Rude!

CEG
CEG
Jul 27, 2017 · 4 min read

Time for a rant on one of my biggest pet peeves. If you do not strongly believe that one should NOT do an introduction without first asking the person if they have the time/willingness/energy to follow up, stop reading now. This goes beyond being an opinion for me. I feel strongly enough to evangelize it, so your contrary opinion doesn’t matter to me. Also, as a point of reference, I have a pretty specific niche and talk about it a lot, so when people hear someone needing some kind of help even tangentially related to my niche, they hit me up. Often like this. And it pisses me off.

Today on LinkedIn:

Line by line, here is why I am so annoyed.

1) “Long time no see”: It’s been over a year, so it is no surprise that you don’t know that I am thisclose to going on maternity leave and my time is really strained as is. I am going to use it as my out, but if I were not about to go on leave, I would have to figure out some other way out of this. I am not particularly worried about a negative response, but a positive response means that you might do this again.

2) “CCed”: so, now I am responding to you (who I hardly know) and someone that I do not know at all. Why would you do this? It would have been so easy for you to write to me and ask if you can do an intro, but instead you just did the intro. I feel guilty for using my maternity leave as an out because I don’t want people to think that I am pulling back (I am not. In fact, my complete lack of time is because I am on top of everything full force to ensure a strong transition), but even if I explained that to you and your friend, you will hear “lady things. . . women are not professional.”

3) “Given your background and connections”: I have an incredible resumé and an excellent professional network. Both of those have taken years of hard work and trust building. Our loose relationship does not give you access, and it certainly does not extend to your friend that I don’t know.

4) “Great resource for him”: Right, but what is he to me? There is 0 value proposition for me to meet him.

5) “leads a lot of”: Try just “leads” because that is what I do. There is not a single partner effort in Latin America at my company that I am not 100% involved with.

6) “boss and a blast”: thanks, but this is a professional connection and I am not up for going out to cocktails. This is something you might tell him as an aside, but putting it in the intro belittles my professional side.

Now to his friend’s response

7) “great to be introduced”: For you, not for me. I am hoping that you will tell me why I should be happy to be introduced to you. Please tell me!

8) “heading South”: I can already tell that you are a tool. Spanish? Portuguese? Any specific target market? Or are you just some white guy that thinks LATAM is a single market? Nope!

9) “as many people as possible who have expertise”: Is this because you have none? Based on your response, I believe that to be true. You are planning on opening a business in a place where you have no knowledge, expertise, or friends. Where did this confidence come from? I am tempted to troll you in my response to find out what kind of analysis you have done to decide this is your next move. At this point, I may accept the meeting so that I can explain to people I trust how not to fail.

10) “if you’re open to it”: such a dud move. I appreciate the caveat, but can’t imagine you will think highly of me if I demure. And, since you bullheadedly enter into the market, you are someone who might randomly be a liability in the future for me. I was not open to meeting you in the first place. Now that I have, I feel like I need to be nice.

11) “next week or two”: I like that there is no rush. Maybe we will just keep missing each other, and then I will be like “oops! Had a kid, can’t talk for another year or so!” Perhaps I don’t have to bring up my maternity leave.

12) “something”: there is still nothing in this for me. Coffee? Lunch? Honestly, if there is no motivation to meeting you, you can create one by buying me something. I may not be particularly interested in meeting with you, but I eat lunch every day and if you are going to buy it, then I might work you into my schedule more easily.

I am glad I wrote this out. I have more clarity. I may take this meeting just to see how the other half lives. What must it be like to have a business plan based on something you know nothing about?

Maybe I will tell you, dear reader!

Written by

CEG

Lots of feelings these days.

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