I'm Neurotic, Just Like My Buddies Hannibal and Sheldon

I swear to God there was once a time in my life when I was well-adjusted.  The more I write this blog, and the more I actually read it, the clearer it becomes that I’m a total mess.  If I didn’t know me, and all I knew of me was what I read on this blog, my neurotic personality characteristics would have me right up there as a cross between my favourite movie character, Hannibal Lecter, and my favourite TV character, Sheldon Cooper from the Big Bang Theory.  How in the hell did that happen?

                                            Sheldon Cooper, my neurotic hero                                               

According to this blog, I’m dependent on a mobile device, without which I have no idea how I’d function; I’m addicted to a flashing red light that I can feel blinking in my sleep; I don’t like people talking to me on airplanes; I certainly don’t like being touched by people I haven’t touched first; and I’m not opposed to pushing down old ladies so I can be the first to get onto a plane.  With this list of qualities, can you imagine who EHarmony.ca would match me up with?

You guessed it...My E-Harmony match:  They don't come more bat-shit crazy than this one

My latest neurotic addiction, and when I say latest, I mean in the last year or so, is a prolific little social networking tool called Linkedin.  I know you’ve heard of it.  It is a significant part of my work-life.  It’s always open on my desktop, and it’s always launched on my blackberry.  I know in real time what’s going on with my entire network, which has now grown to approximately 372 people.  I don’t think that’s a lot in Linkedin terms, but the odd part, when I really think about it, is that I know every single one of those contacts.  I’m addicted to it, but not to the point where I would regularly add random people I haven’t encountered in real life.

My daughter Haley mocks me because she says I have 12 facebook friends.  In reality, I have about 77, which is perfect for me (She has 210 Facebook friends).  She’s pretty unimpressed when I tell her that I have over 350 Linkedin connections.  I am as attached to Linkedin as she is to Facebook.  I could live without Facebook.  If it went down for a week, I probably wouldn’t notice, but if Linkedin goes down for maintenance for 8 minutes in the middle of the day, it’s a major inconvenience.  I use it as my address book.  When possible, I check out people before I meet them, and if not, then I check them out after I’ve met them.  If I’m interviewing someone, Linkedin is the first place I go after I look at the resume.  When I have been job searching myself, it’s the main tool I use to find opportunities and to network.  

The most amazing thing to me is that the 372 people that I know on Linkedin can connect me to 84,000 people, and those 84,000 people connect me to 5,524,300.  To think in high school they all said I’d never be popular.  I can’t even properly process 5,524,300 people.  Based on a quick Google search, that means that I am three degrees separated from a number of people equal to the population of Finland.  Or Denmark.  It’s staggering.  According to the people at Linkedin, I had over eight thousand people join my network today.  Today alone, I am now connected to eight thousand more people than I was yesterday.  That’s the approximate population of some country called Tuvalu, a Polynesian island country I hadn’t heard of until five minutes ago.  It’s staggering.

Tuvalu...I may want to visit, now that I'm connected to the entire population.

I look at Linkedin because I like to see who’s looking at me.  I’m interested to see who clicked on my profile, and I always wonder what made them do it?  Why me, and why today?  What were they doing that caused them to find my profile.  I recently had the husband of one of the people I work with click on my profile.  “Curious,” I thought to myself, then wondered what the hell the person I work with was saying about me that caused her husband to want to check me out.  How do you bring that up without sounding like a completely anal nutcase?  Well, go back to the top and re-read.  I’ve become a completely anal nutcase.

I'm so neurotic now I'm never more than one step away from going all Gary Busey on you

I hate it when I look at my profile and it says that an ‘Anonymous Linkedin User’ checked me out.  How is it helpful for me to know that?  And who are you, Anonymous?  And why do you think you need to hide?  It even makes you more of a creepy stalker when you’re hiding behind the ‘Anonymous Linkedin User’ profile name.  Apparently you pay extra for that.  

Either a Toronto Maple Leafs fan, or an anonymous Linkedin User...Either way, you have nothing to be proud of

It’s also bothersome when I look at my profile and it says ‘Someone from ABC Company,’ and you click on the link and you get a list of ten people from that company who ‘may’ have checked you out.  How are you supposed to know who’s stalking you.  Well, the nice folks at Linkedin have solved that problem for you, pay extra and you get to find out.   You have no idea how often I’ve thought of ponying up the cash to get a look at my full list.  So far, shockingly, I’ve resisted, but I’m fairly certain that I’m going to break one day.  Just wait, Linkedin, you’ll get my money soon.

What good is this to anybody?

I live in fear that one day, it’s all going to go away.  That some evil venture capital firm is going to buy into Linkedin, and they’re going to want to generate more revenue, and decide to hold my connections hostage until I start paying a monthly fee to use the service.  I can’t help the feeling that the social networking sites are like drug dealers…giving us just enough access to get us addicted and dependent, then whammo, monthly subscription fees. 

"Hey man, gimme 10 connections..."

For me, Linkedin is a kind of study in human behavior.  I’m always interested to see if my predictions are correct, based on the behavior of my contacts.  When they start adding contacts like crazy, are they getting ready to start a job search?  More often than not, when a contact adds a bunch of new connections, within a couple of months, you see a new job title, and a new company name come across the virtual wire.  Sometimes I see someone I haven’t spoken to in years check me out, and I count the days til I get a call or an email with an offer to sell consulting or other services.  It’s an amazing tool.

Could ole' Sigmund predict behaviour using Linkedin clues?

I would like to meet the people at Linkedin who create the algorithms for the “Jobs I May Be Interested In” feature.  Occasionally the jobs they serve me up are pretty appropriate, but the likelihood of me ever applying for a job as the Vice President and Chief Anti Money Laundering Officer for any company is slim to zip.  But I’m flattered they thought of me.

Somewhere in here it tells Linkedin that I want a job in the Anti Money Laundering industry.

I don’t know if 372 connections is a good number of people to be connected to when you’re in your forties (common, my early forties) after you’ve been in the working world for over twenty years.  Is it bad to want to have 500 connections?  Linkedin stops counting when you hit 500, and you get the magic “Over 500 Connections” designation.  I want that one.  It’s like winning a virtual prize in a virtual world.   Next thing you know, I’ll be starting a Dungeons and Dragons club.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  Penny...Penny...Penny...