together but I really don’t give two sh*ts about you but it would help if we connected so I could pad my colleagues.” I miss those days…
You can still do that. I just get these awkward trust messages all the time. Ugh.
Last week I received a message via LinkedIn from a guy I’ve never met. In it, he asked me to write a recommendation for him and helpfully listed out phrases that I might like to use in my recommendation (for this guy whom I’ve never met, let alone worked with). To do so, would’ve been to take the piss outta the whole thing.
I would have given him the recommendation, if only for being so ballsy.
I use the generic one if I talk to the person on Twitter or i actually “know” the person. Otherwise, I adjust the text.
Does this make me better than other people?
Yes. You elitist.
That is a bit on the creepy side too.lools If you’re going to send a personalized greeting, might as well give it your all.
I want a life story in my personalized greetings.
LOL
LOL indeed.
This is one of my favorite rants. WHY is it so hard to tell me how we know one another if you’re the one making the initial connection?! I used to click on the person’s name to see how we know one another. Now I just ignore the connection. But I’m thinking I’ll begin responding with, “Since you’re a person I trust, I’m going to let you connect with Pete the Tapeworm first.” Let’s see what happens!