[Edits 3/17/15. Edits 3/19/15.]
.
A few notes. Some of this may
seem "a bit much," but it will let those interested understand more why my blog
posts aren’t compatible with on-the-fly, young-American smartphone
consciousness, but instead may strike some as about as fleet-footed and party-ready
as a bulldozer.
But here, as elsewhere, you may
be interested to know that the rationale for action may seem “involved” at
first, but shows there was more method than expected in the apparent madness.
No more face looking like “I’m unemployed”
Several mornings ago, on March
12, I finally shaved off my beard. It took work. There were about three to four
weeks of whiskers, and in some past year or two, I had already cut off a fairly
full beard and knew the process was tough, but for me this was the toughest
effort yet.
(Strangely, getting a senior
discount [see this entry] because of
my appearance was happening decreasingly often, almost as if the coming of
spring made me look less pathetic and needing a tiny money break. Arctic
February was really the prime time for the senior discount for me. Lately, I
wondered if I looked less like “an old man needing a kindly break on the cost
of his elixir-coffee” and more like a schnook who was merely
less-than-fully-employed [which latter, of course, was closer to the truth].)
As I could only remove sections
of beard at a time (and it took three already-used disposable razors to do it),
I went through stages (as I struggled over a whisker-stained sink, and with inconvenient
distribution of shaving cream) of looking alternatively like (1) someone who
could turn up in a religious venue of the type presided over by bearded sorts
and plausibly look like someone who could lead the meeting; (2) a magician, or
vendor (with foreign accent and American-jovial manner) serving some steaming-hot
delight from a street-side food cart; and, eventually, (3) more like myself.
(Take your pick as to which looked best by many people’s standards.)
But now (March 12), beard newly off, my
lower face looked smaller than before. With my beard, I got used to seeing a
chunkier jawline (not that that
looked so very great). Now I looked somewhat as if I’d been through a period of
being sick, or as if I’d just had an operation connected to my face. Either of
which, in a way, was true. [Update 3/19/15: I still got a discount on coffee at a McDonald's yesterday; no beard, so it must have been the seedy winter hat. That hat is a true useful tool--a coupon for coffee discounts in the winter.]
Warm-weather blog plans
I’ve gotten away from posting
signposts about blog plans, to some extent. But for those interested, probably starting in May, I will do
a “Summer Lite” review series again, on films ordinarily
requiring little thought to watch, and hopefully meaning a lot of fun. For
instance, I’m thinking of doing all three of the Austin Powers films.
Connecting with me
For weeks, I’ve debated and
formulated ideas toward saying the following (apart from the issue of my two
blogs not allowing comments): To those who have some notion of connecting with
me in other social media, a little helpful note:
Facebook. I have a
Facebook page, which I try to use as little as possible. I restrict my
“footprint” there—in number of “friends,” and stuff I do there—so much that I
don’t even include my sister among the “friends” (which she has puzzled about,
understandably enough), though she’s a “connection” with me on LinkedIn (where
she is definitely less active). Regarding whomever, I have my hands full enough
of other stuff (online or otherwise), so I keep a tight lid on my Facebook
activity. Meanwhile, among others I don’t know, there are some who have known
me for years (their familiar faces turn up in the list of people suggested for
new “friending”) who, it seems, Facebook’s algorithms are apt to recommend—and
whether or not these people are (in their own right) really interested, please
do not take it personally I don’t “friend” you. Or if I consider it at some
point, the decision process may be complex and delayed.
LinkedIn. A similar thing
(with more solid rationale) can be said about my LinkedIn page, which I am much
more interested in. On occasion I “connect” with new people there; but
especially with LinkedIn, which I take much more seriously than Facebook, my
selection process for connections is careful. But also, the reason why I
connect with some and not others can be (to me) so much a weird judgment call
that a given instance can seem to violate my own usual considerations (and,
really, strongly held preferences) on that sort of thing. In short, some of my
LinkedIn connections are people I don’t really know well, while others who may
want to connect with me I have known well in the past. Does connecting with
relative unknowns make sense? It is a very peculiar area.
For now, a few general pointers:
* Don’t take it personally if I
don’t connect with you, or am slow to. I try to limit some activity on
LinkedIn, but not as radically as on Facebook. Regarding LinkedIn mainly, I am
rather active in second-guessing why I have already connected with some people, but the original reason I
connected with them at all is that—according somewhat with the general (and
rather naïve) notion in social media that connecting “can only mean good”—I
decided in specific instances there was some good rationale to it (and I won’t be
more specific here).
* Some people I have connected
with, I have thought I could dis-connect with. Not likely, but possible.
* More generally, I come from a
time and region of the professional world where who you “allied” with, grew to
know, grew to depend on, etc., was very much a function of prior footwork, hard
efforts in scouting up new work, sheer chance, developing trust over time, the
sheer good graces of relevant individuals, and the generally “far less
connected” world we had then. (I am
talking about various kinds of traditional publishing here, not the different
animal of medical promotions. And I am not talking about the arena of trade
books, which for me [especially when I wrote to editors directly, not using a literary agent] always involved different ways of “pitching myself” and
working with potential “patrons,” and was always an area very walled-off from
my more hands-on, walkabout publishing work.)
It was all like being a bear
that knew where to find the good grub by its sheer dogged, filthy footwork—meaning
(in the bear’s case) blisters, getting slammed on the head by dumpster lids,
getting shooed away by broom-wielding restaurant owners, etc. Meanwhile, if a
bear could use social media to find where all to get “eats” (maybe limited by
the bear's ability to access a delivery) (with this media function like that real-life
app, advertised on TV, that now allows you to order takeout via a smartphone),
the bear situation for us humans might be a little hairier than it is now. As
it is, the bears amble around, and get into things only as their four shanks,
instincts, and energy, and blind chance, allow.
(The way nice work opportunities
could come up in the old days I will illustrate, hopefully not long from now,
in a blog entry—probably under the “Running with the bulls” heading—that will
look at my experience of working for several months, in-house, on a huge
project at one major educational publisher back in the 1990s. I think people
will find this entry interesting, in part for its having a possible bit of a
topical relevance today, but it will take some time for me to get fully
together. Also, I got interested in doing this because I found some old letters
related to this gig, and these give a good insight into regional differences among
editorial workers—such as [some corrections here] a man with whom I worked, [a low-level communications professor] from
Alaska, who would move to Kansas [his family was originally from Washington State, I think], with him in 1997-98 getting used to some
of the ways of New Jersey.)
More specifically, in the 1990s,
as continued explanation for my modern “reserve”: I scouted up work in very dogged
fashion (usually by mail)—and (on a different matter) I didn’t go through my
publishing travails in the 1990s looking to make enemies (I think I was good at
developing work skills on a remarkably rocky road). Nevertheless, as a general
matter (and I wasn’t alone in discovering this), you eventually found that some
people became totally “on the outs” with you, either from their side or from
your side, whether or not for solidly good reasons (or good reasons considered
years later). Today, in this online age, when I see that some of the people who, a decade or more ago, made sharply angled accusations of me, or
otherwise became quite alienated from me, now turn up in my fulsome “People
You May Know” list on LinkedIn, I have to wonder, is this appearance due to their
merely checking me (my LinkedIn page) out (nosily or not)? Or are LinkedIn’s
algorithms apt to “be stupid” in fishing out these people as potential
connections when, last I knew anything about them (and not that LinkedIn could
know this), they had written me off as unspeakably beyond the pale? [Added 3/19/15: Two good examples, so you see I'm not full of BS: One "name card," as I like to call it, has been in for many months, of Maddy C., co-owner of All American Crafts. I worked there 1990-91; last had any sort of potential-pay business with them, re a freelance article, in about 1994 or 1995. My experience there through 1991 ended up scalding and highly informative; it's been many years, and bygones are generally bygones there. And I never had any issue with Maddy; in fact, her husband, one owner, offered to write me a letter of reference, which was not at all likely to come from Cam, who was responsible for my leaving. But I haven't dealt with AAC for roughly 20 years. So it's odd if Maddy is checking out my LinkedIn stuff, but not intolerable of course, and not "threatening" in any way. But curious, and not at all something that would have happened in the 1990s. Second example: a name card for Maria Siano, whom I did a blog entry on in spring 2013, was in my big PYMK list for a long time, and it disappeared after my blog entry appeared. My feelings about her are somewhat ambivalent but generally positive. Things got weird with her in about 2000, after in 1999 I left North Jersey Newspapers, where we worked together. Would she likely link with me? Probably not. Was she snooping on my LinkedIn page? Possibly. Problem? Not necessarily. But again, ethically a little odd compared to pre-Internet business realities and mores.]
(This may seem like a fussy point, but to me it seems quite lacking in good taste and good sense the way social media algorithms in LinkedIn can suggest connections between people where, pre-2005-or-so, these people could well have not wanted to give each other the time of day after a decisively-alienating work brouhaha. And don’t ask
about forgiveness. In general, it’s not relevant in the publishing industry,
especially in the examples of other workers, usually managers, that I’ve seen—again,
the area of the media I’m talking about is that of hands-on, craft-is-important,
walk-in publishing work, not trade books or medical promotions.)
Along this dimension alone, the
social media “ethos” of “Only connect!”
is ghastly-naïve, whether from the side of LinkedIn’s algorithms or (here and
there, among individuals) some people’s expansive connection-mania. It ignores
the reality of such work worlds as the print media, where bitter office
politics shape so much of the ongoing “stage” you’re working on, and can shape
your prospects for getting work in the future.
This is to say nothing of the
fact that those people in certain areas of the media who have several-hundred
connections: Are these connections really close associates of theirs? Could the
seemingly proud holders of the connections borrow money from them (from any of up
to 90-95 percent of them) for lunch on rare days? I would doubt it.
Anyway, most of my LinkedIn
connections (1) I know well in some way, and/or (2) I have had good work
experiences with in the past, and/or (3) I worked with 10 years ago or more. Or
(4) I know them from another past “in the trenches” situation; or (5) they are
family; or (6) they were someone I encountered at a workplace years ago, with
me not working closely with the
person, but the person was willing to connect with me more recently for perhaps
some other reason than our practically being associated today.
In short, my LinkedIn group is
small but (per my will) more able to grow than my Facebook group, and my
criteria for connecting on LinkedIn is a bit thorny (for me) at times, but
usually coherent and something I want to be comfortable with.
Again, don’t take my choice to
connect (or lack thereof) personally.
Twitter. As for not
having a Twitter account (there is/was an account for a “gregorybludwig” that could be found on Google searches, which started in about 2012 and seems to be from me, but which is a fake, not mine, while I haven’t made
an issue of it until now): I can theoretically, believe it or not, post tiny messages (I
already do so on Facebook), but one huge reason I don’t have a Twitter account
is that that platform really requires you to be ready to go online—to respond
to some brushfire, or sudden bubbling-up of wonderfulness tied to your posts—very
quickly (wherever you are), which I can’t practically do.
I’m very selective as to when
I’m online, so I try to make my chances for online business count; and anyway,
in organizing my life right now, limiting my being online is very healthy. It
helps both me and you. So, among other consequences, no Twitter for me.
