I pit douchebags who insist on spewing their political agenda on Linked In

The BBQ Pit
1

So tonight I came across a Linked In post by Mark Cuban praising a black owned business (his own words) that he invested in via Shark Tank and since his investment the business is blowing it out of the water.

Were their words of praise? Of course. But waaaaaay too many of the replies were from white dickheads who blasted the post with the typical conservative triggered white bullcrap: ie why bring race into it? Why cant it just be about the hard work of the entrepreneurs, why divide us by race? etc etc. . . .with no recognition that black business owners are at a statistical disadvantage in America.

Now, on Facebook or Twitter, that may be one thing. But the thing that got me was these dummies posting this hate put their name and company on the comments thread via their profile! Unless they are bots why on God’s Green Earth would you jeopardize your business, reputation or job by getting political on an app designed to promote your business or career?

Then there’s another idiot, who I actually know from the business and is NOT a bot, with his own consultancy, criticizing Biden and promising to teach employers how to recruit workers despite his “handouts”.

I’m a Joe Biden supporter: but I can assure you by looking at my LI profile you would never guess. I hated Donald Trump, but the very last app I would ever use to broadcast my views would be this one. The old saying goes if you introduce politics into your business, guaranteed you will lose 1/2 your customers.

I would never do business with or hire or recruit someone that posted pro-Trump comments on Linked In. I’d even have my doubts about anyone that used this app to post pro-Biden views. Regardless of my political views, I would consider them 1)plain ig-nor-a-mus 2) a liability to my company.

I mean, I guess if you sell guns, pickup trucks, or chewing tobacco, MAYBE this strategy makes sense. Otherwise, how dumb can you be?

Linked In is for business. Stick to that.

2

I too find it very distasteful and stupid for people to post political commentary on LinkedIn. I belong there solely to establish contacts and keep up with former work associates. When I see making these comments I imagine that someday in the future when they are looking for work or are seeking new business people will come across these comments and not give them a job or new business. It’s 2021 for gods sake, haven’t these people figured out that this will follow them for a lifetime?

On another note I used to work for a company that only cared about reaching the top 10% of the market. They sold (and still do) sell expensive middle of the road audio equipment. that is reliable and looks trendy. They wanted the lower 90% to aspire to buy their product and that when they did it would feel special to them and something they could show off to their friends. But even they didn’t go out of their way to offend customers they weren’t seeking.

3

Is THAT what it’s for?

But I’m not IN business. Why the fuck do I keep getting invitations to join the damn thing?

4

I have not been on Linked In for years. Are there people on there who say that theirs is a ‘Christian’ business? Because that is the same shit in a different pile.

5

It’s for professional networking. Anyone who has a job or might want a job in the future or do any kind of public activities would be well advised to have some kind of Linked In presence. In my journalism career, if someone purported to be some kind of expert in any field I expected them to have some kind of Linked In presence that let me view their educational and professional history with links to the entities they were connected with. Anyone looking for clients would also be expected to have a Linked In page, as well as any applicant for a white collar job of any kind. If I’m in one of these situations and there’s no Linked In page for me to look up, it seems fishy. It’s basically a public resume.

6

Several of our employees have committed career suicide by going on LinkedIn to post “combative” comments about the company’s posts about our commitment to Diversity & Inclusion and Environmental Sustainability. Then go off about how their free speech rights are being violated.

Going on LinkedIn and criticizing your employers posts is pretty much the same as an employee after their shift grabbing a megaphone in a store, standing under the sign that says “Great Products at Great Prices” and yelling about how crap the prices are, and how shoddy the merchandise is.

But since last June dozens of people that I know of have done this. People with college degrees. People with budgetary authority in the millions.

Never mind the crap they post on internal message boards.

7

I used to think exactly this, but I’ve had quite a few female colleagues and friends tell me they are not on LinkedIn due to security concerns.

I actually brought this up at a Women’s Resource Group event after someone on this board related her experience on LinkedIn. Most of the women there said it is at best a balancing act.

A lot of my acquaintances’ LinkedIn pages are either full of exaggeration or outright lies, or reveal that when they were working with me they claimed to have educational backgrounds they actually didn’t. It’s one thing to lie on your resume about which school you attended and what degree you got. It’s another to put it online where your classmates can see that you’ve replaced your Podunk Community College AS degree with a BA from Prestige University! But some people don’t seem to care.

8

This is correct. But for good or ill, LinkedIn has also evolved from an online Rolodex of professional contacts to a social media site, similar to Facebook. Which means that it has created an entire ecosystem of entities looking to monetize content. The easiest way to do that is to post controversial articles that draws comments.

9

Exactly. It has moved beyond the original online Rolodex idea and has some of the trappings of “traditional” social media. People will use that if they find it useful, and some people seem to do so.

10

My guess is that those on the right just assume you are a Biden supporter (Marxist, in their vernacular) unless you post information to the contrary (either overtly or covertly).

Again, unless you openly praise the Great Orange One, you obviously are not a fan.

This is why you see this stuff on professional sites. It is a way to force the users to take a side, anywhere and everywhere. It’s all part of the whole divide and conquer playbook. In addition, it keeps the White Supremacy’s message in social media, which tends to normalize their beliefs.

I’m hoping that the White Supremacy message turns into bad business, again. Of course, it’s a political movement, not a moral or philosophical one, so it will take a major trouncing in a national election to get it to fade, which is why the 2022 mid-terms are so important for the entire nation, not just the “battleground states.”

11

Funny you should post this; not more than a few days ago I found myself disgusted by a flurry of political crap on LinkedIn.

I mean, we’re all careful about avoiding political arguments at work, aren’t we? I know I am. LinkedIn is a work forum.

12

Same reason some Capitol rioters were wearing their business attire: they aren’t capable of considering the ramifications.

13

I stay very politically neutral on LinkedIn. I don’t get the people that don’t. Several years ago I had a podcast and the people that stole it from me spent more time talking shit about trump on the podcast Facebook page then promoting the podcast. It was one of many things I sued them over because they were costing my business by posting inappropriately and 80% of the country doesn’t want to work with someone of opposite political views I don’t want to eliminate 40% either way.

14

Not a LinkedIn story, but similar.

In my town, we have one music store. The owner did a lot of ranting about libtards and other RW shit on FaceBook. His personal page, not for the store. He got an awful lot of blowback about it, including a significant reduction in business at the store. He subsequently apologized, and it was forgotten. (His wife does the day to day running of the store, and she’s super cool. I have absolutely no idea about her politics.)

I was just gobsmacked that he would do that. So many reasons not to! Musicians tend to be pretty liberal, and that’s his customer base. We can just as easily order anything he sells online, in fact we can get even MORE stuff online, so wouldn’t you be careful to keep your already precarious customer base happy with you?

I know that in my own personal social media posting, I seldom if ever post anything that would impact my business. What are people thinking sometimes?

Kind of an aside: It seems that the RW is very willing to bring up their political beliefs. They won’t shut up about it. In fact, it seems to pop up as a non sequitur quite often. A normal conversation will suddenly have a RW talking point or rant about liberals thrown in. Drives me nuts. I see so many bumper stickers, shirts, ghastly homemade signs, etc, with RW anger than from the other side. Even when they were in power.

15

For the first 28 years of my working life, I might have had five overtly political discussions at work, none of which were started by me. In the last year, it became pretty routine for idiots to take potshots at BLM, unions, “socialists” and “woke” people.

Didn’t help that our company sponsored an event to facilitate “difficult conversations” about race and it was kicked off be our department head talking about how racist the Japanese are toward white people.

16

Neither I, nor any of my coworkers, have any Linked in presence. We are all professionals.

No one we have hired recently has had a Linked In presence.

Your experiences are not everyone’s.

17

What would you rather be. The guy who didn’t have one when someone expected it. Or the the guy who had one when someone didn’t expect it? It’s not exactly hard to set up.

18

I’ll be the guy that doesn’t have one, and doesn’t need one. Just like everyone I work with.

19

I have two ask, what profession are you and all of your coworkers in?

20

Same here. But then I’ve been at a great job for 29 years and am not going to leave it. I’ll be retiring in a few years.