Last night I received an invitation to connect to a colleague on LinkedIn. For the sake of discretion, let’s call her Kay.
I don’t know Kay very well, having only worked with her via telephone and internet on a single project quite some time ago. But it was a congenial business relationship, one which I enjoyed (to the extent that one can remotely).
Since Kay has been working for the last couple of years at a major corporation that, in theory at least, could throw some lucrative gigs my way, I have her on my promotional mailing list and I have reached out to her a number of times to see if she could pass along some work, or at least some information about her company or connections within it that could lead to work.
From Relationships To Transactions
But as is so often the case in the New Economy, in which business relationships have been replaced by discrete transactions, and in which anyone close to power or budgets is inundated with requests from those who are not, I never received any replies from Kay.
It’s irked me for sure. But it’s also understandable: I was on the outside; she was on the inside; end of story.
So I was surprised when I got her LinkedIn invite.
Well, not really. I knew all along that it was only a matter of time before Kay would invite me to her professional network.
See, Kay just lost her job. At least that’s what I suspect. History is my guide. In almost all cases when I’ve received LinkedIn invites in the last few years, they’re from people who have just have just been laid off or fear they are about to be.
LinkedIn as Zombie Central
LinkedIn, despite its cheery branding, is the Land of The Walking Dead. A community of the unemployed, forlorn and hopeless. Zombie managers, artists and technicians who hope that by reaching out to one another, by adding to their list of connections or by posting essays in one of the hundreds of LinkedIn groups, somehow a new position or project will come their way.
But it rarely does.
I must admit, I too have spent time among the LinkedIn Walking Dead. Like so many businesses, mine has been up and down since The Crash. Thankfully, things have stabilized over the last year or so. But there were long months when the phone hardly rang at all, when not a single email was acknowledged, when I felt totally abandoned, alone and frightened.
It was during periods like these that I would spend time on LinkedIn. Usually just for a couple of days, however. Then, realizing that I’m just one of the Walking Dead, and that the very act of posting on LinkedIn may actually hurt whatever brand equity I have, I’d withdraw, returning to other marketing efforts, honing my creative skills or writing essays like the one you’re reading now.
But back to the story:
I did accept Kay’s LinkedIn invitation, of course. For a moment I considered ignoring it, enjoying a bit of shadenfreude about her misfortune. If she had never responded back to my overtures when I needed help, why should I help her out now? Childish, I admit.
Compassion Trumps Revenge
But then I relented. I have compassion for Kay. Like millions of other competent responsible Americans, she has suddenly she has lost her security and her place in society. She’s now reaching out to everyone she can, no matter how tenuous the connection, in a plaintive attempt to restore her dignity and her sense of self.
And, then again, I could be totally wrong about all of this. Kay might be doing just fine. She might just want to keep in touch in order to throw me a juicy gig next week.
At least that’s what I’ll keep telling myself.