FEBRUARY 2008: EDITOR'S LETTER
Disconnect, please
IT WAS THE NOTE that said “someone at SMUD” had
viewed my profile that finally did it. I don’t even know
what SMUD is, but it doesn’t sound good. And now someone
there is checking me out?
That’s when I knew I had to get out of this professional
online network thing. It started innocently, like these
things do. A writer I know sent me an invite to join Linked In,
a social network for professionals. Who can resist being asked
to join a club? So I agreed, filled out the form, and I was in.
Joining a group that promised to connect me to like-minded
professionals sounded like just the kind of thing I needed to
get up to speed on the whole networking thing and join the race
my colleagues were running.
Then other invites started coming. From people I used to know,
people I still know, people I have never known. I didn’t
want to be rude (always a mistake), so I accepted the first
few. Then as they started to roll in, I started ignoring them,
a passive-aggressive way to say “no thanks.” I
wasn’t interested in having a lot more e-mail to keep up
with.
Then it linked me to thousands of classmates from my
university. Yikes! The last thing I needed was my
college-boyfriend-turned-stalker getting that information on a
silver platter. (And if you already have found me,
“Steve,” I now own a gun, drive an armored Hummer
and my husband works for Blackwater.)
Then I’m told that Rebecca S. has just added a picture
to her profile, Tom T. has added 3,987 new contacts and my
network is only .001% complete. Linked In encourages me to
BUILD MY NETWORK! Now I feel like a loser. Why aren’t I
on the beam, here? I need to get out and invite more people to
my network. I need to wash my hair, put on a little makeup,
post a picture to my profile and start networking.
I started getting sweaty, exhausted by just the thought of it.
It’s not that I’m unused to public scrutiny, but I
find something creepy about this. Have I mentioned that the
network also suggests “people you may know,” and,
good god, I do know
them? How do they know who I know?
Then just when I think the whole world is spying on me, I look
at the “who’s viewed my profile” section and
find that my profile has been viewed by eight people in the
last three months. Eight people in three months. How pathetic
is that? And that includes my new best friend from SMUD, and
probably Steve. Of course, I’ve never sent out an invite,
fearing the same rejection that I’ve heaped on the other
schmoes out there sending out invites to people they barely
know, like some sad, chubby 8-year-old trying to get kids to
her birthday party. Sorry, wrong column.
When I finally got around to closing my account today, there
was a box that asked: Please describe the problem you are
having.
I wish it were that simple.
