Profiled

A few days ago, I saw a red flag hovering above the LinkedIn app on my phone. “Ooh,” I thought. “Is someone interested in being my friend?” Now, I know that connections on LinkedIn aren’t technically called ‘friends’, but what exactly DO you call them? ‘Business peeps’? ‘Corporate posse’? ‘Kudo Klub’? (If you know anything about LinkedIn, you know it’s always pressuring you to send kudos to people as if the mere fact that you’ve been connected to them for five years is cause for celebration, like ‘You’ve never once LIKED MY POSTS, MARCIA, so kudos for that.’) At any rate, when I opened the app, I was even more excited to see that it was a personal message. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have been so thrilled but after socially isolating for over a year, any form of communication is exciting. Even the stupid Norton on my computer popping up to tell me it’s protected me from several threats recently is a bit of a thrill. Of course, Norton is just a tryhard, because I have the free version and Norton keeps trying to impress upon me how much better off I’d be if I paid for a better package. But why have a cow and buy milk, am I right?

So I clicked on the message icon in breathless anticipation. There was a message from Jarod. It read, “Hi Suzanne! I wanted to reach out because, based on your profile, I thought you might be interested in discussing your sports flooring needs. Please reach out to me anytime!” Now, there were several questions I had about this message:

1) Who the f*ck is Jarod?

2) What’s with all the exclamation marks? This is LinkedIn, not Twitter.

3) What in the name of all that is holy could possibly have led Jarod to read my profile and glean from it that I had ‘sports flooring needs?

4) What even IS sports flooring?

And because I had no interest in engaging with Jarod about his weird flooring fetish, I will answer these questions myself:

1) I have no goddamned idea. He is neither a Business Peep nor a member of my Corporate Posse.

2) Jarod is very excited about sports flooring and the idea of potentially connecting with me over it. Perhaps he envisions us, sipping wine on a terrace somewhere, discussing whatever the hell sports flooring is.

3) I re-examined my profile. It says my name and that I’m the author of Smile and The Dome (I should probably update that with my two new books, The Seventh Devil and Feasting Upon The Bones and if that isn’t a shameless plug, I don’t know what is). It also says I’ve been endorsed for Public Speaking and Educational Leadership despite the fact that the only thing I ever post on LinkedIn is my blog. Where, in ANY of that, is there the slightest indication that I’m a) athletic b) interested in sports c) interested in floors?

4) The only thing I can even think of is astroturf. Why would I ever in a million years need astroturf? I HAVE GRASS, JAROD. Or is sports flooring that bouncy stuff? Because that MIGHT be cool, maybe in like one room where you could go when you were stressed and just bounce around on your sports flooring like Tigger until you felt better. Then it occurred to me—could ‘sports flooring’ be a euphemism? But I couldn’t for the life of me think what it might be a euphemism for, so I asked Ken:

Me: What could an interest in sports flooring be a euphemism for? Like, you’re a professional killer and you bury someone under concrete at an arena?
Ken: That’s very dark. Hmm. The only euphemism about sports I’ve ever heard is ‘Water Sports’.
Me: Water sports? Like water polo?
Ken: No, like…”pee play”. You know, Golden Showers.
Me: EWWWWWW.

So I immediately wrote back to Jarod: I DON’T DO THAT. What a creep. Then I looked and realized I had two other messages, one from ‘Matt’, who wanted to know if I was interested in an AI Training Pilot Project. Now, if that’s a euphemism for teaching my robot butler how to bring me wine, count me in. The other was from someone who thinks I like camping. Guess which message I’ll be responding to based on my profile?

Quilt Update for those who are following: I’m now at 270 squares. Thanks to those who recommended the rotary cutter. That thing is a godsend.

57 thoughts on “Profiled”

  1. Awesome on the denim quilt, Suzanne! See what I did there? I added an exclamation mark, because I can’t wait for you to post a picture of your quilt progress. I never noticed but I too get those messages, but for me it’s recruiting for teaching, sales and management positions outside of Texas. My good twin is probably the one with a great reputation and they mix us up 😁.

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  2. LinkedIn has seemed rather creepy to me lately. I do get solicitations like the ones you’re seeing a lot, and also, notifications that say that I’ve popped up in over 65 searches in fields such as coding and business. My profile indicates, quite clearly, that I do not have any coding or business talent. It explicitly indicates that I have no interest in these things and that I would fail spectacularly in these fields.

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  5. lhoke2016@yahoo.com says:

    This so aggravating as you know this fool hasn’t read the first word of your profile. I get at least one a week… thinking serious of dumping LinkedIn. Grrrr!

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  6. Now I want to contact Jarod, or rather have him contact me, so I can ask about the possibility of a billiards table the size of an Olympic swimming pool. I don’t have the space or any need for such a thing but I think it’d be fun to ask, and it is technically about sports flooring. After all it would have to be in the floor because if you were keeping all the proportions the table would be at least thirty feet high. On the other hand it also might prompt some questions about giant balls and I’m not sure I want to go there with Jarod, or anyone else.
    Anyway congratulations on the quilt and please keep us updated about how things go with Matt and the robot butler who brings you wine. And maybe you should respond to the other message to point out that a solo campfire sounds both incredibly depressing and the sort of thing that you might want in autumn rather than the spring.

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    • In my hands, a solo campfire would also be incredibly dangerous. Where do you even use it? Outside? Inside? I need a picture with some context. And why is a company who wants to talk to me about cybersecurity giving away campfire stuff? I’d much rather have a giant pool table!

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  8. OH! That’s a good one. Sports flooring? Your story reminded me of the time someone sent me a note on Linked In that was a get to know you because you are adorable note. I’m like writing back “this is not appropriate” trying to be polite, as I felt weirdly creeped out. He wrote back because I was friendly in my reply, I suppose. Then I went to work. Being a fond of detective novels, my next step was look at his profile on Linkedin, That led to some very nebulous job description, which I tracked to a fake company and a dead end in GB. After that I put his picture in Google image and found him in the US with a record for fraud. He stole money from unsuspecting women. At the end of my search, I found a way to report him to Linked In as a fraudulent profile. Never heard from Linked In, but the notes ended. Live and learn.

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  10. Have you linked your WP posts into LinkedIn? I did that for a while, but, sheesh, LinkedIn kept forgetting I’d approved the connection. But, maybe that’s how Jarod found you — your love of broken clocks, Labradors and wine is a natural seque way to sports flooring. (Maybe it’s flooring turned into a sport? A carpenter’s contest.)

    LinkedIn is such the wanna-be social site. I don’t think I’ve ever gained a drop of benefit from having had an account (three actually, got them before they realized my netdonyms were not real people). it’s basically full of everyone I “used” to work for, like a digital trail of broken dreams. “Hi, this is Ben. Yeah, we worked together on that nifty crypto-project that got cancelled fifteen years ago. I know, right? Had we not gotten cancelled we’d all be millionaires by now. Anyway…” “Uh, gee thanks, Ben. Thanks for reminding me of one of the many failures I’ve endured in my life.”

    LinkedIn, beg-off and die, won’t you?

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    • Yes, I’m linked to it, although for today’s post, I severed the connection. I’ve never understood the purpose of LinkedIn, to be honest. It’s only function seems to be to try and get you to buy the Premium package so that you can see all those mysterious strangers who are viewing your profile. But now that those mysterious strangers can slide into my DMs with their bizarre offers, I think I’ll just delete my profile altogether. The only good thing to ever come out of it was a couple of blog posts!

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  13. My favorite LinkedIn feature is the automatic responses you can send when someone updates their employment status. Here’s a very generic, very impersonal exchange between me and my father using this feature:

    Dad: Congrats on your new position at ____!
    Me: Thanks, ____. Hope all’s well.

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  14. I used to have to cold call people and companies for ads in a bridal magazine. Such as aluminum siding companies.

    Provider of Quality, Long-Lasting Aluminum Siding: *long pause* “You’re calling from where?”

    Yes, it was hard not to laugh!

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  17. Some folks consider gambling a “sport”, and he was probably floored by your profile, so he gambled that you’d take the bait.

    My LinkedIn profile clearly says “Retired” at the top of it and has for years, but I still get the occasional headhunter. Maybe they want to turn me into an AI robot.

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  19. Strange. Now I know why I gave up on Linkedin. Maybe Jarod read about your slippery rug problem when playing with Atlas. He can deck your house out with rubbery sports flooring and no more rug problem. Atlas would love it!

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