Linked-In, Looked-Around, Logged-Off

Several years ago, I joined the online service Linked-In. Everyone else was doing it, so I figured why not jump off the same bridge?

For those of you not familiar with Linked-In, it's basically a semi-functional, constantly changing, over-promised/under-delivered social network for business people. Think Facebook, only without videos of dancing babies and talking dogs, and absolutely no Candy Crush Saga. Linked-In enables you to keep up with all the people you worked with years ago, all the people you work with today, and all the people you wish you had worked with over the course of your career instead of all those other people you're linked to.

Not only are everyone's business accomplishments listed out for you to see when you feel so inclined, Linked-In is kind enough to send you emails -- sometimes five a day -- letting you know that Sally Whatshername got another promotion and Willy Givakrap now has three professional certification acronyms after his name.

There are passive sales pitches of all kinds from every self-employed (read "unemployed" or "unemployable") would-be consultant with a laptop and a copy of "Business Plans for Dummies" at his breakfast table. There are total strangers requesting linkage to you for no other reason than to make themselves appear more important than they really are. There are associations and groups that will want to count you on their rolls without offering you much in return except off-topic discussion forums moderated by the Linked-In equivalent of a crazy cat lady. There are people with one-thousand, one-hundred and seventeen "connections" who post comments every three hours and others with seven "connections" who started filling out their profiles in 2007 and never managed to get back around to completing them.

But it isn't simply a one-way street. There's more to it than posting your resume and spouting your accomplishments. Thanks to the recommendations feature, you can help others spout about their accomplishments.

Presently, I have three recommendations on my profile, only one of which I didn't have to beg for. I would have more recommendations, but I'm not really one for reference-swapping with people I don't really know. Not that I mind someone lying to give me a leg up, just so long as they don't expect me to lie about them. I do have a phony baloney reputation to protect, after all.

The latest viral enhancement to Linked-In is the Endorsement feature. It's perfect for people who want to say something nice about someone else, but don't want to take the time to put that sentiment into words. Kind of like buying a Hallmark card, only with a click of a button you can verify that one of your "connections" is an expert in some random field of knowledge.

I have been receiving a substantial number of endorsements lately. There are endorsements for my sales acumen, my crazy-mad revenue management skills, my in-depth knowledge of hotels, my vast motel sales experience, and many more. Some of these endorsements came from people who might even know what they're talking about!

Just today, a person with whom I haven't worked for years endorsed me for a skill she could not possibly know I have in a field of expertise that has nothing to do with any position I've ever held at any job I've ever worked. Mixed emotions flooded over me when my third Linked-In email of the day announced her vouching for my noteworthy, and previously imperceptible, abilities. I thought long and hard over whether or not I should I accept the endorsement.

Oh, what the heck. Like anyone will ever try to verify my hang-gliding skills...



© 2013 Mark Feggeler

Lighting Up at the Pentagon

I've seen the Pentagon plenty of times from the outside, peeking down at it from the overpass while traveling sixty miles per hour on my way to or from the National Mall. It's an impressive building. Five sides, you know.

From the outside at high speeds in heavy traffic, the building, like many other things passed by at high speeds, becomes a footnote to a longer journey. Without the benefit of a close-up view to admire it's size and simple architecture, it is just another monument. It may stand for something but visually it stands out no different than the Washington Monument or the Jefferson Memorial as a mass of concrete in urban sprawl.

Traveling to the Pentagon today, I must admit that I was much too absorbed in what I needed to accomplish to properly focus on the importance of the place to which I was going.

Did I have my rack cards, flyers, business cards, directories, displays and two forms of ID? Would the bungee cords I bought on the way from North Carolina be long enough to secure my belongings to the handcart I also purchased during the trip? Would the handcart fit through the turnstiles at the Metro? Does my SmartPass have enough money left on it from my previous trip to DC to last two round trips from Pentagon City Mall?

Even standing outside the building on line for the security screening I remained unfazed. We got through, holding up the line with all of our boxes loaded with propaganda, stood on line to get our visitor badges -- "Hey, why does yours have your name and picture on it but mine just says 'non-escorted visitor?'" -- and made our way to the courtyard.

Along the way were only a few easy-to-miss reminders of the purpose and importance of the building, like an American flag made of painted subway tiles positioned just inside the doors leading outside, or the hooded emergency escape masks packed into what first looked like oversize fire extinguisher cases.

The interior of the building has a sterile bustling feel to it, cleaner than a hospital and busier than an airport. At the same time, I couldn't help notice how genuinely friendly everyone seemed to be. When lost, we picked a woman at random and she changed route to show us the way, happily wishing us good luck even though she had no idea why we were there. Other people in sharp business wear or khaki military garb smiled and nodded. Almost everyone makes eye contact at the Pentagon.

I admit I thought the courtyard would be more impressive. Walking the short distance from one side to the other to set up our booth for the travel fair took only two minutes. A white tent long enough for twenty six-foot tables all draped with white linens stood most of the length of one of the five connecting walkways surrounding the courtyard. Within a few hot minutes, our table was set and we started receiving the first visitors to our booth.

Roughly 25,000 people work at the Pentagon, approximately one quarter of the population of the town in which I grew up, all crammed into a pretty small area each day. We visited with so many different kinds of people it was difficult to remember we were standing in the center of our nation's military command post. A career soldier would follow behind a contractor in an expensive suit, who followed a government employee from the secretarial pool, who followed a janitor, who followed a security guard with his K-9 patrol, who followed a visiting retiree with his grandchildren... You get the idea.

I'm not sure if the people responsible for the travel fair thought they were doing us a favor by placing the tent where it was, because the end result was our having a captive audience of a special kind of Pentagon employee during the event: Smokers.

The tent housing all of the booths was placed along the stretch of walkway reserved for smokers and, oddly enough, ran the exact length of the smoking section. I initially thought this a great idea. In order to indulge-- and there are quite a few smokers at the Pentagon -- people would be forced to stand close to the displays. Unfortunately, this also meant the entire population of Pentagon smokers was standing only a few yards away from us, chain-smoking themselves and second-hand chain-smoking the travel fair vendors to death.

You would think the fact of our fair taking place outside would have diminished the impact. It didn't.

Smoke wafted into our display area and became trapped under the tent's peaked roof. Several of us kept wondering why our throats felt so raw and our eyes were so irritated. By the end of the fair, I was just so ready to get away from cancer alley that any attempt to admire the Pentagon again as we exited was lost among thoughts of showering away the ashes.

Tomorrow we go in again for another round. If the weather forecast holds up, we could find ourselves lonely as rain will keep people from venturing out to our little tent. However, since it tends to have the same effect on the smokers, we might live a little longer if it rains.



ⓒ 2010 Mark Feggeler

Are People Crazier These Days?

It seems to come in groupings, maybe in threes, like celebrities dying.

Come on, you know! Gary Coleman died. Dennis Hopper died. Now who's going to round out the set? Somewhere in California or New York is an ailing or elderly celebrity scared sh-tless he or she might make headlines in the pushing-up-daisies section of the gossip mags.

It's the same with crazy people. You run into one, then you run into another, so you know not to let your guard down because somewhere soon the third is coming around a corner with a bucket full of unmedicated lunacy saved up just for you.

Without getting into too much detail -- by which I mean enough detail to get me fired, sued, or bitch-slapped -- in the past two months I have experienced some serious crazy.

No, I didn't leave out a word or misspell "craziness." You see, sometimes behavior is so crazy that the word "crazy" ceases to be an adjective and becomes a noun. In severe cases, it can even become a proper noun. Oh, it may sound like an adjective in conversation but what you can't see is the capitalization of the word as it precedes the name of a seriously deranged person. For instance: "I just saw Crazy Pam talking to imaginary squirrels."

Last month the crazy I experienced was work-related.

A fellow employee laid claim to an account already owned and worked by me. I stopped it. The fellow employee then sent six emails within the course of three hours, copying everyone and everyone's supervisor, explaining in wondrous detail how I was not being a team player, how I was actually the one somehow stealing an account I had owned for two years, and how I had somehow desecrated some non-existent client-salesperson relationship by calling my own client. You know, just recalling those kinds of details makes my head hurt again. I can't even begin to imagine the kind of tortured neurons and synapse relays in a brain that can dream up this kind of stuff and then convince itself it's all true. Serious crazy!

Now, in the past few days, we have experienced even more bizarre behavior. It's really too fresh and too difficult to explain without giving away who and what it is about to too many people, so I will simply say that my poor lovely wife has been dealing with something ridiculous from someone ridiculous. The worst part is she hasn't yet seen the worst part. While my lovely wife is sleeping soundly in our bed, she has no idea that a new email chock full of angry crazy is waiting to greet her in the morning.

Email is an amazing tool but it also can serve as an electronic jet stream carrying crazy from one computer to another at lightning speed. What people suffering from serious crazy don't realize is that emails are not temporary, transient bursts of digital magic that spit out their vitriol only to poof into nothingness the moment they are opened and read. A gem of a crazy email can, and often will, be forwarded.

I'm not exactly sure how my lovely wife will react in the morning when she reads the email full of angry crazy. However, after fifteen years of marriage, I have a pretty good idea.

So, now, the only thing left to do is wait for the next round of serious crazy to raise its multi-personalitied head. With any luck, I'll be busy dreaming up my own version of crazy when it comes calling.


ⓒ 2010 Mark Feggeler

I Am A Dancing Clown

A man danced on the sidewalk along a busy city street dressed in a green robe too cheaply made to be described as flowing, a green crown made of foam with spires pointing straight out from his head, and a green torch held high in his left hand. Ratty sneakers and black plastic sunglasses did not necessarily complete the look but there was no mistaking his intent to look like the Statue of Liberty.

He waved at the cars as we zoomed passed, most of the motorists oblivious to or ignoring him. I waved back because I felt sorry for the guy. As a salesman, I deal with a healthy amount of rejection every week. This poor fellow was averaging one rejection every 1.2 seconds at high speeds. Come on, people, throw him a little love! He has a plastic torch in his hand, not a gun. All he's there to do is hold his little advertisement and wish you a pleasant day. Plus, you're going by at 45 miles per hour. Would it kill you to wave at him?

Think of him as subsidized entertainment -- a dancing clown paid to spread a little cheer. You wave back to the clowns at the circus when they goof and joke and pratfall for your entertainment don't you? This guy serves the same purpose as a circus clown, only you don't have to pay $29.50 a seat to watch him do his thing. He's got to be regretting the life choices that brought him to this level of employment, so wave at him, already! He probably needs it more than you do.

I also waved back, in part, because waving is fun. It's good for the soul. People don't seem to exchange greetings with passing strangers any more apart from a grunted "Hey" or a mumbled "How are you?" It's like we are embarrassed to acknowledge one another.

I like waving. When someone waves at me and I go by too quickly to return the wave, I feel bad about it. When I wave at people and they miss it, I feel sorry for them. When I wave at someone and they intentionally don't wave back? Well, just see if I give THAT guy another wave! Actually, I probably will. What can I say? I'm a sucker for waving.

So, on that sunny yet cool morning, I waved and went about my day which involved shuttling lunch to an office of 100 people and presenting to them the benefits of doing business with my employer. After arriving and scoping out the space we had to work with, leaving my boss behind to set up the slide show and sodas, I left to pick up the food. Trouble was, picking up the food meant finding a way to squeeze five five-foot subs into my two-door Toyota Echo.

By the time I had the chips, cookies platters, vegetables, condiments, ice, plates, cups, napkins and twenty-five feet of subs crammed in, there was little room left for me. With the driver's seat pulled as far forward as possible without forcing my face into the windshield, I putted slowly back to my client's office.

Along the way I passed the same spot where the Statue of Liberty was still dancing and waving. When he saw my car, packed to bursting and moving slow so as not to topple any of the precariously placed items, he raised his cheap sunglasses and stared in disbelief. Much as I had likely done earlier, he saw, he considered, smiled weakly and waved sympathetically at me in my little clown car.

I can only imagine his thought process. Chances are he was wondering if I was regretting the life choices I had made that had led me to that point...