Today on LinkedIn I received a couple shining recommendations! The problem…..I have never met the people that recommended me, and I really don’t have any expertise in the areas in which they claimed I was an expert. I suspect they offered this professional olive branch in the hope I might reciprocate, and offer phony recommendations for people I don’t know.

And so goes the web…… largely a made-up world of fake news, fictitious people, and faux facts.

Now that’s not to say I am anti-LinkedIn.  I think as a networking site it has a lot of interesting things going for it.  And I suspect that at least half of the information you read on it is at least partially true.   So how does that calculation work?  1/2 times 1/3rd?  Carry the zero.  Anyway…

I did discover something really fun you can do if you are interested in writing recommendations.  As I learned LinkedIn does not monitor whether or not your recommendations have any basis in reality, so I recommended a few of my contacts for the skills “I hoped they would someday possess”.  And note – these are all real categories available from LinkedIn’s database.  Try it out:

I endorsed my friend, an attorney, for his skills in:

1. Geriatric Psychiatry
2. Reptiles
3. SketchUp (not sure what this is, but it sounded interesting)
4. Derivatives

I recommended the woman who I do not know, but chose to recommend me, for the following talents:

1. Nostro Reconcilliation (again I am drawing a blank on what this might be)
2. Liquid Penetrant Testing (sounds scientific and strangely dirty)
3. Dog Grooming
4. Zumba

If you really don’t like someone, LinkedIn even offers quite a few nefarious categories, including:

1. Sex Discrimination
2. False Advertising
3. Impotence (Ow – don’t really want this one on my resume)