DeLinked In

Each week, without provocation and apropos of nothing, I receive requests from at least two complete strangers who wish to be added to my professional network on LinkedIn. This might make it sound like my professional network is the equivalent of those parties thrown by Jay Gatsby that everyone wishes to be part of. That to those on the outside looking in, it looks like the sort of professional network that helps people get jobs, make useful business contacts, publicize their successes, climb up the career ladder and that sort of thing. The reality, though, is quite the opposite. The last time I updated my LinkedIn profile was nearly a decade ago – to give you an idea, the iPhone had not been launched yet, Pluto was still a planet and not just a cartoon dog, India hadn’t played a single T20 match, and Israel and Palestine – well, ok…that situation was still messed up. But apart from that, it was a very different world.

The truth is that I’m simply terrible at business networking. I’m shy, withdrawn and prefer the quiet comfort of the written word to the raucous harshness of the spoken word. Networking, then, isn’t something that comes naturally to me. And when you throw in business along with it, it’s a uselessness that gets exacerbated exponentially to create a perfect storm of incompetence. It’s not like I don’t have a commonsensical understanding of business, but I’ve never had that eye for business that marks out an entrepreneur from, well, a regular person. Not just an eye, but I also lack the guts, heart or spine for business – it requires too much ambition and too much of dealing with people.

Of course, the unsuspecting strangers who wish to be part of my professional network do not know any of this, since it isn’t exactly the sort of thing you’d state explicitly on your LinkedIn profile. Still, it does make me wonder, who are these driven and motivated professionals that decided to add me to their network despite not knowing me at all? It would be understandable if I was an HR person, or if I had some big time designation like Vice President or Director or Partner or CEO. But I don’t – so it probably means that these people diligently tracked down profiles with the big shot designations first, sent them requests, possibly got rejected but persevered doggedly until they trickled down to my level. That just seems like an insane level of dedication to business networking. Was I missing out on something? Was there some very happening and exciting business life that was being played out on LinkedIn, the way it always seems to be the case on Facebook?

Each time I log in to Facebook, the first five minutes are enough to convince me that I have no life, and the next five minutes are enough to convince me that I have no opinions and am an uninformed country bumpkin who has been hiding under a rock while the whole world was seething with rage over something that offended someone. Half the people I know are partying, holidaying and checking in to fancy places. The other half are expressing opinions, getting outraged and having informed debates on topics that I didn’t even know are in the news. I wondered if it was the same on LinkedIn, but in a professional context?

What I mean is, were people eagerly updating their statuses with their latest professional achievements like “Landed a new client today – mopped the floor with my rivals”, “Got a big promotion and a bonus – time to get that sports car”, “Crunched numbers and absolutely wrestled them to the ground – I’ll totally rock the budget meeting!” or even simply “Ate a hearty business breakfast. Good food for thought”? Did they put up photos of themselves attending high-powered meetings or making strategic presentations? Was there a plethora of selfies out there but with people trying to look professional instead of pouting? Did they check in with statements such as “Checked in to CXO level meeting at posh 5 star business hotel” or “Checked in to World Trade Tech Village Global Corporate Business Park for tricky meeting with idiot client”? In other words, would logging in to LinkedIn make me feel like I have no professional life either, to go along with the social life that I already did not possess?

Thankfully this wasn’t the case, though after five minutes of browsing through LinkedIn it was clear that I had no opinions and was utterly uninformed in the professional sphere as well. People were holding forth on professional topics of interest, sharing links to new corporate developments, commenting on latest workplace trends, etc. It was an entire world of opinions and debates that I was completely oblivious to. And it’s not like LinkedIn didn’t try – they’d send me regular reminders that invites were waiting to be responded to; people were waiting to be recommended glowingly and that yet more habits of highly effective people were being discovered while I withered away in a state of ignorant stagnation. Every now and then, it even sent me beseeching mails imploring me to congratulate someone on completing 2 years in a job, and I foolishly ignored it thinking that no one actually did something like that. Yet it was only now that I realised that this congratulating is actually very real, just like people wishing you on your birthday on Facebook.

The oddest part, though, were the spate of links shared on increasing productivity and efficiency in the workplace. By the time you’d get through these, you’d have spent pretty much your entire workday. Now that’s not exactly being productive, is it?