Tag Archives: linkedin

Goodreads…

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I’ve had a hit or miss relationship with a lot of different social media platforms over the years. Facebook is a net good overall with its snark and funny animal pictures. LinkedIn was useless for me given my utter lack of interest in professional networking. Goodreads, though, has always been something of an odd duck in my estimation. I like the concept, but so much of it was duplicative of things I was already getting from Amazon or Barnes & Noble – reviews, recommendations, and so on.

The tempo of my reading has picked up over the last year or so. I’ve found myself plowing through more fiction than usual. Given my habit of picking up bundles of books on the cheap at antique shops, Goodwill, and in other non-online places, more than a few times I found myself with two copies of the same thing – usually something that I had brought home but not yet read. The ability to set books into an own it, read it, want to read it, and host of other statuses could be just the trick to help me avoid this in the future. unfortunately it also meant that I had some homework to do.

I’ve spent a bit of time each of the last few weekends cataloging the collection. Today I can report that I can account for all of the physical books I have on shelves here on the homestead, all of the ebooks, and even what’s sitting out there on my Amazon wishlist waiting to be shipped over to me. It’s the first time I’ve ever had a comprehensive list of what I’m reading put together. I spect I’ll find it surprisingly useful to have access to it in my pocket at all times.

Both my inner geek and my outer compulsion to have a world that’s neat and orderly are well satisfied at the moment.

LinkedOut…

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In an ongoing effort to un-muddle my digital footprint, I deleted my LinkedIn account over the weekend. I talked about doing it a year or two ago but didn’t get around to it. A spate of emails from the service this week drug it back onto my list of things to do. I wanted to like LinkedIn – and maybe if I worked in a universe that traded on creating a massive professional network I would have. But for what I do, and the scope of people I need to interact with, it just wasn’t doing much for me other than sending a dozen emails a week to my inbox. I don’t need that kind of help.

I have to think LinkedIn is so popular because it creates a benefit for people in a sales environment, or those interested in building their professional network, or those who have any kind of professional ambition left. Since I don’t fall into any of those categories it was just one more extraneous feed of information I wasn’t using.

The simple fact is I don’t really identify, even “professionally,” with my 9-5 self. If someone wants me in their network it should be as a sometimes writer, a blogger, an opinionated blowhard, a reader, and hopefully, in some small way, as a thinker. That other stuff, how I whore myself out to pay the bills, is entirely secondary to what I consider the “real” me.

It’s just the most recent bit of transition from a guy who long ago thought what he did for a living defined who he was to a man who’s trying to define himself in some other – if far less tangible – way. What that definition is, what it will become, remains to be seen.

Whatever the definition, I know with certainty that future self doesn’t require an account with LinkedIn.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. LinkedIn: The World’s Largest Professional Network. Meh. I’ve had an account on LinkedIn for longer than I can remember. I have no idea why. I’ve never used it. I’m not interested in networking. I don’t like it online any better than I like it in person. But still, 347 times a week I get spammed by the one social media site that I’ve found utterly useless for my purposes. It doesn’t take much effort to hit the delete button, but there’s just a certain pain-in-the-ass factor at play here. All things being equal, the chances of my ever looking for a job “on the outside” are somewhere between slim and none… and processional accomplishments on the inside don’t exactly translate well to that world anyway. Unless someone can give me a good reason not to pull the plug, my LinkedIn account is heading to the trash the next time I do some digital housekeeping.

2. Survey. When you’re buying a house in Maryland you’re only required to have a location drawing rather than a full blown property survey. The drawing showed the location of the house and any other “improvements” against an overlay that more or less corresponds to the size and shape of your lot. It’s a minimum degree of assurance for the lender that the house is where it’s supposed to be. Surveys require people to go out with tools and physically locate and mark the defined corners of the property. It’s the way to definitively know what you’re about to buy… so yes, when I say I want a survey instead of a drawing, I know what I’m asking for. I know it’s more expensive. I know it’s not required by the state or by the lender. It is, however, required by me, the guy who’s on the hook for paying the bills.

3. Full weeks. Due to the combination of snow and taking the occasional half day to deal with house-related stuff, this is the first full week I’ve worked in a long while. It’s more exhausting than I remembered. It’s probably a bad sign that I’m excited by the idea of moving not so much because it’s a new and awesome place to live, but because dragging boxes three miles down the road and spending a week unpacking them means that for a week I really only to have one job. It’s sad that’s what passes for relaxing these days.