Linked

I’ve caved. Social networking has got me, at least for the moment. I finally joined facebook last year after my own family started harassing me (my sibilings). And it was, well, not really my cup of tea. I try to get on once a month, but usually it’s longer and I haven’t updated my profile.
But LinkedIn is another story. Again, didn’t really want to engage but had to set up an account a few months back so that I could post a comment to another comment on a blog posting I had at work. Follow all that? Long story short, my name was there but no info. And I’d get a few people who would find me and ask to be linked. I was up to 17 yesterday.



And then I realized that it’s beneficial for me to network better and this is an easy forum. So I took a breather from other work and started asking folks to be linked. Not my favorite thing to do – I’m horrible at hailing cabs. Well, this morning I’m up to 59. And I have to say I’m much more interested in my colleagues (LinkedIn) than old friends and acquaintances (facebook). Don’t know why, maybe because after one or two folks I check to see what they’re up to, I really don’t need to know what someone had for breakfast that day who I can barely remember from high school. Although I do have to say I just stumbled onto messages on my wall the other day of folks wishing me a Happy Birthday – from over a month ago. That was nice.



But LinkedIn is like snooping in a friends medicine cabinet while you’re over for dinner. You break bead with them but you wonder about the other stuff. Turns out that, one, more people remember me than I give them credit for – shouldn’t project there. Just because I have a horrible memory doesn’t mean others do, even if it’s been a few years since we’ve worked together. And two, my goal of targeted connections may have been too high. I was thinking, 500 friends, I don’t think I have 500 friends (I probably do if I really sit down and remember all the different chapters of my life), but 500 colleagues, piece of cake. I mean, look how many emails I’ll get in a given day. My old boss, who is very good at networking and knows everyone, she has “500+” listed. I thought, I can do that. Well, I think I can, but it’ll take more work. I already went through the easy connections from old jobs and school. Now I have to search each person. A little more time intensive. I think for now I’ll just work on cracking three digits for now.



And I even found out that one of the engineers I’m working with on a project went to the same undergrad as I did. I can’t remember if we already figured this out before – slight déjà vous.



Also, I have to post, at lunch today, I was walking back from having lunch on the common with a friend. We were both kefeltzing about our lives but the sun helped put it all in perspective, at least for me. On my way back I’m stuck behind this group of young kids strolling along in front of Macy’s. There’s a new twist on an old style. I really wish I had my cell phone on me, I would have snapped a picture. All the guys were wearing their pants belted below the bum, but above the knees. I really don’t understand the physics of how those things stay on. But you could really tell where the pants were because they were all wearing shorter t-shirts. Regular style instead of the super big, baggy type that would go down to their knees almost. So I got to stare at all these butts in front of me. The layers they had on while working your way up was jeans, belt, about 6” of boxers covering the bum and then the t-shirt started. It took me aback after I realized what I was looking at. Gotta love spring in Beantown!