LinkedIn endorsements from strangers are weird.

I don't know a lot about LinkedIn. I know what it wants to be and I know that a lot of the older generation who refuse to use things such as Facebook and Twitter are on it, despite it being awfully similar and likely less useful, but I don't know anything more detailed than that. Nor do I know the inner workings of the mind of a successful business networker, which brings me to the main crux of my point:

Why the hell do strangers endorse me on LinkedIn for stuff I am really good at but they've never seen me be really good at because we've never worked together, hence them being strangers?

This isn't normally a question I lose sleep over, but last night it was. At around 2:30am I got an email through on my phone which meant a little green light started flashing really bloody brightly and illuminated the rest of my room like some sort of pathetic attempt at a rave. 'Woop, woop. Dat's the sound of losing sleep.'

The real criminals are the C-O-P.

I did my best impression of an alive, alert human being as I reached over the side of my bed to grab for the phone, but too out of it to actually open my eyes I ended up grabbing a book by Carl Hiaasen instead. As much I love Carl Hiaasen books (and you might too, they're available in all good book stores) it didn't tell me what my email was or prevent the light from flashing. It was only after two more failed attempts that I managed to pick my phone up and discover that the email wasn't the ground breaking, exciting news that I had been hoping for, but was instead a LinkedIn endorsement from someone I've never spoken to before.

I get the idea of endorsements in general. They're a nice, easy way for someone to say 'Job well done,' and when you receive one from someone you know, someone you've done work for or someone you've spent time working with they're lovely. They give you a warm fuzzy feeling inside that makes you think that the 4k you spent on your Masters degree (have I mentioned I've got one of those?) was worth it. But when you get one from a total stranger, someone you only accepted as a LinkedIn connection because you desperately want to get to the stage where it just says '500+', you have to wonder why they're bothering. Are they hoping I will blindly endorse them back? Do they want me to do work for them and are buttering me up beforehand? Do they just like clicking buttons?

It's probably the latter. I effing love button clicking too. But in the future, LinkedIn unknowns, send me over an email. We'll chat, we'll arrange coffee, we'll do actual work together and then you can endorse me all you like and leave me safe in the knowledge that I earned it.

And if you are going to do it randomly...

Don't you dare do it at 2:30am. I'll FLIP MY LID.