LinkedIn From Beyond The Grave!
I get LinkedIn updates all the time. As a social network its goal is to drive more user interaction, which it encourages by frequent short email messages designed to foster FOMO so you log in/open the app and use it. For the most part I skim the briefs and delete them. But one I got last week is still in my inbox because it was eerie.
On its surface the update is prosaic. "Congratulate [Name] on the work anniversary! [Name] is celebrating a 11-year work anniversary." But here's the thing: I know the man, he's a former coworker of mine, and I know he's been dead more than 4 years.
I completely understand how all this happens, BTW. LinkedIn doesn't scour obituary notices or aggressively remove accounts for inactivity. It just keeps on doing what it does. The deceased's widow had/has more important things to do than chase down all his professional associations after his sudden, untimely, and very heart-wrenching passing. Plus, she's not a very tech-oriented person and doesn't use LinkedIn herself AFAICT, so she may have thought she was done when she closed his Facebook account after the funeral. But understanding the moving parts of the system that's asking me to congratulate a dead man on his anniversary of joining the company we both used to work for, doesn't make it any less creepy.
On its surface the update is prosaic. "Congratulate [Name] on the work anniversary! [Name] is celebrating a 11-year work anniversary." But here's the thing: I know the man, he's a former coworker of mine, and I know he's been dead more than 4 years.
I completely understand how all this happens, BTW. LinkedIn doesn't scour obituary notices or aggressively remove accounts for inactivity. It just keeps on doing what it does. The deceased's widow had/has more important things to do than chase down all his professional associations after his sudden, untimely, and very heart-wrenching passing. Plus, she's not a very tech-oriented person and doesn't use LinkedIn herself AFAICT, so she may have thought she was done when she closed his Facebook account after the funeral. But understanding the moving parts of the system that's asking me to congratulate a dead man on his anniversary of joining the company we both used to work for, doesn't make it any less creepy.