Okay, not really a normal question but I have to ask it anyway: am I worthy of Linkedin? Do I rate enough to put my name out there and make a claim that I am worth knowing for your personal/professional gain? I’m in a quandary.

It started off rather innocently, I received an email from a school related group that wanted to add me to their contacts on the “social networking site” LinkedIn – why? I really can’t say. But I was game. Why not?! (I said to myself) How hard can it be? What’s the big deal?!

It wasn’t difficult to set up a profile, much the same as Facebook, the only challenge came when I had to designate my “occupation”. Hmmm…I searched the given list. Nope… Nope… And nope. They didn’t have “homemaker” (a term that I truly loathe but am forced to check for lack of another more appealing choice on most questionnaires, including our tax return) nor did they have “domestic goddess” or “imagination engineer” or “independent inventor” or my true calling of  “creative force of nature” – all terms that I feel come close to describing my daily occupation. For that matter, I guess I could have checked “executive assistant” or “professional planner” if you figure in all of the calendars, events and appointments that I am expected to remember and/or record onto our family calendar. Not to mention the millions of tasks that I perform for a small conglomerate that depends upon me for their lives to run smoothly on a daily basis.

So I panicked. Yes, panicked, in front of a laptop as if it were judging me for not having a “real” profession. Hmph! I decided to choose an occupation that I know I could do, and had even dabbled in somewhat, but just hadn’t been been paid for as of yet:

“Independent Writing and Editing Professional”.

I am independent for the most part, if you ask anyone who knows me they would most likely agree that I am of an independent mindset. Writing I have dabbled in from the time we were living in Germany and I took on the assignment of co-travel writer, as well as Kid’s Club activities chair which required an updated article for our monthly newsletter (it was published monthly, so that does count doesn’t it?) leading me up to this point of writing for a blog that is maybe read by 3 people. Still, I am writing, right? It’s not the readership it’s the work that goes into it.

As for the “editing” part I tended to stretch the idea a bit with my true past career as a typesetter and proofreader. To this day it drives me insane to find typos in any printed material – especially the newspaper! Ugh! Plus, during that era of my life I was a professional in my profession, so that should count for something now.

So, I am an “independent writing and editing professional” when all is said and done. Take that Linkedin!

Now…I think I need to update my Facebook profile…