LinkedIn Endorsements for The Terrible Men I Have Worked With
A b*tchy piece of humor writing.
The Sunday Dreads Vol. 57
Never — and I mean never — take any investment advice from me. I’m a person who knew in my heart that LinkedIn would never be popular, not in a million billion years. A social network built around your work history and potential? All the worst parts of social media...entwined with your career?
After all those years of people telling us that we should keep our personal and private lives separate, here was a place where ex-boyfriends and former grade school teachers could see exactly what I’d been up to professionally since the last time we’d spoken. No thanks!
The first time I deleted my LinkedIn account was when I got a request from an ex asking me to “endorse his skills.”
We’d spent a year or two dating, and the only skills I could think to endorse him for were “stealing toilet paper from bars” and “flaking on plans.”
LinkedIn allows —no, celebrates — people crossing naturally formed boundaries.There is simply no reason for me to ever know what my dad’s friends do for jobs! They are dads — grandfathers now, I guess — and that is enough information for me.
There is not a world where I would like to open myself up to more criticism from former colleagues, and I do not need to use the precious space that remains in my overloaded brain to find out that the boy who lifted up my skirt in second grade is currently seeking new job opportunities.
Emails regularly arrive in my inbox saying, “A man you met briefly at a conference nine years ago would like to connect with you on LinkedIn” or “Would you like to endorse this unpleasant former colleague?”
And after careful consideration, I would absolutely love to endorse my unpleasant former colleagues.
Not on LinkedIn — I cannot figure out how that place works — but here.
And yes, it’s only my male colleagues, because it’s only men who have asked me to do this, just like it has only been men who have made it a point to tell me what to think about the women I work with, or the women who held my position before I arrived.
It has only been men who made sure I knew that the women before and around me “thought they were really something” and “just weren’t likable” but who never said an ill word about each other.1
So ya know what? Yes, I will endorse you, fellas.2
Nora McInerny Endorses Brad3 for:
being a little creep.
Brad and I worked together as teenagers at the public pool, where he was very proud of the family connections that got him hired. Yes, nepotism even works within the public parks system.
Two memories really stand out to me, and I’m honored to share them here. One day, while he was busy flirting with some 14-year-old girls, two small children jumped off the diving boards and began to drown. Brad didn’t notice, but several other lifeguards were able to rescue these children so he could continue his conversation with literal middle schoolers.
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