I’ve been told that my posts are full of anger.
“I only focus on positive things in my blog,” said a friend.
Well, if you find that you need a strong stomach lining to read my posts, feel free to fuck off.
Did I put a gun to your head and asked you to read my crap?
Notice the tiny x at the top right corner of your browser?
Just click that and voilà my blog will disappear and you can go somewhere else and look at pictures of autumn leaves in Japan for all you want.
Recently I was irked – again! – by what I chanced upon on LinkedIn.
How not to be angry?
What got me riled up?
Well, I came across this on a connection’s LinkedIn account; this is a fellow who has the following alphabets after his name: CSW, CSS, FWS, CSP, whatever the fuck they mean and this is what he posted:
“I am humbled to be selected as a wine judge representing Singapore and #TWGF #TWGFriends in Myanmar, alongside big names from around the world in the wine industry. Very thankful for the opportunity. Almost 150 wines to go thru early in the morning. Let’s put my nose and palate to the test.”
Well to be fair, the fellow who posted this is quite an okay fellow, definitely not a blowhard into self-aggrandizement in real life, but I couldn’t help thinking “If you are so humble, why are you bragging?”
That’s not very humbling is it?
And having to go through 150 wines in one morning isn’t really something I look forward to or something to be proud of unless you are announcing to the whole world that you are an alcoholic.
“And the devil did grin, for his darling sin is pride that apes humility.” – Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Dr Daryl Van Tongeren, a psychologist at Hope College in Michigan and lead author of a paper published in the latest issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, said that people who are the most open and willing to cultivate humility might be the ones who need it the least!
How true!
So braggarts thrive!
It could be the LinkedIn culture.
You need to brag on LinkedIn.
Losers with Narcissistic Personality Disorder have finally found a home in LinkedIn!
Not only is LinkedIn a hotbed of braggarts, it has long become a cesspool of stupid bullshitters.
If I am right – and nothing will give me greater satisfaction than being proved wrong on this – this behavior is actually encouraged by LinkedIn.
Search this blog and you’ll find that I’ve said quite a bit about LinkedIn.
A young intern from the US, who once reported to me when I was East Asia Director of Change Leadership at a consulting firm later claimed that she started the Change Leadership practice that I was director of. She blatantly put that fake news down on LinkedIn. My attempt to get her to amend her profile was given the shortest of shrift. She responded with some illogical and incoherent ramblings and then blocked me from LinkedIn.
Ostriches don’t care if their asses catch fire.
One other case: when I was with a globally integrated IT organization, in one particular year, I was appointed to lead my company’s internal think tank.
This was an Asia Pacific role.
Not long later we acquired a consulting firm.
One of the partners in that firm later stated in her CV on LinkedIn that she started that same think tank in Asia Pac.
Now, how’s that possible?
How could she start something that I was already heading before she even came on board?
Hello, do you cunts, mental midgets from the loony-bin, hear yourselves?
I gave her a chance to exonerate herself but she never replied.
Heard she got cancer and might have died.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
What they say about karma may be true after all.
Anyway, the behavior of the two fraudsters above is wrong at so many levels.
What on God’s green earth possessed them to toss in shit that’s absolutely false?
What made them think they could get away with such reprehensible, duplicitous claims?
I have met dogs more intelligent than them.
A percentage of the globally-integrated IT organization’s management comes with dubious track records. The fat cats at Thomas Cook creamed off £47 million in pay and perks in the years before the 178-year-old travel firm collapsed last year – putting over 30,000 jobs in jeopardy and a million travelers stranded.
Chief Executive Peter Fankhauser has taken home £8.4 millon since 2014, including £4.6 million in bonus payments linked to performance.
His predecessor Harriet Green, who ran the firm between 2012 and 2014 and faced controversy over an £80,000/- yearly hotel and travel bill, took home almost £11 million in total pay. In 2015 alone, she received £6.3 million despite only working for two months of that financial year.
Yes, two months. You didn’t read that wrong.
Until a couple of days ago, Harriet Green ran the Asia Pacific operations of IBM. She held the title of CEO and chairman of IBM Asia Pacific for four years.
She once referred to herself as a “landa” which according to her, is a creature combining the fierce qualities of a lion and the placid nature of a panda.
Yup, nothing human indeed.
Abraham Lincoln was supposed to have said “you can fool all of the people some of the time, and you can fool some of the people all of the time; but you can’t fool all the people all the time.”
Those are the bullshitters and leeches and now LinkedIn is suddenly flooded with all kinds of very humble people, the epitome of humility, humility personified. You get the idea.
By the way, my thoughts are completely compatible with that of Pete Ross, author of Building the Elite Athlete, who wrote an excellent article about LinkedIn.
Hardly a day goes by without some retard publicly declaring that they have been “humbled” by an invitation, a promotion, a prize, a successful project, a hit product launch, or a show of employee or customer support that they themselves engineered or a request to “view my verified achievement.”
These humble-braggarts should tone down a little. Especially when “humbled” becomes a synonym for “proud.” Indeed, it doesn’t get any better when the word “humbled” is substituted by the word “honored.” So, you get invited to a seminar and you are honored. Well, you should get out of the house more. Visit the food courts, spend some money, be honored that people sell you food.
So, you get appointed to sit in some powerless but highfalutin committee and you are not only “humbled” but also “proud” – “Hey all, so humbled and proud I was invited to serve in the National Committee for the Eradication of Armpit Hair in Restaurant Food.” Wow! Am I impressed!
Might as well declare that you are a member of the National Geographic Society. Any idiot subscribing to the National Geographic magazine becomes a member of the Society. Surely something humbling and worth being proud of. (I’ve actually seen that in someone’s CV.)
There is something about the faux-bashfulness of the newly crowned that makes me nauseous. It may be the hint of hypocrisy and humbug or the clinging scent of PR soft-soaping. Or it may just be the knowledge that, in many such cases, “humility” comes before a fall.
LinkedIn is basically a social media platform that pretty much no one cares about, no one actually likes, but everyone feels as though they must have an account because if they don’t, they’ll never land that dream job. I have not known of anyone who got himself a real good job because he is on LinkedIn. Often LinkedIn is just the hunting grounds of desperate third-rate head hunters and failed internal recruiters. Of course, LinkedIn denies it is part of social media, it claims to be a site for professional networking, and makes you pay a few hundred bucks for being a member of their “premium” account, which offers nothing very much more than being able to see extra details on those stalkers who check your profile and masturbate to your photo. It’s a total rip-off to pay to be on something that looks and feels like Facebook, which is a major time waster and where losers spend hours to see what glamorous lives some people pretend to be living.
And just like any social media platforms, there are always comedians who will take any chance they can get to self-aggrandize. Go through your LinkedIn feed on any given day, and amongst job postings, news pieces and shared long-winded inconsequential articles, you’ll find a number of super obnoxious habits by this almost shameless group of posers and wannabe “thought leaders” and “influencers.” The site is chocked full of bovine scatology that are so eye roll inducing that makes me want to grab a giant bucket and puke.
“I am the greatest golfer! I just haven’t play yet.” – Muhammad Ali
If you ignore those morons whose profile pictures show their babies or their pet hamsters, you may come across profile pictures of someone holding a microphone, speaking somewhere. Bonus points if it’s one of those headset microphones. These are people with very short dicks, those who feel far too important and influential to just post a head-and-shoulder shot like everyone else. They just have to show everyone what an expert they are because people apparently want to hear what they have to say and they must have a headset mic because their hands must be free for them to gesticulate and to click their PowerPoint slides.
Some will use a picture of themselves as part of a discussion panel. Bonus points for douchery if they say something like “I was honored to be on a panel with such outstanding group of specialists, blah, blah, blah.” How utterly insufferable. This is the worst of the humble brags, because they make it seem like they are so noble and humble, when in reality they’re just trying to show off how well regarded they want people to think they are and how willing they are to share their knowledge. And if they are shown seated next to a dopey Tommy Koh, for example, good for them! The aura of famous and infamous people rubs off, them, flows to them, enhancing their own worth.
Then, there are those who post pictures of themselves imparting something to some obviously clueless people, or conducting training, or talking in front of a class of wide eyed, seemingly mesmerized also-rans. Ah yes, nothing shows off their experience and intelligence like proving that they can actually educate a crowd of people on a thing or two. Bonus points if they try and share an insight, as though we were all waiting with bated breath for their pearls of wisdom. Here’s a hot tip, people do it every day. They’re called teachers.
The job announcement post is another irritating one. No, not just the “I got a job at x company and I’m so excited!” Sure, we can all be happy for that clown. No, I’m talking about the job announcement that’s a frigging doctoral dissertation. “After x years doing y, I believed it was time for a new challenge. I’m so excited to announce I’ll be taking up a position as z. This company does such important work in the field of blah, blah, blah and the department head who will soon be my immediate boss is said to be a future awardee of the Nobel Prize.” Wow, you’re excited to announce? Holy shit, this is mega level douchery. Thanks for informing us, we little nose boogers, of your grand accomplishment and elevation to godhood. As if we actually give a flying fuck.
There’s more:
“Completed my training in [a course that no one has ever heard]! So proud to be among these course mates, including some from America.” Or “Blah, blah, blah conference successfully concluded, that’s a wrap!” Apparently being in a a course attended by Americans increases their marketability exponentially. Don’t forget America is a country that produced Donald Trump.
Ah, anyway, so you actually sat through a course? That’s fantastic! So, you got suckered into spending a couple hundred bucks for a day of sitting down on your fat ass and listening to some charlatan who has certified you as a Project Manager or something. How do you think genuinely qualified professionals who have actually managed mega multinational projects on a global scale for the last 30 years feel? You are now their equal because you have a piece of paper that says so?
“Conceit spoils the finest genius.” – Louisa May Alcott
Then there are those with zilch in their heads and who have absolutely nothing intellectually weighty to say, so they show pictures of book covers presumably of books they are proud to have read or quote some goofy nut spewing obvious shit and acting as though it’s something super deep. “Treat your people well”, “only the paranoid survives”, “think out of the box”, “5G is the future”, “Hong Kong is at a crossroad”, “adjust to new realities” etc. Quoting from books is the apotheosis of their sad empty lives? Wow, thanks for the wisdom there wannabe Chan Chun Sings. Even worse are all the bootlickers and brownnosers clicking “Like” and in the comments telling them how insightful those sage pronouncements are. Here’s a hint: if you’re saying something obvious to anyone whose IQ is a bigger number than their shoe size then, it isn’t insightful.