Work, Grief and Social Media Platforms

One of my favorite phrases is “If it can’t be used for evil, it’s not a superpower.” I use this quote often when talking about improvisation. The practice that allows you to collaborate with agility and resilience can also be used to elegantly gaslight and con. Similarly, social media can be simultaneously described as a hell hole and a medium by which kindness, justice and social good can be amplified without the need of money or clout. 

When our daughter, Nora, was diagnosed with stage four cancer in August of 2018, we were able to tap into the innate goodness of social media. We shared our journey on Caring Bridge, building a community of support that became not only “good to have,” but an essential part of our caregiving experience. The Go Fund Me page we started brought a level of financial support that allowed us to solely focus on caring for Nora and not worry about the mounting medical bills. Posts on Facebook and Twitter created an unbelievable flurry of #TeamNora posts from an ever growing army of friends, strangers and celebrities: from Tina Fey to Hillary Clinton, Oprah Winfrey to Stephen Colbert, Anthony Rizzo to Daniel Radcliffe.

When we lost Nora on August 1, 2019, our ability to share our grief journey on Caring Bridge, Facebook and Twitter became a part of our healing process. We were able to share the most impossible feelings of suffering and loss and, in return, receive messages of shared pain from so many who have walked the same sad path as our family.

For the most part, I didn’t share much of our journey with Nora on LinkedIn. From my perspective, unlike Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn is not a place for individuals to share their non work-related issues. While I’m eager to share my political outrage on other social media sites, LinkedIn just isn’t the space for that conversation. Likewise, our cancer journey on the LinkedIn platform didn’t seem - what’s the word, appropriate?

As I’m typing this, I’m having mixed feelings about my thinking then and now. In my field of work, I talk about the need to bring your authentic self to work; I talk about the need to recognize suffering in the workplace; I talk about the corrosive effects of the thing we call work/life balance: a lie upon a myth upon a boondoggle. 

Like most things, there is an element of nuance that we have to accept and explore when it comes to the various ways we communicate in the spaces we are communicating in. The daily posts on Nora’s care or, even more so, in the wake of her passing, were definitely “appropriate” for other social media sites: they really weren’t “appropriate” for LinkedIn.

Had I more time or need or interest, there was definitely a way I could have shared some of our journey on this platform: a weekly or monthly update? Something tied to how we were handling our work in the face of this overwhelming diagnosis, treatment and aftermath. In fact, I think more of this kind of posting could be leveraged to great effect on LinkedIn. This would help humanize the mindset around work and workplaces. For myself, I just didn’t have the energy or time. This sort of health crisis creates a kind of scarcity that is simply unimaginable.

So why am I writing about this now? A feature of grief, I’m discovering, is a kind of liberating disintegration of one’s filter. Not that I didn’t speak my mind before, but our loss is so great that it makes one both increasingly vocal about the things we care about and unusually candid in the face of another’s insensitivity, negligence or greed.

I tend to connect with anyone who wishes to connect on the LinkedIn platform - which is not true of my practices on the other social media sites. In the past, when a new connection contacts me right away about setting up a time to talk, I understood that they were going to try to sell me something so I either wouldn’t respond or I’d find some quick excuse not to. Since Nora passed away, I felt the need to be more honest. For some reason, I’ve had a flurry of new connections and a handful of them have done the soft sales pitch to “have a quick chat.” My response is this: “I’m just recently back to work after the death of my child, I’m happy to connect on this platform but I am not looking to be sold to. If your offer to get together is about some amazing collaboration opportunity or a genuine interest in my work, let’s talk. If it’s about getting me to buy something, I ask that you respect my time and don’t pursue this conversation.”

Primarily, I receive a message that says, “I am so sorry for your loss and you are in my prayers.” And that’s it. They don’t follow up.

But I have had a handful of individuals respond with a similar sentiment, only to then come in with another pitch for their professional services. In one case (this happened this morning, thus my need to write about it), I sent a very clear message to a recent connection one week ago. In his response, he expressed his condolences and laid in a second soft pitch. I politely responded that I did not have the space to have this conversation.

Not only did a follow up 2 more times to pitch me on his services, he was completely ignorant about my professional background. This guy was pitching me on how he could help me get a spot to speak at a TEDx conference and also help me craft my talk. Since my LinkedIn profile has video from the TEDx conferences I have already spoken at, not to mention the fact that I’m paid a very nice to sum to speak at corporations and conferences all over the world, you would think that the level of effort he was putting in to try to make me a client would have led him to at least do a cursory search on my profile.

I don’t know if his intent is one bred of ignorance or desperation. My filter came off and my response was: “Dude, I have already spoken at 4 TEDx conferences and am a professional paid public speaker; I’m a published author who does local and national media almost every week while hosting a weekly podcast for WGN Radio and The Second City. I also told you my daughter died 60 days ago and I didn’t want to be sold to. And here you are, pitching me again. Please look in a mirror and take account of what kind of human being you are. Please do better.”

Honestly, we all have to do better. We have to read the room we’re in. We have to listen when people are telling us who they are and what they need or what they want. We have to be responsible to each other - at work and out of work; in person and on social media - whatever platform we’re on. We have to slow it down and take a breath and make sure we’re not treating each other as a commodity. We should do this for each other regardless of whether we are healthy and happy or hurting and sad. 

But we should be much for gentle with the folks who are hurting and sad. And my experience in losing my incredibly smart and kind 17 year old daughter, is that I’m not the only one who is grieving in this world, in this work. Many of you have your own pain and we have to find a better way of talking about that with a kind of meaning and integrity that will lighten our burden, in this world and in our work. 

#TeamNoraForever