Day Three Hundred Eight

Thursday

Jan212021

For a very long time now, there has been this weird thing where I seemingly know everyone. It's wild, particularly because I am so introverted as to be considered anti-social and basically, I don't like to go places or do things. And yet, a web search of random Pittsburgh people will often lead to a few degrees of separation.

For example, literally every person I've interviewed for a job in the past two years has been one or two degrees of separation from me. This person used to work with that person or so-and-so is friends with so-and-so. My favorite was the time I was interviewing someone for a position and he was a GIANT JACKASS, but I knew that before he got there because I had unfollowed him on Twitter years ago after he mansplained something to me even though I was legit an expert on the topic. He was so lost in his self-absorbed world during the interview that he never bothered to actually look at me and realize that we had met several times.

He didn't get the job, by the way. Don't be a sexist jerk on Twitter. It will come back to haunt you, especially if you continue your condescending ways when we're face-to-face.

I explain this whole thing with the fact that Pittsburgh is the smallest big city possible. It is nuts how very small Pittsburgh is, frankly. The topic recently came up at work because I have a few open positions to fill and the first two candidates sent my way were ... people I know. The candidates have no idea where I work and certainly had no clue that I'm the hiring manager, so it's pure coincidence wrapped in the smallness of Pittsburgh.

But my "Pittsburgh is such a small place" explanation wasn't quite enough for a few people. And, thus, I ended up thinking more about it and hahahahahahalol ... it's because of Twitter and blogging. THAT is how I know so many people. Forever and ever ago, when those things were new, the internet world was truly very small. All of the Pittsburgh Twitter and blogging people knew each other and talked to each other and even hung out together. It's completely different now, but back in the day? We were all connected.

And all of us had "day jobs."

There are certainly a few people who opted to go into social media as a full-time job, but those jobs didn't exist 15 years ago. And so we were nurses and lawyers, financial analysts and product managers, project managers and marketing professionals, restaurant owners and IT experts, entertainers and musicians ... the list goes on and on. Think of an industry or a major employer in Pittsburgh and I probably can name someone that matches and I met them years and years ago online.

But you know what I never managed to collect in my network? A friend who owns a boat. I'm still looking for that key piece of the puzzle. It needs to happen before the COVID cloud lifts because how great does a day floating around on the rivers with a bunch of friends sound?

I am on a mission.