Time for Another Round of Guilt-Induced LinkedIn Endorsements

Last time this happened, I let it get up to about eleven or so endorsements from friends until I finally succumbed to massive guilt over my lack of reciprocity and endorsed them back.
This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.

2013-06-10-LinkedInbutton.jpg

Oh, hey, according to this automatically-generated email, congratulations are in order, I guess. Because another one of my LinkedIn connections has endorsed me in various categories of skill and expertise!

Last time this happened, I let it get up to about eleven or so endorsements from friends until I finally succumbed to massive guilt over my lack of reciprocity and endorsed them back. And it wasn't easy, either, because you have to hunt down the individual profiles and figure out what categories you feel like endorsing them in and everything. Let's face it, you may know some people well enough to know that you can recommend them for public speaking or financial management, but whether or not they're competent in Excel, let alone why the hell Excel is even turning up next to their stupid names in the first place...well, this is a judgment call I don't always feel entirely comfortable making. Would you?

Now, another damn crop of endorsements is coming in! It's up to around eight or nine at the moment, and my co-dependence is brimming to the surface like the fat globules in chicken stock. And listen, Charles, buddy, I can't tell you how nice it was of you to endorse me. Just the fact that you think I have any skills or expertise at all, let alone ones that might be of some use to anyone in the job market, well that just warms my heart. And Nicole, really, I am so touched to think that you would speak highly of my abilities, especially since we left things on what I had assumed were pretty unpleasant terms. Darnell, I can't even believe you remembered I had experience with plasma physics, so it sure was an indication of your largesse when you included it as one of my skills. All of you folks, just seeing that you took the time to select me as worthy of some praise, well, it sure fills me with shame at putting off returning your altruistic kindness for about eight stinking months now.

Yes, it looks like it's time for another round of guilt-induced LinkedIn endorsements.

After this, though, I can't vouch for how well I will follow through. Maybe if LinkedIn let us post funny cat memes, or play hashtag games where you replace words in movie titles with the word 'bacon,' I might be more inclined to log on there and slog through a hundred profiles wondering whether or not I remember if you are any good at risk management or Linux. I love you and thank you from the bottom of my heart for endorsing me, but I just don't know how much more I have to offer on the back-end. Of course, if you're reading this and have become offended, I suppose I could soon experience a rather precipitous drop-off in those aforementioned automatically-generated emails informing me of your generosity. Come to think of it, let's make a deal: you keep the endorsements coming, and I'll commit to returning the favor whenever the guilt becomes so overpowering as to force me to suck it up and endorse you back. Sounds fair to me.

James Napoli is an author and humorist. More of his comedy content for the Web can be found here.

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot