Prior to publishing my first and thus far only book on amazon, I got into the social media scene for the purpose of shameless and promiscuous self-publicity. I admit freely, FaceBook and LinkedIn pulled me in, Instagram not so much.
With the ongoing war in Ukraine, I now wake up and check people’s opinions on social media. Considering that even the major news channels offer opinions rather than facts, social media is not the worst place to start the day. It is a sad state of affairs for media when direct postings are now more factual than opinions with a twist that we receive from what used to be considered bonafide news channels.
This morning I woke up to a job offer on LinkedIn stating (I mildly paraphrase, the original is in the picture):
If you are a “Ukrainian” PHP Developer, please contact me. I will bring you and your family to Canada, pay for plane tickets for all of you, assist with housing and offer you “guys” a job as PHP developer.
Sounds like a nice offer at the time when Ukraine is in the initial stages of a hostile attack, refugees are escaping and the nation is in flux. But of course, no good deed goes unpunished and there are a number of unexpected, unintended and unforeseen consequences.
The post got a number of thumbs up and positive comments.
I found negative comments more interesting.
Here are some of those:
1. At the top of the list: Why are you offering jobs specifically to Ukrainians what about other countries at war like Syria, Palestine, Kashmir, Afghanistan, etc. why no job offers to those people?
2. Next topic down: Why are you offering jobs to men, don’t you know that men age 18-60 cannot leave Ukraine as they are expected to fight for their nation?
3. Why are you poaching Ukrainian IT talent? They need to stay in Ukraine and use their skills to fight the Russian aggressor.
Since I have nothing better to do, I decided to get into the discussion and frankly while many believe that social media war-fares are a waste of time, I went in with peace and experienced very good results.
1. To the person who made the first comment, I tried to understand their position and we mutually agreed that the issue is not specifically with extending the offer to the Ukrainians, the true issue is with not enough charity existing in the world to help all those in need.
2. The job offer was not specifically for men, there are also women IT professionals who escaped Ukraine with their children and are encouraged to apply. Maybe the word “guys” should be replaced with “y’all” to satisfy woke people reading the word “guy” in a gender specific way as opposed to an all-inclusive way.
3. Posting a job offer on a professional site such as LinkedIn is OK and each individual can make their own decision about pursuing or not pursuing the opportunity. Who are we to expect every individual to be a hero? Individuals can decide if the offer does or does not resonate with them.
There was one response which I appreciated the most and here I am paraphrasing again: I did not realize that we are in a global competition for who is suffering the most? I and my kids have been hiding in a basement for a number of days which does not in any way negate the hardships experienced by a mother with children homeless in some other part of the world.
It is definitely OK to bring attention to various injustices in the world but let’s not take counterproductive steps and disenchant those who mean well and act.
Yes, the original post could read:
If you are a PHP Developer affected by any war or injustice, please contact me. I will bring you and your family to Canada, pay for plane tickets for all of you, assist with visa requirements, housing and offer you pronouns include he (if Ukrainian not between ages 18-60), she and they a job as PHP developer.
I fear that with the current culture we spend more time trying to satisfy woke communication requirements than we spend on meaningful actions.
I was about to donate some items to Goodwill but now I am concerned that I will be publicly bashed because I am not donating them to the Salvation Army. How can I pick one charity over the other? I was about to contribute to the local police fund but I am afraid that I will be publicly bashed for not donating to the fireman fund, Oh! Gosh and how can I donate to the fireman fund if I do not donate to the firewomen fund.
Freeze! I should give up trying to make a positive impact and go back to FaceBook and watch some jumping kittens not the striped ones but the orange ones, Wait! Can I do that without giving equal attention to the black kittens and the white ones and those with spots all over … but what about the dogs the big and the small ones?
I hope that you (all inclusive) get my point.
