The other day, I invited someone to join my LinkedIn network (my profile!). The default message is something along the lines of “since you are someone I trust, I would like to add you to my network.”
The key word is trust. I believe that LinkedIn means in terms of who they are. I trust that that person is actually…that person. A friend, colleague, etc. However, someone at work took that as meaning trustworthiness, reliability, etc. She asked me what she had done to earn my trust, since we had only worked on a few projects.
First, she is working with my group on a few projects now so I do know that she is very diligent and detail-oriented. So far, she seems pretty okay. So it’s not like I based my response to her query on a complete lack of information.
However, it seemed weird that someone would question the invite anyway. This has lots of room for misinterpretation but it felt like I was being accused of “do you really, seriously want me to believe that I have gained your trust…?” kind of snarkiness.
Eh. I’m obviously being sensitive here. I don’t feel anything negative about it, in reality but it was just weird.