Remember the so-called humble brag? You know the sort of thing: “I felt really embarrassed when the headteacher offered me the job before he’d even seen the other candidates.” It seems almost quaint these days.
I’ve seen similar announecments to that example, but devoid of even trying to come across as humble: “I did so well in the interview that the Headteacher offered me the job before he’d interviewed the other candidates.” (So much for equal opportunities, eh?)
Or the brag not-so-thinly described as sharing: “I am happy to share that I have been appointed the Chief Cheese at…”. I suppose, being generous, that some of these announcements are genuine, by which I mean they are intended to convey information, not intended as a boast.
This is interesting to me for two reasons. Firstly, many years ago, before the world-wide web, in the days of bulletin boards, I was persuaded by a fellow educator to put in my signature that I was now head of Computing at such and such a school. It wasn’t even an announcement, more like what we know today as the email signature. It read\;
Terry Freedman
Head of Computing, Gasworks Lane High School.
You will admit that that is much lower key than my current email signature, which is:
--
Terry Freedman
Latest newsletter: Eclecticism - Literature, life, writing, education https://terryfreedman.substack.com
Shameless self-promotion coming up...
Upcoming courses:
Writing for Blogs; Creative Writing Using Constraints; Writing for Blogs
"The course was excellent. I wish the course was longer and I would love to have continued studying with Terry."
Loads more testimonials here!
Boy, did I get a diatribe from some disgruntled person ranting that the forum was for providing information. Funnily enough, that’s what I thought I was doing.
The second reason I find it interesting is that I am not sure how necessary it is. I will never forget, when I resigned from what I call my last proper job, I handed my notice in in the morning, having told my line manager of my intentioon to do so. I then held a team meeting in order to tell my colleagues I had done that. And then I beetled off to a conference in the afternoon. As soon as I walked into the hall, someone rushed up to me and said, “I hear you’ve resigned from your job in order to go independent. I can offer you work.”
My point is that news travels fast.
Getting back to bragging, on severalk occasioons I’ve seen page-length advertisments praising someone’s work — by the person concerned! And without troubling to put the word “Advertisement” as the title. Astonishing behaviour. Mind you, something not too dissimilar was tried many years ago by a company putting on a conference. Someone from the organisation left a comment on one of my articles about conferences. That “comment” was, in fact, a 500-word advert for the conference. As I had moderation enabled I just deleted it and marked it as spam, which is what it was.
But even that pales into insignificance compared to the announcement I came across that read something like: “It was great to meet up with a few people recently and discuss how brilliant I am”
Wow. I thought that was a parody. In fact, I’m still not entirely convinced that it wasn’t.
Do such exercises in self-aggrandisement work? When I need a builder, a plumber or electrician I seek word-of-mouth referrals from friends, family and neighbours. I don’t look for the advertisement with the largest quantity of self-praise. (I was always told as a child that self-praise is no recommendation.)
I do think that even in these days of social media and all the noise generated therein, if you’re really good at what you do then work will come to you through word-of-mouth recommendations — at least to some extent.
But even it doesn’t, if you’re an introvert like me then probably self-glorification doesn’t come easily to you. That’s why my email signature is a bit of a self-jibe — “shameless self-promotion”. And yes, it is pretty transparent, and yes, I am a bit of a hypocrite. But unlike some people, I’ve never claimed to be perfect!