There are people who swear by the social media site LinkedIn.
I am not one of those people.
Yes, I have a LinkedIn profile. I haven’t updated it in ages. I don’t care. It’s done nothing for me.
Oh wait, I should clarify that. It’s brought me plenty of spam.
Spam from people who want to connect with my LinkedIn network as if it would help advance their careers or something.
Trust me. I’ve gotten zombie “I’d like to add you to my LinkedIn network” posts from people who, if they were on fire, I wouldn’t spit on them. These are people who have done me dirty in the past. Slandered my good name on the Internet. Broken my heart. Screwed me in business projects. Stiffed me for payments for work completed.
Over the weekend … I received the final straw.
I was contacted by Brian Ross.
Brian Ross used to be the editor of Minorleaguenews.com, an online fanzine that thought it was the next Sports Illustrated or ESPN or even Barstool Sports. It had plans on providing coverage to the entire world of minor league competition.
Ten years ago, I blogged about my experiences with minorleaguenews.com. And in looking back at that blog post I wrote so long ago, I realized how much Brian Ross did me dirty. He rewrote my submissions and added his own commentary in the text, so that it would look as if I had written a confrontational article when none was intended. He took months to pay – if he paid at all. And he ran timely news articles with the speed of Orange Cassidy in a lucha libre trios match. (There you are, folks, my first AEW reference)
MinorLeagueNews.com folded in 2000, basically over the use of copyrighted photos on the site. That was it. And I thought I would never hear of or here from Brian Ross ever again.
Then I received a message from LinkedIn. Brian Ross wanted me to join his LinkedIn channel.
Why? Was he finally going to get around to paying me for old articles? Was he going to apologize for rewriting my published articles with his own asides and commentary? Was the sun going to rise in the west?
No. I’m done. I don’t need LinkedIn to “pretend” to be a service to help me get ahead in the corporate world. All LinkedIn has ever done for me is to have people who have hurt me in the past find a way to stalk me and hassle me. I don’t need that. It’s not worth my time any more.
So today I did something I should have done ten years ago.
I deleted my LinkedIn account.
I mean, let’s face it. It wasn’t doing anything for me, so why should I keep it?
Oh yeah, it was doing something for me. It was bringing me more spam than a weekend at the Hormel factory.
Buh-bye, LinkedIn. It was knowing you.
Notice I didn’t say it was “nice” knowing you.
Chuck The Writer 
I would like to delete mine but can’t figure out how.
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