LinkedIn Culture Needs to Change

I remember when I first got into the big city of Seattle and had a sales job which a good man offered to me because I chatted with him on a bus. I did one hundred cold calls a day, and the feeling in my gut was like when you want to vomit on an empty stomach. Ninety percent of the calls, if not more, went to voicemail. Even today, for a call I am nervous to make, I tell myself, “It’s probably just going to go to voicemail.” Why? Because lots of people don’t want to deal with a stranger, and they are insecure, and they like to have total control over the person before they’ll encounter them. Also some people just happen to miss the call.

A friend of mine in sales for Amazon had a coworker jump off the roof and kill himself while he was working. I remember I would go on my lunch break to the stair well and look out the window at the Puget Sound, at people free and sailing on there, and I would weep. The concrete buildings blocked most of the view.

When I walked around the city, I tried to talk to people because I was an insecure young man trying to learn some basic people skills. I started to get a feeling for when they thought I was selling them something. They would close themselves off. Some others were just closed off for no reason at all. I didn’t understand why that was until I started dressing nicer and looking meaner (I was tired from working three jobs, one through the night, with a two hour round trip bus commute; which is when I slept). Then the homeless folk would talk to me. They did all kinds of crazy things to try and convince me to give them money. I looked like a working man. That was when I realized the way social manipulation works on the other end of things, and I started also to realize why I couldn’t quite apply all the sales tactics I learned.

Being Normal

I don’t think I ever learned to be normal until I was out in the country for a year. What is normal? Some people will tell you that it’s not a good idea to be normal, and what they are usually talking about is that city-culture. Normal is when you act a little weird, but it’s sincere, and you change over the course of the day according to whatever is happening to you. In the morning, maybe you’re a little more focused and “professional”. In the evening, maybe you’re a little loose and fun. In the afternoon, maybe you are tired, and you just don’t want to deal with people.

City-culture is different. City-culture, or corporate automatonism, is when you act exactly the same all the time. You have a certain jargon you know that simulates emotions, and you communicate in such a way that makes the best use of marketing techniques and buzzwords to actually say nothing to rock the boat. It is when the polite, careful way of acting which everyone normal adopts in a new situation, becomes the permanent condition. Not only that, but this way of acting seeps into an entire environment so that everyone adopts it and enforces it. If you act a little out-there, you are rejected.

It is a feminine sort of antibody that operates in order to protect the culture from outsiders. It is something that came about when women entered the workforce and particularly when they started succeeding there. Hard-driving, controlling sorts of women create it, and it drives out both opinionated, passionate men, as well as sensitive, thoughtful women.

This is the culture of LinkedIn.

The Problem with the Culture

The problem is the suicide rate.

The plus side of this culture is apparent. You do not have any outliers, you do not have any surprises, you do not have anything going particularly wrong. If someone is going to cause problems, they are quickly identified and eliminated. This is the office-politics paradigm, and those who play the game well get promotions and swiftly find themselves into middle-management. They relegate all their eccentricities to the off-hours so that their soul doesn’t show at the workplace, and God forbid they ever bring up religion or politics. Once they get into middle-management, the hours and dedication involved drives out their soul completely. It goes from one hiding place to another until it has nowhere else to go, and there it is squeezed.

Try playing the game Don’t Get Fired available on mobile. The last time I played it is when I was homeless because the bankers don’t like a business owner, and I had to hold onto my job no matter what, while my wife had a miscarriage and I buried my son’s dead body in a generous stranger’s back yard; my children acted out every day and looked for me and couldn’t find me. I held onto the job long enough to get back into a house.

Seattle is the saddest city [https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/seattle-still-the-nations-saddest-large-metro-area-survey-shows/]. It has a huge suicide rate. Its culture is just like Linkedin.

The Alternative

The alternative is a warm culture. Not everyone is trying to sell to you, but even if they are, what does it matter? Salesmen need to stop trying to trick and manipulate people, granted. I just had one do that to me a few minutes ago. He told me I’m not serious about moving my business forward because I do not want to invest in his SEO services. He is from a certain coast in India. Fine, I don’t mind. I told him, “Alright, well, sorry I offended you, sir. God bless.” And I even did it without a biting tone.

How did I do that? Only because I’ve gone through so many similar experiences that it doesn’t really bother me anymore. Doing sales still bothers me, because there is something unnatural about going out and pretending like you’re welcome everywhere. It is an unfortunate and difficult thing that has to be done because of the disordered nature of our society, where everyone needs to make massive amounts of money every month just to survive, and most everybody has all the material goods they need. So you have to justify your existence. It’s no different than what the employee does when the boss is around, if we’re being honest.

Why am I saying all that? Because I understand that it’s unfair that you encounter salesmen everywhere you go, and everyone wants your money, or wants to harm your relationship with your boss, or whatever makes you keep the gate closed. I get it. There’s nothing wrong with saying no to folks. What I recommend is just being nice about it, even if they aren’t. And if you can’t be nice about it, that’s alright, too. It just takes a bit of practice, and probably God is sending you these experiences to grow your virtues, anyways.

Let’s be warm to each other. In a small town, or in a church, when I walk in and say, “Hey, I’m starting a new business,” or “Hey, I am trying to grow my practice,” or what have you, you know what people say to me? They say, “Ah man, I don’t know anybody needs that service. Sorry.” And I might say, “Well, can you think a little longer? I mean, these types of people really need the service, and you probably haven’t thought of them.” I’ve got a sense for when I’ve worn out my welcome, and I usually give up way before that.

In Conclusion

I am sorry if the last part of this was a little meandering. My children are going pretty wild in the background. Hopefully you all get the point. The main thing is to remember that all of us, even regardless of our politics and religion, are trying to provide for human souls to live happily. I’ve got children, you’ve got a mother, whatever. Some people have nobody, and they need somebody. As a salesman, I was a friend to a lot of those kinds of people. I haven’t stopped doing that.

God bless you! Pray for me. It is difficult trying to raise a family nowadays.