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Day 63 - No One Wants To Work Anymore

I had the misfortune tonight of reading an article that made me feel a lot of things.

The article in question is this: Job scams on trusted sites like LinkedIn and ZipRecruiter are preying on workers' desperation

Now, this article mostly made me mad, and that's because...

First - the human experience is already hard enough. Maybe I belong in a simpler time, but before you even count things like credit scores and some people thinking cilantro tastes like soap, the human experience is hard enough. Sometimes people are born nearsighted and are bad at keeping track of their glasses and wake up in the morning and have no idea where they are. As an example. Other, more real problems exist, too. Those things include trying to provide for yourself and your family (whatever or whoever that family looks like), and making friends or close relationships. And while you're unemployed? It's hard to do both, either, anything.

Job scams prey on those vulnerable feelings, and I just don't understand why. I don't understand why someone would actively want to make another person's life harder.

This is not to say I'm a good person. Let's not get it twisted. I get hangry and snap. I am very judgmental. I hate folding laundry, and I absolutely do not understand poetry, but I would never actively try to make someone's life worse. (Disclaimer: if I ever have made your life worse, please know it was never with intent to do so.)

I could also go on a whole rant about why I don't understand the current Republican party, because oh my god, just give everyone health care, but that might be for a different blog post.

Second, and more importantly - this article made the absolutely insane take LinkedIn is a "trustworthy" or "reliable" site.

Excuse me? Are we experiencing the same LinkedIn? LinkedIn is absolute trash. It is impossible to get it to stay in a chronological timeline, so sometimes you see posts and events from 3 weeks ago, and that's just the start.

I post every single day, or at least as often as I write this blog, and do you know how much engagement my posts get? Single digits. But apparently, I'm supposed to be posting and engaging frequently because, according to the NYS DOL, job seekers are hired once every 8 minutes on LinkedIn.

How? How is that possible? How is this a real number? Are these people in the room with us? Because I'm just out here accepting connection requests from literally anyone these days because I've been told that having only 300ish connections isn't enough. I should want to get my virtual resume out in front of as many people as possible.

Sure, I guess if companies want to use it as an unofficial applicant pool and fact checker that none of us agreed to, that's fine. Chalk it up to additional reasons why capitalism sucks.

But more importantly, LinkedIn is all bots these days. I'm going to post this tonight, use the hashtag #OpenToWork, and I'm going to get 3-6 people I don't know who like my post right away, and then they're all going to send me connection requests. The majority of these bots will be "recruiters" who are either freelancing or not currently employed, but if I choose to accept any of their invites, they'll send me a message immediately asking me what positions I'm looking for because they have roles they're looking to fill within their company.

What?

Now we're going to throw in fake job postings on LinkedIn, in addition to fake recruiters sending you emails and scammers requesting money for equipment?

No thank you.

Forget the job search. How much does laying in a hammock while filled with existential dread pay? Because I'm qualified for that.

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