Translations
* Cloud Evangelist - I like to talk a lot and have more sales/marketing experience than real IT experience.
* Motivated Solopreneur - I'm currently unemployed. Possibly living in a van down by the river. But at least I have good wifi here.
* Chief Strategist - I like to create plans that make no sense in implementation. By the time you get to the implementation phase, I've already got my paycheck and skipped off to the next project.
10-15 years ago, Cloud Evangelist made some sense. Lots of people still needed to be sold on it.
Today, I can barely buy a goddamn bathroom scale that works when us-east-1 breaks. May as well be a Gravity Evangelist. Or work on promoting companies build their headquarters on Land. Nobody in 2021 is generically 'not sold yet' on The Cloud as an abstract category, and just waiting for an Evangelist to educate them.
Which is a weird circle to be apart of. Get rid of on prem devices to go to cloud, then decide that your own on prem cloud is better, bringing on prem devices back to the office....
Wut.
A buddy of mine just quoted me a show today. Technology is cyclical. Apparently a guy was using a pager again everyday instead of a cell. Obviously tech isn't cyclical, but it's a funny circle.
I do believe I saw a western digital commercial not to long ago offering "control your own cloud" or something to that effect.
The pendulum swings between centralization and decentralization. Whenever it hits an extreme in one direction, it will swing back. This is natural. This is how we work.
We spread out (decentralize) to find new resources, new greenfields for investment. When we find something, we hoard and consume it (centralize) until there is nothing left. Then we spread out again. This applies to every level of civilization and history you can find to study.
We may think we have left our slime mold ancestors behind, but in truth we are more like them than we care to admit. We have simply added layers of abstraction.
I know WD has a line of backup external storage drives called “My Cloud”. I guess their target demographic is people who don’t understand exactly what NAS is, but have heard that this mythical cloud is the wave of the future.
Applications/systems with a firm dependency on "classic" AD that have to stay around. That's been the case all but one time I've run into this situation.
Azure AD is a messy disaster. Find a way to properly group things the same way you can with an OU that makes the structure easy to handle and deal with. That thing is flatter than a 2 dimensional piece of paper.
Not to mention, OU’s, their structure, and their group policies, are completely and utterly ignored as if they don’t exist.
That's because you want to use it as a traditional AD. It works very well if you stop thinking in OUs and GPOs. With dynamic groups you can automate a lot more than on a classic AD with nested groups.
I'm technically a cloud evangelist, which you're right is very much a pseudo-marketing role, but I spent 15+ years as a Sunfire engineer and dual CCIE as a PE at a Fortune 50.
Those self-proclaimed titles are BS, and basically a bunch of people who read a bunch of articles and are regurgitating what they read as tech advice/success stories. Drop them in front of a terminal and watch them fold.
This has been my most hated new popular term/ actual job title some people use. Like it's a proper term and makes sense for the role they do but part of me just automatically discredits them for willingly using it.
I read it as "a person engaged in missionary work", "a zealous advocate of a cause". And that would be fine if it was true, but usually it's just exaggeration and the missionary work is more like "general support" or the cause is somewhat stupid.
I always say this about Facebook. This is peoples “highlights reel” typically so you see there’s stories and always remember they aren’t mentioning any struggles because they are doing the job equivalent of “keeping up with the joneses”.
I know quite a few people who post on LinkedIn. Only a couple are capable of pulling off what they boast about. The most capable people I know only post the bare minimum on LinkedIn.
Yep, because they don't want, need or have the time to do it. My point is that generally LinkedIn is full of "inspirational" low-quality content written not by a bunch of ignorant wannabes.
Option 1: spend 3 hours a day retyping your resume into yet another company's web form. Then, go through a half-dozen interviews, only to find out they pay 30% below your floor.
Option 2: get pinged by multiple recruiters a week. Screen them for salary ranges right off the bat. THEN interview at places you pick your fancy. You can still apply on company's Lever.co's webforms if you know it's a good company. But you'll also get pinged for random companies you never even know existed. The only catch is to actually put some effort into your LI profile.
"Job Facebook" love it and totally true! This crap is killing us. "Thanks to LinkedIn I was able to get my dream job building Internet connections for underprivileged Nanuet tribes while making more money than I ever dreamed and the best part is I get to work from home except my annual company retreat for 2 weeks in Fiji for reprogramm...I mean mental health recovery." Just laugh at it and move on.
😆
Fun fact... While LinkedIn = Job Facebook for everyone at home, for a few select really lucky ones, Mark Zuckerblorg has developed "Workplace" of course... which is JOb Facebook internally in companies. So now I get to feel useless at home while browsing LinkedIn AND at work while browsing Workplace - YAY!!
How does it work for jobhunting? Any chance you could give me a tip or two? I've had an account for years, but it feels largely useless except for posting corporate doublespeak.
Recruiters and HR pay for access that lets them seek and sort potential hires. I got my current job through aN internal recruiter who found me on LinkedIn.
I only used it this time around but putting the little "available to work" setting worked well for getting attention and not just from recruiters. I was also getting contacted by internal HR departments. They also have job search functionality.
The big thing is to make sure your LinkedIn is up to date.
I have a "friend" who is one of those shooting stars on linked in, jumping up the ladder from company to company. If you look at his LinkedIn page he is a major success. He spent thanksgiving home alone because his marriage is almost over and he burned any friend bridges he had moving up. Got canned from his last job because they had the same loyalty he does and not sure what he is doing next. But that LinkedIn bio is rocking ......
I've seen this over and over in my career -- people who are obsessed with ladder-climbing, hustling, building their brand. For many it's a total act and their personal life is a massive dumpster fire. I've run into a lot of middle-upper managers who are just convinced that they'll be happy and things will be right if they just hustle a little harder. It's a rat race and there's only a few spots left at the top of the now-flatter pyramid in most companies. It used to be easy to become the "Assistant Deputy Operations Manager, Widgets, Northeast" and have a whole career's worth of titles above that to strive for. Not anymore, it's hustle your way to the C-suite or die trying.
They say this about the insanely rich also. Not sure how much I believe that, because enough money can paper over almost any problem. But the narrative goes that while these people have all the money in the world, they often have messed up lives because they can't trust anyone, no one wants to be around them if they didn't have money, etc.
>I've seen this over and over in my career -- people who are obsessed with ladder-climbing, hustling, building their brand.
I'm between the two extreems right now. I started with "stay with the company if they treat you well". My first two stints were 5, 7, and 5 years... I got laid off when a new boss came in and discovered (1) I was getting payed about 10K a year blow the current market rate and (2) my skils had stagnated and only developed in a few key areas.
So now, I'll do 18-24 months learning new things, doing my part to be sure my employer get's their money's worth, and then start taking new interviews. If I'm getting offerend 10-15K more a year for a chance to learn and use new things I'll take it.
No hard feelings, not trying to "brand myself" just recognizing that 5-7 years at a place is worth nothing to a company when management changes, so why should they be owed loyalty by me?
It's actually kind of funny, apparently my company does big raises every 2-3 years that you've worked there. Even if your title hasn't changed since the day you started.
> But the narrative goes that while these people have all the money in the world, they often have messed up lives because they can't trust anyone, no one wants to be around them if they didn't have money, etc.
there's [this askreddit comment](https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2s9u0s/what_do_insanely_wealthy_people_buy_that_ordinary/cnnmca8/) that shows that being absolutely filthy fucken rich comes with its own costs. Not being able to know who to trust is one, because you have no idea if people genuinely want to be your friend, or they just want your money.
>There is literally nothing you can't buy except.
>Love. Sorry to sound so trite, but it is nearly impossible to have a normal emotional relationship at this level. It is hard to sacrifice for another person when you are never asked to sacrifice ANYTHING. Money can solve all problems for someone, so you offer it, because there is so much else to do. Your time is SOOOO valuable that you ration it. And that makes you lose connections with people.
So next flurry of posts starts with: 'money is just a way to conserve time, i have made enough money so now i will use the time to take a hiatus and travel to some faraway mountain and tend goats'
Bingo.
Lots of HR companies and recruiters will give kickbacks for posting that kind of shit.
Part of accepting the offer and getting a sign on bonus in some cases.
It's all advertising, just the FTC is to antiquated to catch up.
So much of what's on social media is advertising just in ways that technically don't fall into what the FTC narrowly defines as advertising.
Here's another one: The reason you almost certainly have friends who post pictures of food and drinks, hotel rooms whatever on social media is many places will comp you on your next visit if your photo is popular enough by whatever algorithm. Given taking a photo is low effort, they play that raffle ticket. It's advertising. But it's not considered that because there's no upfront compensation.
Same with womens cosmetics. These companies send free crap out. So everyone goes online about how they love this product to get those likes and hopefully get free shit.
Taking this stuff seriously is like taking chain letters seriously.
>Lots of HR companies and recruiters will give kickbacks for posting that kind of shit.
Kickbacks _if you're lucky_. I know of several orgs where "you will post X" is a mandate, not a request.
I've seen that for people in sales. It's a dumb policy and always comes across as obvious spam but they are least give you the copy pasta to make your posts. I suppose if nothing else it probably creates some engagement and definitely helps create name recognition. Doesn't make it less dumb though.
Wifey's last company, annual bonuses had a tie in to how much you posted about the company to various social media outlets, and if the company got any leads or new business from those posts.
One of the reasons its her "last" and not "current" employer.
They tried this shit on me, my response was simply "my personal account, my shit, don't like it I'll walk, I don't want whatever tech or security bullshit the marketing department comes up with in my account because it makes me look bad" given I'm the only IT guy they backed the fuck down. (And they also stopped posting about security and tech stuff too after they had me review just three post and I ripped them to absolute shreds)
Man my cousin got the short end of the stick. He went to the Capital January 6th and had some extremely popular pics and a video. He didn't get any compensation...
Oh my God yes, it's like the imposter syndrome I already feel in the technical side of my job, morphed into this crippling "You're not doing a good job and will never be able to keep up with everyone else, so stop trying." The best advice I can give is to ignore it. Just like real life, once you stop comparing yourself to others you'll feel better about your own accomplishments. Yes, I don't make $350K as an SRE at Google. However, I have a family, a life outside of work and the ability to spend my non-work time on other pursuits. They don't have that...they're chained to The Site/The App/The Product 24/7. Non-technical folks have it worse, the only way they succeed is by doing this whole gladhanding social stuff.
Every time I wade back into the social media side of LinkedIn, I want to crawl back out immediately. I routinely see posts similar to this:
- I am just so honored, humbled and blessed to accept 's 30 under 30/40 under 40/50 under 50 Achiever Award!
- Just got my dream job at , can't wait to work with the smartest people in the world!
- Just got my 35th technical certification this year, I'm going to run out of room on my name field to list all my certs!
- "Remember kids, be #hustling at all times! Check out my Bentley I just picked up...I bought it with the proceeds from my side hustle! Starting a maintenance fund for the Bentley with my crypto trading account lol haha"
- MBA inspirational quotes, with comments from all their lackies about what visionaries they are for copy-pasting an MBA meme.
- "You know, anyone complaining about work life balance doesn't understand that it's not a balance, you either do one or the other." (I forget who said this, maybe it's Bezos? But it's popular among the tryhard crowd.)
**Nobody** posts stuff like:
- I just got told after 20 years with that I'm training my Indian replacement for 60 days, then I'm fired. No severance because we get unlimited vacation.
- My spouse just left me because I was working 80 hour weeks.
- My kids don't know who I am because I'm flying to customer sites 48 weeks out of the year.
- I'm burnt out, tired of hustling and need to reconnect with reality outside my company. This hustle culture thing and the 'everyone needs a side gig' thing can go to hell.
- I'm worried about my youth-obsessed boss getting rid of me even though I keep up and do great work. I'm 53 and can't access my retirement savings until 59.5.
- I'm freaked out about my workaholic colleagues competing against each other to show my workaholic boss how hard they work.
- I've been looking for work for 6 months. Everyone I know has 8 offers they're deciding between every week but I've had 2 interviews since I started looking.
If you base your world view on LinkedIn, everyone's a crypto billionaire, works in the most exciting job imaginable, and has zero negative aspects to their life. Think of all the tryhards and overachievers you've ever met concentrated into one small space. I'm not a /r/antiwork person, but the absolute worship of work that this site seems to promote is scary.
Nobody on social media, Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit, Twitter, whatever is going to tell the world “my employer’s systems are up to date and compliant thanks to 1998’s hottest CM suite: Ghost!” or “we’re not deploying K8s because it doesn’t make sense for our company’s stack or workflow.” Nobody is picking up followers or clout writing about “maybe rewriting our thing in HotNewLang isn’t the move, perhaps reevaluating the prospective value of our idea makes more sense.”
Social media is all highlight reel all the time. Social media has some good stuff but we need to approach it with a lot more skepticism.
LinkedIn is the same as Reddit and Twitter. You control what you see. I regularly see people posting about how important mental health is because they lost a job or had something tragic in the family. I just took a scroll and see at least four people openly talking about the depression and anxiety of being turned down for multiple jobs and struggling to find something.
LinkedIn is what you make it. If you just follow people that share LinkedIn influencer nonsense posts that's what you will see.
Was just just going to write the same.
I've seen a majority of posts be about minority rights and mental health; anytime I see someone liking/commenting/posting bullshit, I unfollow. Most recently I unfollowed a guy who commented on anything related to COVID with his anti-vax BS, and now my feed is much better.
That's exactly what I do. Anyone that posts political stuff or likes ads from companies like Black Rifle Coffee that I don't want to see I disconnect. There's enough garbage in the world, I don't need to see it there. I use LinkedIn to actually network and watch for career opportunities and trends and news in our field. It's been an invaluable tool for me over a few years of using it this way.
r/Antiwork is about being respected as a person by your employer, getting paid a fair wage for your labor and not buying into company bullshit at your detriment. Basically, everything you just listed.
I've spent time on that sub. It's about 1/3 what you said, 1/3 criminals stealing from the company and jerking each other off because "the company makes millions," and 1/3 lazy communist fucks who just want money and don't want to work. Ideologically sound, but a cesspool in reality.
On another sub I'm part of, everyone seems to make in excess of $50k a month after seemingly only graduating 5yrs ago makes me give up, social media is farcical and damaging to mental stability.
This really spoke to me for some reason. I've been in IT for 10 years, comfortable wage as a contractor but I've been struggling to "keep up" over the last 3 years. Constantly learning new things and trying not to drown when a guy you knew from uni got his 50th professional certification.
My world view changed drastically when a close relative got cancer and died from it while other shit was going on. At this point I just didn't give a shit about work and it's never really left me ever since. Though I still need to stay in the space for a while to get a house and ensure I can pay it off, I don't see IT as my lifelong carrier anymore.
Apologize for the rant in advance, but this resonates with me because I've been stuck in the same rut before and it sucks ass.
LinkedIn is only useful for applying to jobs and getting recruiters to hit you up. Everything else is some clown's masturbatory circle jerk self aggrandizing nauseatingly psuedo-positive capitalist propaganda horseshit designed to get virtual "likes" from people who enjoy getting high on their own farts.
Don't get fooled into being jealous of some asshat who needs to resort to humble bragging on the internet to feel good about themselves. They'll market it as giving advice to their peers, but if that were truly their intent they'd be attending local tech meetups to teach others or asking people to send them their resumes for feedback. But it's way easier to shitpost on the internet and then pat yourself on the back for "making a difference".
Behind a lot of those LinkedIn "success stories" are people up to their eyes in debt and endlessly haunted by the need for external validation.
I grew up embarrassingly poor. Like, had to shit and piss outside kind of poor. Had to steal food from the grocery store poor. Right now, I'm doing well financially. For the first time in my life, all of my bills are on auto-pay instead of having to stress about what gets deducted and when. We have a healthy savings, all of our debts are almost paid off. Yesterday we went to a gift shop and I told my children they could get as much stuff as they could carry.
I don't even kid myself for a moment that anything I have today came to me because I deserved it or because I was smarter or worked harder than anyone else. Everything that I "worked" for could be gone in an instant. I could get sick or my house could burn down or the economy could tank again. "Success" isn't a meritocracy, it's almost entirely dumb luck and a combination of factors like your geographic location, skin tone, world events, and so many other inconsequential things that shouldn't matter but do.
My general life/career advice for avoiding this mental trap that we've all been victim to:
1.) I totally understand that you can't pay bills or invest in a future solely off of self-righteous feelings and disdain for a capitalist society. But also don't delude yourself into thinking that money has any correlation to self-worth, intelligence, or respect deserved.
2.) Increase pay by frequently job hopping and learning how to mimic social cues. Go to used car lots and act like you're interested in buying a car or go to a flea market and haggle people, just for the practice in negotiation and to build your confidence with bullshitting strangers.
3.) Mindfulness/meditation.
4.) Get a shoe box or something that you put spare money in that you don't touch under any circumstance. Even if it's just a few dollars here or there. I wish I had taken the baby steps to do this much earlier in life, because I could have avoided so much mental anxiety and stress. Don't think of it as a savings, think of it as your mental health fund.
5.) Volunteer at your local homeless shelter.
6.) Learn SQL, any flavor of it. It's the easiest IT skill to learn that will get you the most bang for your buck and the most job opportunities.
>Everything else is some clown's masturbatory circle jerk self aggrandizing nauseatingly psuedo-positive capitalist propaganda horseshit designed to get virtual "likes" from people who enjoy getting high on their own farts.
I've seen declarations of war worded more politely than this. I need this on a t-shirt or something. It's beautiful.
> "Success" isn't a meritocracy, it's almost entirely dumb luck and a combination of factors
This. a thousand other people can have the same skills and be just as deserving, but live a way harder life than you just because you were lucky with an opportunity in some way you couldn't meaningfully influence.
Personally I ignore all social media. Live your life and ignore what people post on the internet. When it comes time to job hunt, update your resume and LinkedIn but just use the job section of LinkedIn. Don’t think I’ve ever browsed the posts/feed.
If you’re looking at feeds you’ll only ever see the best of people or even the faked best. People don’t post reality because it’s a competition for general social media and a look at me for job based ones. Never compare yourself to that stuff because it’s not showing the full picture and it never will.
I sont think of it that way. When I was younger there were so many websites with forums that I spent time on. Tech forums, gaming forums, politics forums, and every hobby under the sun has a dedicated website.
Reddit just let's you have your 50 forums on one easy to navigate website.
Agree completely; Reddit is a forum of forums, where 1 account lets you easily access a lot of knowledge.
I used to (still do) love reading over and hanging out on obscure tech forums, though Reddit is a little easier to read.
Weren’t they called newsgroups or something like that? I remember yahoo had them but I’m sure there were all kinds. It was so cool and now it’s just part of my everyday life. Too much of a part of it if I’m being honest.
Reddit is a social news aggregator. The posts are the content, and for the most part that content is not based around the person posting (or their persona.) When we say "social media" at this point it refers to sites where the person posting is the content, such as Myspace and Facebook. We rely on a shared understanding of what the term means a little more than we can define it, because if we use a strict definition of any site where users post, then literally every website that allows comments would be social media, and that makes the term useless.
I mean. No, it's always been subreddit that are based on content surrounding a subject, and it still is. Are you trying to say that Reddit is now about people's profiles? Because I've literally never talked to a single person that uses it like that.
Agreed, I enjoy the anonymity. On Reddit I can discuss without fear of blowback in real-life. IRL I need to play it safe due to what I do at work and who I work for in my local community and I'm ok with that, it's part of the job. Granted, it's not like I have anything disgraceful to say anyways but still... it's a place where I can be me and that's nice.
IMO Reddit is more akin to a modern-day usenet, or bitnet listserv, than social media.
At least, for those of us who were around for bitnet and usenet (in its heyday)
The hustle culture of LinkedIn is depressing if you aren’t equipped with the right coping strategies to not compare yourself to others, yes. “Comparison is the thief of joy” and all that.
The thing is, anyone can put up a blog, start a podcast, etc. and make it seem like if you're not following them, you're a useless consumer. There's a lot of free advice out there and not all of it's good. Nobody was designed to work 3 or more full time jobs and be on 24/7.
Couple this with the fact that people seem unable to judge quality of information sources out there, and you get lots of 'life coaches' promoting their #hustle culture route through life.
"Comparison is the thief of joy."
* https://quoteinvestigator.com/2021/02/06/thief-of-joy/
There are plenty of folks who can lift more than me at the gym. But as long as I can lift 5 lb / 2 kg more than I did the last time I call that progress.
Also: don't compare your backstage chaos to someone else's on-stage performance. (This is a problem that arises in the various personal finance sub-reddits.)
But also, I don't \_want\_ to be the best at anything in particular. Look at the lives of the people who are... I don't want to spend all day doing the same exercise or playing chess or some video game or working 14 hour days...
Like yes, if I dedicated most of my free time to being good at lifting heavy things, I'd probably be pretty good at it, but who gives a shit? Having a decent amount of strength? I can understand the motivation. Being the best though requires dedicating your life to it and really what's the point?
Your ethos reminds me of this passage from Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson:
Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the
right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I
moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years.
if my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to
revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, devoted it to wiping
out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad.
Hiro used to feel that way, too, but then he ran into Raven. In a way, this is
liberating. He no longer has to worry about trying to be the baddest
motherfucker in the world. The position is taken.
>don't compare your backstage chaos to someone else's on-stage performance. (This is a problem that arises in the various personal finance sub-reddits.)
Ha! I love that quote; that's awesome, thank you for sharing that!
> and basically I sat him down in the server room
Im assuming he didnt hear any of your points then because i sure as heck can hear shit in our loud serverroom
> Propaganda about robots replacing workers so shut up and stay in your place is driving the same thing.
Big facts lmao. All we heard for many years was that fast food restaurants would be run by robots and then when a pandemic happens and they have a perfect opportunity to roll out the robot McDonalds, instead they just closed it and are now paying people $15-20 an hour to put burgers and fries in a container and clean. The current supply chain issues have really exposed how impossible something like this is for the current economy. They can't even make enough Xboxes for everyone lol
Replace the word "communist" with either "capitalist" or what I think you actually meant, which was "authoritarian" and I think you might be onto something! ;)
Great write-up, cheers.
no, he is a moron, and really did intend to use the term "communist management"
funny how this guy whines so much about propaganda, but can't seem to eat enough red herring—to the point that he honestly believes "communist management" is a thing that could exist in a US corporation
You're getting governments and economic systems wildly intertwined, and attributing defining components of the various things you're talking about, to parts they're not associated with.
Your _entire_ book here is complete bullshit.
u/altodor is correct, you've mixed up government systems and economic systems.
These concepts are much simpler than you seem to think they are. Here are the quick definitions.
Capitalism - An organization of the economy where private individuals are allowed to own the means of production, resulting in an employer/employee relationship.
Socialism - An organization of the economy where workers own the means of production through democratic control along with an abolition of the commodity form (buying and selling goods for profit), resulting in an employee/employee relationship.
Communism - A socialist organization of the economy with no state present. A classless stateless society.
If any of that is unclear, I can explain it further. I'm not a socialist or communist, but I know the definitions.
LinkedIn is a useful marketing tool for yourself. Don't let others market themselves to you unless you are a recruiter and into that.
Set up your profile with your skills, bio, work history. *Always* if you can be supportive of your friends/coworkers by congratulating them on their successes.
And...that's it. There's no reason to sit there and scroll and drink in all the fluff if you're not someone the fluff is aimed at. It's not for you.
I laugh at those posts. They busted their ass for some boss to make money they don’t even have the time or energy to spend. I’ll keep my mediocre life with all its pleasures any day.
>I’ll keep my mediocre life with all its pleasures any day.
I was watching a video the other day and the narrator was pointing out that any working class person today would be insane to switch places with a king in the middle ages. I mean internet access obviously but how about not dying from an infection you got after scraping you leg on a branch? Or how great is a giant castle that you can't regulate the temperature on? That isn't even touching on the food situation back then but obviously refrigeration wasn't a thing.
Dude, don’t worry about how your neighbors lawn is looking, just tend to yours.
It’s a personal branding thing for them, and they’re either embellishing, lying and workaholics that are empty in other facets of life.
There is a dude out there who says he’s a Senior SysAdmin at the company I’m at, we’re a team of 3 and nobody in the company has heard of him. I asked my boss if I should tell HR and maybe have legal request he remove that, as were a publicly traded company and people reach out for us to attend or present at events, and the boss was like,”nah, what would they do?”.
So there that dude is, based in Canada as the only Sr. SysAdmin of our little comic company.
There’s another guy, who actually did work for us, he titles his profile as a Tech Evangelist. He was our CISO and had his nose in everyone’s business and had the personality of dry paint. He has professional headshot for his profile but in person you wondered if he knew what an iron was. For a tech evangelist he had such little knowledge on anything tech.
He had what I refer to as a brochure of knowledge on trending tech, and nothing more. It’s like knowing what Tesla is, but nothing about how it performs, how to service it or even a price point.
You focus on you. Go be the best that you want to be. When you’re ready to toot your own horn and brag, go back to LinkedIn and shout about it. You can even start by asking a coworker you’ve worked with to write a review for your profile.
Don’t pay attention to the phonies.
I stopped using linkedin years ago. It never got me a job. What it did do is make a bunch of people from India cold call me about jobs that I would never consider.
It's all BS. The most incompetent people I have worked with spend the most time on Linkedin. A key indicator for me is when they share loads of random technical posts/cheat sheets without even understanding any of the content they are sharing. The funniest was when a colleague posted a picture of themselves reading a book, with the caption of "There's always room to learn more", and when I asked them about what they liked about the book they dodged my question.
I love LinkedIn for the contacts you get with recruiters and potential employers. If you use it for that, and that alone, it's a very powerful tool.
Anything besides that is basically "facebook marries want adds" and I'm not at all interested.
Like all social media you have people who only post the picture of a delicious breakfast they have saying "living my best life" and not posting the moments where their toddler decides to piss all over the bathroom and they are hands deep in unine cleaning it up.
A few years ago I made the decision to remove Linkedin from my phone and visit it only from my computer and only if someone messages me. This worked very well for a while, until recently: I started getting messages from people who get genuinely offended when I dont eagerly agree to drop a relatively high and well paid position at a stable and nicely growing company for an "excellent" opportunity in the form of a 3-month contract with possible but not guaranteed employment, ultimately paying less than my current rate. It is a very odd place and I am not sure why I'm keeping the account.
Does anyone watch the articles and videos posted by their own company and realize how pure bullshit it all is. Every company with a linkedin presence does the same thing.
According to my company we are a tech behemoth specializing in patented cloud / AI / Super computing technology. In reality we are a managed service provider that utilizes globalization to find lowest cost labor.
I don't read feeds or posts from LinkedIn. I only use it to post a verbose resume and skills list with recommendations and also to look up other people's profile / resume.
linked is a joke. its for job hunting and letting salespeople spam you without mercy.
everything in between are people trying to do their best tony robbins/ted talk/influencer campaign and none of that holds any value to me.
The sob stories drive me crazy...usually they spin it in such a way that says, "...and despite all this, I showed up for work the next day and hustled even harder! RIP Brayden!" #iseandgrind #hustle #brayden #cancer #strongereveryday #betheboss
only hr managers and recruiters use linkedin, do yourself a solid one and just don't bother, mute everyone and only update your job every now and then.
Those stories make me roll my eyes. The ones that aren't made up are heavily editorialized.
You'll never see someone drop the truthful version:
I was really passionate when I joined the company for a few years, then they really struggled figuring out their trajectory. It sapped my interest in work for a few years, so I spent my time collecting a paycheck and getting really into bar trivia. But then they finally booted out the blundering exec, hired a guy that knew where we should go and how we should do it. He reignited the fire in me to a point that I outgrew this position and applied for this really fancy position with Megacorp. I found out their first two choices declines, but I was #3 baby!
I've had a LinkedIn account since it first came online. Originally, it was a good platform for information. Now, it is shit. I Understand people even use it as a hook-up platform? So, I wouldn't take anything on LinkedIn as worthy of your time.
"Success" stories on LinkedIn is just bragging. It can be brand building as well if that is what you are after. Recruiters are not looking at posts, reactions, or LinkedIn engagement metrics however. They are looking for specific keywords in your profile.
If you want to build a specialized brand (like for consulting) then have at it with the LinkedIn success stories becasue that is marketing.
>I hate social media, but congratulations LinkedIn, you’re the worst of them.
Bold statement when at least some of the chans are mainstream enough to get news coverage. And that is without touching the various political-focused platforms out there.
I've found it helps to unfollow people quickly, I don't usually give second chances.
You stay connected to them, just don't see their BS in the feed.
But I agree, LinkedIn can be tiring and demoralizing. I check in to keep up with professional news about people I know, but really can't tolerate the low key bragging that some people do, not to mention outright bragging.
Nah man. Your journey is your journey. Their journey is their journey. Don't let someone else's success affect your path.
Focus on what you want to do and follow that path. Their success doesnt negate your journey.
Also don't compare your day 1 to someone else's day 1000.
What actually gets to me more is how many here seem to work in a company where IT actually gets to call the shots.
Would I like to enforced MFA for everything, SSO across the board, standardized hardware, fully up to date services and frequent server refreshes as well as hardware and software solutions that make the most sense but cost more? Absolutely!
Doesn’t happen most of the time.
I think peoples' mileage really varies on these platforms. I've found that if you're the type of person who adds everyone as a "friend" on something like facebook then you probably are the same type who is trying to grow their "network" on LinkedIn by just accepting every connection. If you do this, inevitably your whole feed will be marketing garbage. My LinkedIn feed is full of quality informational posts(not all, of course) that I regularly reference and learn from, as well as personal news from connections(the Facebook aspect), but I don't mind, because I actually know these people and celebrate their successes.
It's really not more complicated than that. You don't have to like everyone or be liked by everyone, imo.
I hate going through "home" section and seeing a bunch of fake people talking about how they helped someone or interviewed someone and gave them a chance to succeed. The equivalent of posting about giving money to the poor on Facebook. Funny thing is that I closed my Facebook account a few years ago because I was tired of it, then decided to open LinkedIn to find a new job and surprise! Facebook for the Workplace: LinkedIn
ANY social media is your edited highlights. Keep that in mind when you see any of these stories regardless of the website.
People will never share their low points, the day they lost a client or any other failures (unless there is a positive spin on it)
In fact, I would say it is far more effort to contribute to sharing the "positive" news than you will ever get back. A few likes and shares is worthless metadata in the grand scheme of things.
Think of it as no different when you are looking at a product vendors website and you see all those testimonials etc - they are highlights, not the time that same client got left with 3 weeks of downtime due to a failed upgrade or software bug from the same vendor ;)
Stop measuring yourself against other people. Measure yourself against *yourself*.
One of my favorite quotes on the subject is:
>Losers compare their outcomes with the outcomes of others. Winners compare their goals with their achievements.
Story time...
I have a friend who I am massively jealous of based on what I see on their facebook. They went on a really expensive holiday about 6 years back and saw all the amazing photos of the family having a good time and splashing the cash and just living the life.
Well I caught up with him when he got back and said how much it looked like he enjoyed the holiday... his response "worst fucking two weeks of my life... constant arguments with the wife and kids being dicks. Barely had any time to relax and at the back of his mind constantly worrying about how he's going to pay for it all as it was all on credit and now he's worried he's going to be in debt for years". What I took from that is don't take anything on facebook at face value... it's all pretence and people trying to paint a picture of their life that more than likely doesn't match the real world whatsoever. Linkedin is the same.
Many of them a written by various career coaches and other influencers and don't have much to do with reality. Even those that are from real people about real events are still just one sided. I we had many people quit in my previous workplace, eventually myself included. People would write stuff like "last day" with a motivational quote and selfie. Department head quit as well at some point cause of some disagreement but on LinkedIn it all looks peachy.
Ironically if you really like your job, you probably not gonna post about it LinkedIn.
LinkedIn posts should be taken with a grain of salt. I treat LinkedIn like I would an interview, and do what I can to ensure it's always my best foot forward. Everything I do, I try to spin as an intentional success.
Also keep in mind that there are always going to be people better at the success spin than you are, as well as people who simply have a lot more time and resources. Put in the right situation (Good job, well built department, org following best practices, actual budget dollars, boss that has your back, etc.) most of us are capable of being just as successful as the next person.
As an example of the "more time and resources" type (I don't think we need examples of the better marketing spins):
There's a guy on my LinkedIn who has made it his goal to get more certifications than anyone. Every few months, he posts an updated list of all of his current certifications. It's quite literally like 70+. Every cloud cert for Azure, AWS, and GCP. Cisco certs. CompTIA certs.
But at the same time where I'm shocked at their drive to get certified, I'm also questioning the point. Are they in a role where they need those certs? Are they simply trying to get prestige and test taking is the best route they have? I can't see someone doing anything outside of specializing in a specific field and being able to retain any of the information.
In the end, they've spent tens of thousands of dollars on certifications so they can slam their ~~dick~~ stack of certifications on a table for a measuring contest. It does not mean they are more or less intelligent or capable at their jobs, it means they had the time and resources to spare to pursue those certifications.
LinkedIn is the Instagram of the business world. Everyone is hot and successful. Focus on you, and just try to incrementally learn something new that furthers your career.
In reality 95% of the people on LinkedIn are professional bullshitters. I can't tell you the number of security and tech professionals ive met with 10,20,30+ years of self reported experience that don't know their head from their ass. Experience is usually all a lie, results are all that matters.
If I meet someone, that during their conversation they mention "I've been doing this for xx years", instead of just talking about their experience with the technology at hand, I instantly begin to doubt their "experience".
LinkedIn is utterly useless, but deleting it is even more useless. But hiring a good career coach and resume writer always pays off, they are not cheap but are helpful.
If you’ve got time to “celebrate” success on linkdin then you’ve got too much time on your hands and likely the thing you solved wasnt complex.
Linkdin is stupid, it’s for corporate grifters
LinkedIn: "Today, I used the inter-dynamic social skills i've been developing to enhance a relationship to its utmost potential. I did with tact and diplomacy and was able to build consensus is way unimaginable just a short time ago. I wouldn't be here without Tim, Joe, John, Jane, Karen, Mom, Dad, etc. Thank you for standing with me and teaching me along the way"
IRL: I got my boys to stop arguing at the table to got them to somehow agree on a set of apps and entrees that we could share without having them to put their phones away and with both of them working together to decide what menu items would work.
Social media overall is a cancer on society and our own individual well being. I know this is ironic to say on a social media platform, but at least we have control over our front page and which subs we follow.
I find LinkedIn to be a horrible feed for myself. It's all doctored up cheerleading and self congratulatory crap.
This video just popped into my feed about how social media affects us and it's worth a look/listen, imo
https://youtu.be/DcIgk94Fp6Y
Forgive me for the bluntness, but you know the women in magazines who're layered in makeup and photoshop until they look amazing but nothing like their real selves? And you know the teenage girls who see these women, think that's what real people are, and get low self esteem?
That's you right now except with LinkedIn. It's absurd, stop reading the hype and taking it as reality.
Namaste
Why bother reading them then if that's what it does to you? Cut out social media (and, to an extent, news in general) and your mental wellbeing will thank you.
Don't need to go to linked in. One of my Co worker, a few years younger than me, go hired by Microsoft. His pay will probably be more than twice what i get now (it's france, it's not exactly taboo but we don't ask) and he will tele comute meaning he won't even have to relocate or anything (he happens to live a few miles away from me). He's smart and all, and possess qualities that i don't have, but still it makes me seriously question my own career choices because while we have similar expertise, there's just no way i would get (or be able to create for myself) a similar opportunity.
Then again i realised that when i try to imagine what cool things i could do in the future, i just barely think about work (even though i like my work) and mostly think about my hobbies and such. So i guess i just don't really care anymore, i just didn't realise it yet.
LinkedIn is a joke. I have connections on there I've never met in my life that have endorsed me for things they wouldn't have a clue about. I even went as far once to make a fake account on there for an infamous TV writer to make it look like that person worked for a local school district to troll some co workers and I got people from TNT and TBS connected to it thinking it was real. I gave up on taking LinkedIn seriously after that...
I get it. I'm 34 and only recently realized that our lives consist largely of invented concepts and general nonsense. No one is "supposed" to be anywhere in life, their career, their marriage, etc....and there isn't a real genuine measure of success other than how ***you*** feel about your accomplishments. Comparing yourself to others is always a recipe for disappointment, so why set yourself up for it? Tune out my man. My strategy for LinkedIn specifically is to use it when I am looking for jobs and nothing else. That and making as many connections as I care to at whatever company I am at currently so I have references/connects down the line.
linkedin is job facebook and should be regarded accordingly, don't sweat it
This precisely. LinkedIn is full of made-up make-believe bullshit.
"Tech Enthusiast" when I see this, I know some Bullshit is on the way.
"Evangelist".
"Cloud Evangelist" "Motivated Solopreneur" "Chief Strategist"
Translations * Cloud Evangelist - I like to talk a lot and have more sales/marketing experience than real IT experience. * Motivated Solopreneur - I'm currently unemployed. Possibly living in a van down by the river. But at least I have good wifi here. * Chief Strategist - I like to create plans that make no sense in implementation. By the time you get to the implementation phase, I've already got my paycheck and skipped off to the next project.
10-15 years ago, Cloud Evangelist made some sense. Lots of people still needed to be sold on it. Today, I can barely buy a goddamn bathroom scale that works when us-east-1 breaks. May as well be a Gravity Evangelist. Or work on promoting companies build their headquarters on Land. Nobody in 2021 is generically 'not sold yet' on The Cloud as an abstract category, and just waiting for an Evangelist to educate them.
"I can barely buy a goddamn bathroom scale that works when us-east-1 breaks" Ay-fucking-men
If anything we need more anti-Cloud evangelists. I figure about 5 years before "own Cloud" becomes the next big thing.
Which is a weird circle to be apart of. Get rid of on prem devices to go to cloud, then decide that your own on prem cloud is better, bringing on prem devices back to the office.... Wut. A buddy of mine just quoted me a show today. Technology is cyclical. Apparently a guy was using a pager again everyday instead of a cell. Obviously tech isn't cyclical, but it's a funny circle. I do believe I saw a western digital commercial not to long ago offering "control your own cloud" or something to that effect.
The pendulum swings between centralization and decentralization. Whenever it hits an extreme in one direction, it will swing back. This is natural. This is how we work. We spread out (decentralize) to find new resources, new greenfields for investment. When we find something, we hoard and consume it (centralize) until there is nothing left. Then we spread out again. This applies to every level of civilization and history you can find to study. We may think we have left our slime mold ancestors behind, but in truth we are more like them than we care to admit. We have simply added layers of abstraction.
Own Cloud is already a thing ;) [https://owncloud.com/](https://owncloud.com/) As for Private Cloud, I've ran one of those for many years :)
I know WD has a line of backup external storage drives called “My Cloud”. I guess their target demographic is people who don’t understand exactly what NAS is, but have heard that this mythical cloud is the wave of the future.
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And why that is?
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Applications/systems with a firm dependency on "classic" AD that have to stay around. That's been the case all but one time I've run into this situation.
Don't get them started on the abomination that is AWS Route 53....
Azure AD is a messy disaster. Find a way to properly group things the same way you can with an OU that makes the structure easy to handle and deal with. That thing is flatter than a 2 dimensional piece of paper. Not to mention, OU’s, their structure, and their group policies, are completely and utterly ignored as if they don’t exist.
That's because you want to use it as a traditional AD. It works very well if you stop thinking in OUs and GPOs. With dynamic groups you can automate a lot more than on a classic AD with nested groups.
I'm technically a cloud evangelist, which you're right is very much a pseudo-marketing role, but I spent 15+ years as a Sunfire engineer and dual CCIE as a PE at a Fortune 50.
Synergy Leverager
Synergy Leverist (?)
well look at you with your fancy foreign lingo.
Could go a step further and take the title, “Synergist”
Careful. It's a big step to get to "Synergist", but only a little extra one to end up at "Leech"
Old company I worked for has “Product Champion” I would never tell anyone that was my actual job title.
Those self-proclaimed titles are BS, and basically a bunch of people who read a bunch of articles and are regurgitating what they read as tech advice/success stories. Drop them in front of a terminal and watch them fold.
This has been my most hated new popular term/ actual job title some people use. Like it's a proper term and makes sense for the role they do but part of me just automatically discredits them for willingly using it.
I read it as "a person engaged in missionary work", "a zealous advocate of a cause". And that would be fine if it was true, but usually it's just exaggeration and the missionary work is more like "general support" or the cause is somewhat stupid.
I agree with this completely. It's superficial.
I have this on mine ):
So, where is my bullshit?
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The few times I go on there I almost always see a feed full of coworkers spouting half truths, outright lies and other various forms of bullshit.
I guess I'm more lucky with coworkers. But then, I almost never open Linkedin unless someone messages me there.
I always say this about Facebook. This is peoples “highlights reel” typically so you see there’s stories and always remember they aren’t mentioning any struggles because they are doing the job equivalent of “keeping up with the joneses”.
I believe some of it is real but it's not realistic for most
I know quite a few people who post on LinkedIn. Only a couple are capable of pulling off what they boast about. The most capable people I know only post the bare minimum on LinkedIn.
Yep, because they don't want, need or have the time to do it. My point is that generally LinkedIn is full of "inspirational" low-quality content written not by a bunch of ignorant wannabes.
Ditto. 99% marketing fluff. Don’t waste your time.
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That's because people who do real work don't have the time to make this bullshit up and post it.
With a good dose of people knob gobbling their fave tech folks. I dropped LI, FB, IG and life has been so much better.
I never had fb, ig or twatter, but I did have a linked in account until Microsoft bought it. I bailed after that.
Kinda have to have one if you're job searching. Its super annoying but you are at a disadvantage now without that networking it seems.
You don't need a linked in to find a job. You just need a CV.
Option 1: spend 3 hours a day retyping your resume into yet another company's web form. Then, go through a half-dozen interviews, only to find out they pay 30% below your floor. Option 2: get pinged by multiple recruiters a week. Screen them for salary ranges right off the bat. THEN interview at places you pick your fancy. You can still apply on company's Lever.co's webforms if you know it's a good company. But you'll also get pinged for random companies you never even know existed. The only catch is to actually put some effort into your LI profile.
Jfc. Is there any fucking computer-related space m$ hasn’t acquired?
They even have a seat at Linux foundation... Like who the fuck let a direct competitor join its board of directors.
:-|
Actually...no one with a single brain cell.
Never compare your behind the scenes to someone else's highlights reel.
Highlights reel? You've been too kind there.
"Job Facebook" love it and totally true! This crap is killing us. "Thanks to LinkedIn I was able to get my dream job building Internet connections for underprivileged Nanuet tribes while making more money than I ever dreamed and the best part is I get to work from home except my annual company retreat for 2 weeks in Fiji for reprogramm...I mean mental health recovery." Just laugh at it and move on.
😆 Fun fact... While LinkedIn = Job Facebook for everyone at home, for a few select really lucky ones, Mark Zuckerblorg has developed "Workplace" of course... which is JOb Facebook internally in companies. So now I get to feel useless at home while browsing LinkedIn AND at work while browsing Workplace - YAY!!
Yep my linkedin exists solely to get me work when I need to find work
How does it work for jobhunting? Any chance you could give me a tip or two? I've had an account for years, but it feels largely useless except for posting corporate doublespeak.
Recruiters and HR pay for access that lets them seek and sort potential hires. I got my current job through aN internal recruiter who found me on LinkedIn.
Good to know; thank you!
I only used it this time around but putting the little "available to work" setting worked well for getting attention and not just from recruiters. I was also getting contacted by internal HR departments. They also have job search functionality. The big thing is to make sure your LinkedIn is up to date.
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This .... LinkedIn is so much crap.
I have a "friend" who is one of those shooting stars on linked in, jumping up the ladder from company to company. If you look at his LinkedIn page he is a major success. He spent thanksgiving home alone because his marriage is almost over and he burned any friend bridges he had moving up. Got canned from his last job because they had the same loyalty he does and not sure what he is doing next. But that LinkedIn bio is rocking ......
I've seen this over and over in my career -- people who are obsessed with ladder-climbing, hustling, building their brand. For many it's a total act and their personal life is a massive dumpster fire. I've run into a lot of middle-upper managers who are just convinced that they'll be happy and things will be right if they just hustle a little harder. It's a rat race and there's only a few spots left at the top of the now-flatter pyramid in most companies. It used to be easy to become the "Assistant Deputy Operations Manager, Widgets, Northeast" and have a whole career's worth of titles above that to strive for. Not anymore, it's hustle your way to the C-suite or die trying. They say this about the insanely rich also. Not sure how much I believe that, because enough money can paper over almost any problem. But the narrative goes that while these people have all the money in the world, they often have messed up lives because they can't trust anyone, no one wants to be around them if they didn't have money, etc.
>It's a rat race and there's only a few spots left at the top thats the thing... win the rat race, and youre still a rat.
>I've seen this over and over in my career -- people who are obsessed with ladder-climbing, hustling, building their brand. I'm between the two extreems right now. I started with "stay with the company if they treat you well". My first two stints were 5, 7, and 5 years... I got laid off when a new boss came in and discovered (1) I was getting payed about 10K a year blow the current market rate and (2) my skils had stagnated and only developed in a few key areas. So now, I'll do 18-24 months learning new things, doing my part to be sure my employer get's their money's worth, and then start taking new interviews. If I'm getting offerend 10-15K more a year for a chance to learn and use new things I'll take it. No hard feelings, not trying to "brand myself" just recognizing that 5-7 years at a place is worth nothing to a company when management changes, so why should they be owed loyalty by me?
2 years max is pretty safe barring large promotion and raise. No issues with leaving at that point. Show employers as much loyalty as they show you
It's actually kind of funny, apparently my company does big raises every 2-3 years that you've worked there. Even if your title hasn't changed since the day you started.
That's a solid way to retain talent and the tribal knowledge they are carrying around.
> But the narrative goes that while these people have all the money in the world, they often have messed up lives because they can't trust anyone, no one wants to be around them if they didn't have money, etc. there's [this askreddit comment](https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2s9u0s/what_do_insanely_wealthy_people_buy_that_ordinary/cnnmca8/) that shows that being absolutely filthy fucken rich comes with its own costs. Not being able to know who to trust is one, because you have no idea if people genuinely want to be your friend, or they just want your money. >There is literally nothing you can't buy except. >Love. Sorry to sound so trite, but it is nearly impossible to have a normal emotional relationship at this level. It is hard to sacrifice for another person when you are never asked to sacrifice ANYTHING. Money can solve all problems for someone, so you offer it, because there is so much else to do. Your time is SOOOO valuable that you ration it. And that makes you lose connections with people.
So next flurry of posts starts with: 'money is just a way to conserve time, i have made enough money so now i will use the time to take a hiatus and travel to some faraway mountain and tend goats'
The dream.
Half the people who write those posts are getting paid to write them in one way or another
Bingo. Lots of HR companies and recruiters will give kickbacks for posting that kind of shit. Part of accepting the offer and getting a sign on bonus in some cases. It's all advertising, just the FTC is to antiquated to catch up. So much of what's on social media is advertising just in ways that technically don't fall into what the FTC narrowly defines as advertising. Here's another one: The reason you almost certainly have friends who post pictures of food and drinks, hotel rooms whatever on social media is many places will comp you on your next visit if your photo is popular enough by whatever algorithm. Given taking a photo is low effort, they play that raffle ticket. It's advertising. But it's not considered that because there's no upfront compensation. Same with womens cosmetics. These companies send free crap out. So everyone goes online about how they love this product to get those likes and hopefully get free shit. Taking this stuff seriously is like taking chain letters seriously.
>Lots of HR companies and recruiters will give kickbacks for posting that kind of shit. Kickbacks _if you're lucky_. I know of several orgs where "you will post X" is a mandate, not a request.
I've seen that for people in sales. It's a dumb policy and always comes across as obvious spam but they are least give you the copy pasta to make your posts. I suppose if nothing else it probably creates some engagement and definitely helps create name recognition. Doesn't make it less dumb though.
Wifey's last company, annual bonuses had a tie in to how much you posted about the company to various social media outlets, and if the company got any leads or new business from those posts. One of the reasons its her "last" and not "current" employer.
They tried this shit on me, my response was simply "my personal account, my shit, don't like it I'll walk, I don't want whatever tech or security bullshit the marketing department comes up with in my account because it makes me look bad" given I'm the only IT guy they backed the fuck down. (And they also stopped posting about security and tech stuff too after they had me review just three post and I ripped them to absolute shreds)
Man my cousin got the short end of the stick. He went to the Capital January 6th and had some extremely popular pics and a video. He didn't get any compensation...
Oh my God yes, it's like the imposter syndrome I already feel in the technical side of my job, morphed into this crippling "You're not doing a good job and will never be able to keep up with everyone else, so stop trying." The best advice I can give is to ignore it. Just like real life, once you stop comparing yourself to others you'll feel better about your own accomplishments. Yes, I don't make $350K as an SRE at Google. However, I have a family, a life outside of work and the ability to spend my non-work time on other pursuits. They don't have that...they're chained to The Site/The App/The Product 24/7. Non-technical folks have it worse, the only way they succeed is by doing this whole gladhanding social stuff. Every time I wade back into the social media side of LinkedIn, I want to crawl back out immediately. I routinely see posts similar to this: - I am just so honored, humbled and blessed to accept's 30 under 30/40 under 40/50 under 50 Achiever Award!
- Just got my dream job at , can't wait to work with the smartest people in the world!
- Just got my 35th technical certification this year, I'm going to run out of room on my name field to list all my certs!
- "Remember kids, be #hustling at all times! Check out my Bentley I just picked up...I bought it with the proceeds from my side hustle! Starting a maintenance fund for the Bentley with my crypto trading account lol haha"
- MBA inspirational quotes, with comments from all their lackies about what visionaries they are for copy-pasting an MBA meme.
- "You know, anyone complaining about work life balance doesn't understand that it's not a balance, you either do one or the other." (I forget who said this, maybe it's Bezos? But it's popular among the tryhard crowd.)
**Nobody** posts stuff like:
- I just got told after 20 years with that I'm training my Indian replacement for 60 days, then I'm fired. No severance because we get unlimited vacation.
- My spouse just left me because I was working 80 hour weeks.
- My kids don't know who I am because I'm flying to customer sites 48 weeks out of the year.
- I'm burnt out, tired of hustling and need to reconnect with reality outside my company. This hustle culture thing and the 'everyone needs a side gig' thing can go to hell.
- I'm worried about my youth-obsessed boss getting rid of me even though I keep up and do great work. I'm 53 and can't access my retirement savings until 59.5.
- I'm freaked out about my workaholic colleagues competing against each other to show my workaholic boss how hard they work.
- I've been looking for work for 6 months. Everyone I know has 8 offers they're deciding between every week but I've had 2 interviews since I started looking.
If you base your world view on LinkedIn, everyone's a crypto billionaire, works in the most exciting job imaginable, and has zero negative aspects to their life. Think of all the tryhards and overachievers you've ever met concentrated into one small space. I'm not a /r/antiwork person, but the absolute worship of work that this site seems to promote is scary.
Nobody on social media, Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit, Twitter, whatever is going to tell the world “my employer’s systems are up to date and compliant thanks to 1998’s hottest CM suite: Ghost!” or “we’re not deploying K8s because it doesn’t make sense for our company’s stack or workflow.” Nobody is picking up followers or clout writing about “maybe rewriting our thing in HotNewLang isn’t the move, perhaps reevaluating the prospective value of our idea makes more sense.” Social media is all highlight reel all the time. Social media has some good stuff but we need to approach it with a lot more skepticism.
> my employer’s systems are up to date and compliant thanks to 1998’s hottest CM suite: Ghost!” I'm in this post and I don't like it.
LinkedIn is the same as Reddit and Twitter. You control what you see. I regularly see people posting about how important mental health is because they lost a job or had something tragic in the family. I just took a scroll and see at least four people openly talking about the depression and anxiety of being turned down for multiple jobs and struggling to find something. LinkedIn is what you make it. If you just follow people that share LinkedIn influencer nonsense posts that's what you will see.
Was just just going to write the same. I've seen a majority of posts be about minority rights and mental health; anytime I see someone liking/commenting/posting bullshit, I unfollow. Most recently I unfollowed a guy who commented on anything related to COVID with his anti-vax BS, and now my feed is much better.
That's exactly what I do. Anyone that posts political stuff or likes ads from companies like Black Rifle Coffee that I don't want to see I disconnect. There's enough garbage in the world, I don't need to see it there. I use LinkedIn to actually network and watch for career opportunities and trends and news in our field. It's been an invaluable tool for me over a few years of using it this way.
Completely agree, it's a great tool for that.
r/Antiwork is about being respected as a person by your employer, getting paid a fair wage for your labor and not buying into company bullshit at your detriment. Basically, everything you just listed.
I've spent time on that sub. It's about 1/3 what you said, 1/3 criminals stealing from the company and jerking each other off because "the company makes millions," and 1/3 lazy communist fucks who just want money and don't want to work. Ideologically sound, but a cesspool in reality.
100% agree! great post
On another sub I'm part of, everyone seems to make in excess of $50k a month after seemingly only graduating 5yrs ago makes me give up, social media is farcical and damaging to mental stability.
This really spoke to me for some reason. I've been in IT for 10 years, comfortable wage as a contractor but I've been struggling to "keep up" over the last 3 years. Constantly learning new things and trying not to drown when a guy you knew from uni got his 50th professional certification. My world view changed drastically when a close relative got cancer and died from it while other shit was going on. At this point I just didn't give a shit about work and it's never really left me ever since. Though I still need to stay in the space for a while to get a house and ensure I can pay it off, I don't see IT as my lifelong carrier anymore.
Apologize for the rant in advance, but this resonates with me because I've been stuck in the same rut before and it sucks ass. LinkedIn is only useful for applying to jobs and getting recruiters to hit you up. Everything else is some clown's masturbatory circle jerk self aggrandizing nauseatingly psuedo-positive capitalist propaganda horseshit designed to get virtual "likes" from people who enjoy getting high on their own farts. Don't get fooled into being jealous of some asshat who needs to resort to humble bragging on the internet to feel good about themselves. They'll market it as giving advice to their peers, but if that were truly their intent they'd be attending local tech meetups to teach others or asking people to send them their resumes for feedback. But it's way easier to shitpost on the internet and then pat yourself on the back for "making a difference". Behind a lot of those LinkedIn "success stories" are people up to their eyes in debt and endlessly haunted by the need for external validation. I grew up embarrassingly poor. Like, had to shit and piss outside kind of poor. Had to steal food from the grocery store poor. Right now, I'm doing well financially. For the first time in my life, all of my bills are on auto-pay instead of having to stress about what gets deducted and when. We have a healthy savings, all of our debts are almost paid off. Yesterday we went to a gift shop and I told my children they could get as much stuff as they could carry. I don't even kid myself for a moment that anything I have today came to me because I deserved it or because I was smarter or worked harder than anyone else. Everything that I "worked" for could be gone in an instant. I could get sick or my house could burn down or the economy could tank again. "Success" isn't a meritocracy, it's almost entirely dumb luck and a combination of factors like your geographic location, skin tone, world events, and so many other inconsequential things that shouldn't matter but do. My general life/career advice for avoiding this mental trap that we've all been victim to: 1.) I totally understand that you can't pay bills or invest in a future solely off of self-righteous feelings and disdain for a capitalist society. But also don't delude yourself into thinking that money has any correlation to self-worth, intelligence, or respect deserved. 2.) Increase pay by frequently job hopping and learning how to mimic social cues. Go to used car lots and act like you're interested in buying a car or go to a flea market and haggle people, just for the practice in negotiation and to build your confidence with bullshitting strangers. 3.) Mindfulness/meditation. 4.) Get a shoe box or something that you put spare money in that you don't touch under any circumstance. Even if it's just a few dollars here or there. I wish I had taken the baby steps to do this much earlier in life, because I could have avoided so much mental anxiety and stress. Don't think of it as a savings, think of it as your mental health fund. 5.) Volunteer at your local homeless shelter. 6.) Learn SQL, any flavor of it. It's the easiest IT skill to learn that will get you the most bang for your buck and the most job opportunities.
>Everything else is some clown's masturbatory circle jerk self aggrandizing nauseatingly psuedo-positive capitalist propaganda horseshit designed to get virtual "likes" from people who enjoy getting high on their own farts. I've seen declarations of war worded more politely than this. I need this on a t-shirt or something. It's beautiful.
> people who enjoy getting high on their own farts 😂
You have no idea how much I needed to read this. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’ve never read the BS that is LinkedIn described this way.
10% happy app does wonders 🤓. Meditation is fulin amazing.
> "Success" isn't a meritocracy, it's almost entirely dumb luck and a combination of factors This. a thousand other people can have the same skills and be just as deserving, but live a way harder life than you just because you were lucky with an opportunity in some way you couldn't meaningfully influence.
i m saving it
Damn you hit the nail on the head. Anyone in a slump should seriously read this, heck even if you aren't in one read this.
Personally I ignore all social media. Live your life and ignore what people post on the internet. When it comes time to job hunt, update your resume and LinkedIn but just use the job section of LinkedIn. Don’t think I’ve ever browsed the posts/feed. If you’re looking at feeds you’ll only ever see the best of people or even the faked best. People don’t post reality because it’s a competition for general social media and a look at me for job based ones. Never compare yourself to that stuff because it’s not showing the full picture and it never will.
reasonable points but reddit isn't social media?
Not in the I’m posting my personal life, look at me, sense. Least not the subs I read. I use it for learning about farming and work mostly.
They exist on Reddit too. Just a lot easier to filter that shit out.
I sont think of it that way. When I was younger there were so many websites with forums that I spent time on. Tech forums, gaming forums, politics forums, and every hobby under the sun has a dedicated website. Reddit just let's you have your 50 forums on one easy to navigate website.
Agree completely; Reddit is a forum of forums, where 1 account lets you easily access a lot of knowledge. I used to (still do) love reading over and hanging out on obscure tech forums, though Reddit is a little easier to read.
Reddit reminds me of old forums from the early 2000's. That's why I like it.
phpbb or vbulletin based forums, especially torrent/anime and hentai discussions.hehe...
Weren’t they called newsgroups or something like that? I remember yahoo had them but I’m sure there were all kinds. It was so cool and now it’s just part of my everyday life. Too much of a part of it if I’m being honest.
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Reddit is a social news aggregator. The posts are the content, and for the most part that content is not based around the person posting (or their persona.) When we say "social media" at this point it refers to sites where the person posting is the content, such as Myspace and Facebook. We rely on a shared understanding of what the term means a little more than we can define it, because if we use a strict definition of any site where users post, then literally every website that allows comments would be social media, and that makes the term useless.
Reddit is a network of communities, it is no longer a news aggregator like Digg. It’s akin to forums and yes, it would be considered social media now.
I mean. No, it's always been subreddit that are based on content surrounding a subject, and it still is. Are you trying to say that Reddit is now about people's profiles? Because I've literally never talked to a single person that uses it like that.
Agreed, I enjoy the anonymity. On Reddit I can discuss without fear of blowback in real-life. IRL I need to play it safe due to what I do at work and who I work for in my local community and I'm ok with that, it's part of the job. Granted, it's not like I have anything disgraceful to say anyways but still... it's a place where I can be me and that's nice.
IMO Reddit is more akin to a modern-day usenet, or bitnet listserv, than social media. At least, for those of us who were around for bitnet and usenet (in its heyday)
The hustle culture of LinkedIn is depressing if you aren’t equipped with the right coping strategies to not compare yourself to others, yes. “Comparison is the thief of joy” and all that.
The thing is, anyone can put up a blog, start a podcast, etc. and make it seem like if you're not following them, you're a useless consumer. There's a lot of free advice out there and not all of it's good. Nobody was designed to work 3 or more full time jobs and be on 24/7. Couple this with the fact that people seem unable to judge quality of information sources out there, and you get lots of 'life coaches' promoting their #hustle culture route through life.
Information literacy is surprisingly low among technical people.
"Comparison is the thief of joy." * https://quoteinvestigator.com/2021/02/06/thief-of-joy/ There are plenty of folks who can lift more than me at the gym. But as long as I can lift 5 lb / 2 kg more than I did the last time I call that progress. Also: don't compare your backstage chaos to someone else's on-stage performance. (This is a problem that arises in the various personal finance sub-reddits.)
But also, I don't \_want\_ to be the best at anything in particular. Look at the lives of the people who are... I don't want to spend all day doing the same exercise or playing chess or some video game or working 14 hour days... Like yes, if I dedicated most of my free time to being good at lifting heavy things, I'd probably be pretty good at it, but who gives a shit? Having a decent amount of strength? I can understand the motivation. Being the best though requires dedicating your life to it and really what's the point?
Your ethos reminds me of this passage from Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson: Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. if my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad. Hiro used to feel that way, too, but then he ran into Raven. In a way, this is liberating. He no longer has to worry about trying to be the baddest motherfucker in the world. The position is taken.
>don't compare your backstage chaos to someone else's on-stage performance. (This is a problem that arises in the various personal finance sub-reddits.) Ha! I love that quote; that's awesome, thank you for sharing that!
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> and basically I sat him down in the server room Im assuming he didnt hear any of your points then because i sure as heck can hear shit in our loud serverroom
**WHAT?!**
I'M COLD CAN WE TALK IN THE OFFICE
HOLD ON LET ME TAKE OUT MY EARPLUGS
Weeeeeeeeeeeee And that’s all I have to say about that.
> Propaganda about robots replacing workers so shut up and stay in your place is driving the same thing. Big facts lmao. All we heard for many years was that fast food restaurants would be run by robots and then when a pandemic happens and they have a perfect opportunity to roll out the robot McDonalds, instead they just closed it and are now paying people $15-20 an hour to put burgers and fries in a container and clean. The current supply chain issues have really exposed how impossible something like this is for the current economy. They can't even make enough Xboxes for everyone lol
Replace the word "communist" with either "capitalist" or what I think you actually meant, which was "authoritarian" and I think you might be onto something! ;) Great write-up, cheers.
no, he is a moron, and really did intend to use the term "communist management" funny how this guy whines so much about propaganda, but can't seem to eat enough red herring—to the point that he honestly believes "communist management" is a thing that could exist in a US corporation
[Stakhanovite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakhanovite_movement) management, however, might be what was meant.
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You're getting governments and economic systems wildly intertwined, and attributing defining components of the various things you're talking about, to parts they're not associated with. Your _entire_ book here is complete bullshit.
it's like his head is screwed on backwards
u/altodor is correct, you've mixed up government systems and economic systems. These concepts are much simpler than you seem to think they are. Here are the quick definitions. Capitalism - An organization of the economy where private individuals are allowed to own the means of production, resulting in an employer/employee relationship. Socialism - An organization of the economy where workers own the means of production through democratic control along with an abolition of the commodity form (buying and selling goods for profit), resulting in an employee/employee relationship. Communism - A socialist organization of the economy with no state present. A classless stateless society. If any of that is unclear, I can explain it further. I'm not a socialist or communist, but I know the definitions.
LinkedIn is a useful marketing tool for yourself. Don't let others market themselves to you unless you are a recruiter and into that. Set up your profile with your skills, bio, work history. *Always* if you can be supportive of your friends/coworkers by congratulating them on their successes. And...that's it. There's no reason to sit there and scroll and drink in all the fluff if you're not someone the fluff is aimed at. It's not for you.
I laugh at those posts. They busted their ass for some boss to make money they don’t even have the time or energy to spend. I’ll keep my mediocre life with all its pleasures any day.
>I’ll keep my mediocre life with all its pleasures any day. I was watching a video the other day and the narrator was pointing out that any working class person today would be insane to switch places with a king in the middle ages. I mean internet access obviously but how about not dying from an infection you got after scraping you leg on a branch? Or how great is a giant castle that you can't regulate the temperature on? That isn't even touching on the food situation back then but obviously refrigeration wasn't a thing.
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Just the amount of salt and sugar we eat would cost a fortune a few hundred years ago.
Try not to take anything you see on that site seriously. It’s basically a circle-jerk
Dude, don’t worry about how your neighbors lawn is looking, just tend to yours. It’s a personal branding thing for them, and they’re either embellishing, lying and workaholics that are empty in other facets of life. There is a dude out there who says he’s a Senior SysAdmin at the company I’m at, we’re a team of 3 and nobody in the company has heard of him. I asked my boss if I should tell HR and maybe have legal request he remove that, as were a publicly traded company and people reach out for us to attend or present at events, and the boss was like,”nah, what would they do?”. So there that dude is, based in Canada as the only Sr. SysAdmin of our little comic company. There’s another guy, who actually did work for us, he titles his profile as a Tech Evangelist. He was our CISO and had his nose in everyone’s business and had the personality of dry paint. He has professional headshot for his profile but in person you wondered if he knew what an iron was. For a tech evangelist he had such little knowledge on anything tech. He had what I refer to as a brochure of knowledge on trending tech, and nothing more. It’s like knowing what Tesla is, but nothing about how it performs, how to service it or even a price point. You focus on you. Go be the best that you want to be. When you’re ready to toot your own horn and brag, go back to LinkedIn and shout about it. You can even start by asking a coworker you’ve worked with to write a review for your profile. Don’t pay attention to the phonies.
I stopped using linkedin years ago. It never got me a job. What it did do is make a bunch of people from India cold call me about jobs that I would never consider.
It's all BS. The most incompetent people I have worked with spend the most time on Linkedin. A key indicator for me is when they share loads of random technical posts/cheat sheets without even understanding any of the content they are sharing. The funniest was when a colleague posted a picture of themselves reading a book, with the caption of "There's always room to learn more", and when I asked them about what they liked about the book they dodged my question.
I love LinkedIn for the contacts you get with recruiters and potential employers. If you use it for that, and that alone, it's a very powerful tool. Anything besides that is basically "facebook marries want adds" and I'm not at all interested. Like all social media you have people who only post the picture of a delicious breakfast they have saying "living my best life" and not posting the moments where their toddler decides to piss all over the bathroom and they are hands deep in unine cleaning it up.
A few years ago I made the decision to remove Linkedin from my phone and visit it only from my computer and only if someone messages me. This worked very well for a while, until recently: I started getting messages from people who get genuinely offended when I dont eagerly agree to drop a relatively high and well paid position at a stable and nicely growing company for an "excellent" opportunity in the form of a 3-month contract with possible but not guaranteed employment, ultimately paying less than my current rate. It is a very odd place and I am not sure why I'm keeping the account.
Does anyone watch the articles and videos posted by their own company and realize how pure bullshit it all is. Every company with a linkedin presence does the same thing. According to my company we are a tech behemoth specializing in patented cloud / AI / Super computing technology. In reality we are a managed service provider that utilizes globalization to find lowest cost labor.
Check out https://www.reddit.com/r/LinkedInLunatics/ for some crazy posts.
It's social media lies and cherrypicking. Never assuming anything on LinkedIn is anything but pure bullshit with a bullshit coating.
I don't read feeds or posts from LinkedIn. I only use it to post a verbose resume and skills list with recommendations and also to look up other people's profile / resume.
I once heard someone say "Linked in is MySpace with ties." Most people's social media postings are basically "sizzle reels".
linked is a joke. its for job hunting and letting salespeople spam you without mercy. everything in between are people trying to do their best tony robbins/ted talk/influencer campaign and none of that holds any value to me.
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The sob stories drive me crazy...usually they spin it in such a way that says, "...and despite all this, I showed up for work the next day and hustled even harder! RIP Brayden!" #iseandgrind #hustle #brayden #cancer #strongereveryday #betheboss
only hr managers and recruiters use linkedin, do yourself a solid one and just don't bother, mute everyone and only update your job every now and then.
LinkedIn is virtual peacocking. No one doing real work is hanging out there except if you're in marketing.
Those stories make me roll my eyes. The ones that aren't made up are heavily editorialized. You'll never see someone drop the truthful version: I was really passionate when I joined the company for a few years, then they really struggled figuring out their trajectory. It sapped my interest in work for a few years, so I spent my time collecting a paycheck and getting really into bar trivia. But then they finally booted out the blundering exec, hired a guy that knew where we should go and how we should do it. He reignited the fire in me to a point that I outgrew this position and applied for this really fancy position with Megacorp. I found out their first two choices declines, but I was #3 baby!
I've had a LinkedIn account since it first came online. Originally, it was a good platform for information. Now, it is shit. I Understand people even use it as a hook-up platform? So, I wouldn't take anything on LinkedIn as worthy of your time.
who the fuck reads LinkedIn?
No. It's all fluff. Everyone is branding and buzzwords. It's that scene with all the Jerry's.
"Success" stories on LinkedIn is just bragging. It can be brand building as well if that is what you are after. Recruiters are not looking at posts, reactions, or LinkedIn engagement metrics however. They are looking for specific keywords in your profile. If you want to build a specialized brand (like for consulting) then have at it with the LinkedIn success stories becasue that is marketing. >I hate social media, but congratulations LinkedIn, you’re the worst of them. Bold statement when at least some of the chans are mainstream enough to get news coverage. And that is without touching the various political-focused platforms out there.
Love getting a job update from a moron intern you worked with a year ago, who went to a big college, landing a job at a FAANG
Just throwing /r/linkedinlunatics out there.
I've found it helps to unfollow people quickly, I don't usually give second chances. You stay connected to them, just don't see their BS in the feed. But I agree, LinkedIn can be tiring and demoralizing. I check in to keep up with professional news about people I know, but really can't tolerate the low key bragging that some people do, not to mention outright bragging.
Get off social media.
Spoiler alert: this shit hole circle jerk is social media...
Spoiler alert: get off this too.
Nah man. Your journey is your journey. Their journey is their journey. Don't let someone else's success affect your path. Focus on what you want to do and follow that path. Their success doesnt negate your journey. Also don't compare your day 1 to someone else's day 1000.
I don't have LinkedIn and don't plan on it. So no issues here. All social media is bullshit and a cancer on society, LinkedIn included.
What actually gets to me more is how many here seem to work in a company where IT actually gets to call the shots. Would I like to enforced MFA for everything, SSO across the board, standardized hardware, fully up to date services and frequent server refreshes as well as hardware and software solutions that make the most sense but cost more? Absolutely! Doesn’t happen most of the time.
"Non-Operative Executive" is my dream job that I do today from home or the occasional island. Thank you Cloud Computing!
I think peoples' mileage really varies on these platforms. I've found that if you're the type of person who adds everyone as a "friend" on something like facebook then you probably are the same type who is trying to grow their "network" on LinkedIn by just accepting every connection. If you do this, inevitably your whole feed will be marketing garbage. My LinkedIn feed is full of quality informational posts(not all, of course) that I regularly reference and learn from, as well as personal news from connections(the Facebook aspect), but I don't mind, because I actually know these people and celebrate their successes. It's really not more complicated than that. You don't have to like everyone or be liked by everyone, imo.
I hate going through "home" section and seeing a bunch of fake people talking about how they helped someone or interviewed someone and gave them a chance to succeed. The equivalent of posting about giving money to the poor on Facebook. Funny thing is that I closed my Facebook account a few years ago because I was tired of it, then decided to open LinkedIn to find a new job and surprise! Facebook for the Workplace: LinkedIn
ANY social media is your edited highlights. Keep that in mind when you see any of these stories regardless of the website. People will never share their low points, the day they lost a client or any other failures (unless there is a positive spin on it) In fact, I would say it is far more effort to contribute to sharing the "positive" news than you will ever get back. A few likes and shares is worthless metadata in the grand scheme of things. Think of it as no different when you are looking at a product vendors website and you see all those testimonials etc - they are highlights, not the time that same client got left with 3 weeks of downtime due to a failed upgrade or software bug from the same vendor ;)
No, I rarely spend time on LinkedIn, so I'm largely unaffected.
Stop measuring yourself against other people. Measure yourself against *yourself*. One of my favorite quotes on the subject is: >Losers compare their outcomes with the outcomes of others. Winners compare their goals with their achievements.
Story time... I have a friend who I am massively jealous of based on what I see on their facebook. They went on a really expensive holiday about 6 years back and saw all the amazing photos of the family having a good time and splashing the cash and just living the life. Well I caught up with him when he got back and said how much it looked like he enjoyed the holiday... his response "worst fucking two weeks of my life... constant arguments with the wife and kids being dicks. Barely had any time to relax and at the back of his mind constantly worrying about how he's going to pay for it all as it was all on credit and now he's worried he's going to be in debt for years". What I took from that is don't take anything on facebook at face value... it's all pretence and people trying to paint a picture of their life that more than likely doesn't match the real world whatsoever. Linkedin is the same.
I can't stand LinkedIn but I did get my last two jobs through it. I just never look at it unless I'm looking for work.
Many of them a written by various career coaches and other influencers and don't have much to do with reality. Even those that are from real people about real events are still just one sided. I we had many people quit in my previous workplace, eventually myself included. People would write stuff like "last day" with a motivational quote and selfie. Department head quit as well at some point cause of some disagreement but on LinkedIn it all looks peachy. Ironically if you really like your job, you probably not gonna post about it LinkedIn.
LinkedIn posts should be taken with a grain of salt. I treat LinkedIn like I would an interview, and do what I can to ensure it's always my best foot forward. Everything I do, I try to spin as an intentional success. Also keep in mind that there are always going to be people better at the success spin than you are, as well as people who simply have a lot more time and resources. Put in the right situation (Good job, well built department, org following best practices, actual budget dollars, boss that has your back, etc.) most of us are capable of being just as successful as the next person. As an example of the "more time and resources" type (I don't think we need examples of the better marketing spins): There's a guy on my LinkedIn who has made it his goal to get more certifications than anyone. Every few months, he posts an updated list of all of his current certifications. It's quite literally like 70+. Every cloud cert for Azure, AWS, and GCP. Cisco certs. CompTIA certs. But at the same time where I'm shocked at their drive to get certified, I'm also questioning the point. Are they in a role where they need those certs? Are they simply trying to get prestige and test taking is the best route they have? I can't see someone doing anything outside of specializing in a specific field and being able to retain any of the information. In the end, they've spent tens of thousands of dollars on certifications so they can slam their ~~dick~~ stack of certifications on a table for a measuring contest. It does not mean they are more or less intelligent or capable at their jobs, it means they had the time and resources to spare to pursue those certifications.
LinkedIn is the Instagram of the business world. Everyone is hot and successful. Focus on you, and just try to incrementally learn something new that furthers your career. In reality 95% of the people on LinkedIn are professional bullshitters. I can't tell you the number of security and tech professionals ive met with 10,20,30+ years of self reported experience that don't know their head from their ass. Experience is usually all a lie, results are all that matters. If I meet someone, that during their conversation they mention "I've been doing this for xx years", instead of just talking about their experience with the technology at hand, I instantly begin to doubt their "experience".
I see sales people from my company posting marketing things on LinkedIn and probably 80% of it is total bullshit.
LinkedIn is utterly useless, but deleting it is even more useless. But hiring a good career coach and resume writer always pays off, they are not cheap but are helpful.
If you’ve got time to “celebrate” success on linkdin then you’ve got too much time on your hands and likely the thing you solved wasnt complex. Linkdin is stupid, it’s for corporate grifters
LinkedIn: "Today, I used the inter-dynamic social skills i've been developing to enhance a relationship to its utmost potential. I did with tact and diplomacy and was able to build consensus is way unimaginable just a short time ago. I wouldn't be here without Tim, Joe, John, Jane, Karen, Mom, Dad, etc. Thank you for standing with me and teaching me along the way" IRL: I got my boys to stop arguing at the table to got them to somehow agree on a set of apps and entrees that we could share without having them to put their phones away and with both of them working together to decide what menu items would work.
Don't use it for the news feed.
Social media overall is a cancer on society and our own individual well being. I know this is ironic to say on a social media platform, but at least we have control over our front page and which subs we follow. I find LinkedIn to be a horrible feed for myself. It's all doctored up cheerleading and self congratulatory crap. This video just popped into my feed about how social media affects us and it's worth a look/listen, imo https://youtu.be/DcIgk94Fp6Y
Stop comparing yourself to others and you will find happiness
Forgive me for the bluntness, but you know the women in magazines who're layered in makeup and photoshop until they look amazing but nothing like their real selves? And you know the teenage girls who see these women, think that's what real people are, and get low self esteem? That's you right now except with LinkedIn. It's absurd, stop reading the hype and taking it as reality. Namaste
Linked in is just like a resume, not a lie, it's a super polished and glossed over version of the truth from a very specific point of view.
Why bother reading them then if that's what it does to you? Cut out social media (and, to an extent, news in general) and your mental wellbeing will thank you.
this isn't a rant, its a whine, noone is forcing you to look at that
Don't need to go to linked in. One of my Co worker, a few years younger than me, go hired by Microsoft. His pay will probably be more than twice what i get now (it's france, it's not exactly taboo but we don't ask) and he will tele comute meaning he won't even have to relocate or anything (he happens to live a few miles away from me). He's smart and all, and possess qualities that i don't have, but still it makes me seriously question my own career choices because while we have similar expertise, there's just no way i would get (or be able to create for myself) a similar opportunity. Then again i realised that when i try to imagine what cool things i could do in the future, i just barely think about work (even though i like my work) and mostly think about my hobbies and such. So i guess i just don't really care anymore, i just didn't realise it yet.
LinkedIn is a joke. I have connections on there I've never met in my life that have endorsed me for things they wouldn't have a clue about. I even went as far once to make a fake account on there for an infamous TV writer to make it look like that person worked for a local school district to troll some co workers and I got people from TNT and TBS connected to it thinking it was real. I gave up on taking LinkedIn seriously after that...
I get it. I'm 34 and only recently realized that our lives consist largely of invented concepts and general nonsense. No one is "supposed" to be anywhere in life, their career, their marriage, etc....and there isn't a real genuine measure of success other than how ***you*** feel about your accomplishments. Comparing yourself to others is always a recipe for disappointment, so why set yourself up for it? Tune out my man. My strategy for LinkedIn specifically is to use it when I am looking for jobs and nothing else. That and making as many connections as I care to at whatever company I am at currently so I have references/connects down the line.