LinkedIn

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One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.'"

- Bertrand Russell

A guilty pleasure. A window seat on the unfolding collective nervous breakdown of our times.

Being the sort of person who likes Ed Wood movies I love LinkedIn, despite its immutable hatefulness. Its sole virtue is the sparkling clarity with which it confirms every prejudice a cynic could possibly confect about the world of free enterprise and the men and women who inhabit it.

Whether modestly disclosing industry awards one has “won” for representing a prolific advertiser in the hosting organisation’s magazine, ejaculating words of insincere delight at disclosure of those awards from those in your network, virtue signalling your profound commitment to cosmopolitan equality and flexible working, brazenly brown-nosing LinkedIn “influencers” for their feeblest posts — those lionising Mohammad El-Erian's photos from his plane window of the sea, we’re looking at you — or merely articulating your own pat advice on job interview technique, posting recycled logical conundrums from Facebook that “only a genius” could solve or desperately hunting for candidates — any candidates — to fill a paralegal role in one of the Emirates (fluency in Arabic preferable!), none of the terabytes put out by denizens of LinkedIn has a tenth of the merit, interest or distraction value of other social networks — yet, yet, yet — somehow the sum of LinkedIn’s mealy-mouthed parts is strangely compelling.

After all, however idiotic LinkedIn is, the Jolly Contrarian still publishes some of its snitty ramblings there. Do as I say, not as I do, folks.

Job descriptions on LinkedIn

A guide to LinkedIn profile descriptions

Title	What it means
Thought leader	Twat.
Digital prophet	Thought leader.
Web developer	Invented the Internet.
Derivatives onboarding specialist	School leaver from Gdansk, seeking fortune in Krakow.
Serial entrepreneur	Unemployable fantasist.
Angel investor	Recently, belatedly, made redundant from an middle management role.
Founder and CEO...	Recently made redundant from an operations role. Now contracting.
Privileged to be leading customer-focussed teams in an exciting network-centric IT services market	Dead-set zero idea what this is even supposed to mean, but sounds disingenuous and obviously a twat.
Executive coach	Recently made redundant from an operations role. Unable to find contracting work.
Intrapreneur	Shortly to be embarking on a new career as an executive coach but hasn't realised it yet.
Seeking new opportunities in ...	Possessed of admirable candour but no common sense at all. A weak gazelle.
Experienced financial services professional	Recently made redundant from an operations role. In process of resigning themselves to a life of contracting, but not quite cool with it yet.
Board-level legal advisor	Recently laid off from a law firm after a long and defiant career in knowledge management. Still in denial about employment prospects but coming round to signing up for Axiom.
Social media advisor	(1) obsessed with twitter / instagram to the point of believing it a bona-fide commercial utility. (2) (Ergo) A twat.
Best-selling author of...	Greetings dear kind sir/madam I self publish my book i sincerely pray it will change your life please review it on Amazon. I salute you thanks you!!! (sic )
Director of talent acquisition	In personnel.
Director of diversity and inclusion	In personnel. Cosmopolitan-looking and adept at posting shameless canonical corporate speak on LinkedIn
Global Head of Client Experience, HR Business Partnering & Leadership, Learning, Talent and Culture, COO	In personnel. See also “Thought leader”. And “COO”, for that matter.
Digital Thought and Program Leader running large end-to-end digital programs across multiple geographies.	Got laid off from a service-line role in operations at Fuji Bank. Now Founder and CEO of a Tech start-up.
Experienced senior operations manager with proven project management track record.	Yet, here you are, “interested to hear of any opportunities in project management. Will even consider contracting.”