When I was hired as Assistant Professor 6 years ago, I was given a huge stack of professional visiting cards. I only used about 6 of them before they had to be tossed and substituted with the new ones that feature the title of Associate Professor.
I feel like the very existence of the cards is a hint that I don’t socialize enough. The old cards and the new cards are sitting there, as a mute reproach of my incapacity to network.
I have never had business cards. Although if I wanted them I am pretty sure I would have to pay for my own like everything else here.
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I do hand them out sometimes in Spain or Argentina. Rarely do I use them in the States.
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I’ve been out of the workforce for years now, so I have to ask: Are physical business cards still a big deal in networking, when just about everybody is interconnected digitally today?
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What is networking?
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Networking is making many friendly contacts in your field that hopefully one day you will be able to use for favors. For example, going to a conference and chatting with as many important-looking people as you can, trying to impress them that you are important too. It is “working the room” like a politician does.
And business cards do still come in handy because it isn’t always easy to find someone on the internet. Old address, offices and titles are listed along with the current ones, and some people have common names. And private businesses don’t list their employees, though I’ve found that places like colleges and hospitals list very detailed information about theirs.
Still, I have never had a job when I used up even a twentieth of the cards supplied to me.
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Couldn’t wait for the new weekly link post from you, sorry.
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2015/10/the-end-of-tenure-in-wisconsin
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Well, Scott Walker didn’t get very far in the Republican primary, but I see that back in Wisconsin, he’s still doing well by doing good.
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If you believe eliminating tenure in colleges is a good thing:
a) you’re just trolling. or
b) you’re a fucking idiot.
Time to choose!
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Ah, Stringer Boy, you always follow me around like a puppy dog! Are you really that desperate for your pat on the head?
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Umm, you replied to my original post. Does that now mean you follow me around like a puppy dog? Is that what passes for logic in your addled brain, you fucking idiot?
Jesus christ, such a trainwreck, watching people who lack self-awareness. Listen, you dunce, you’re dealing with your cultural and intellectual superiors on this blog. This is not a Klan meeting. This is not an environment you are used to. And it shows.
I cringe in anticipation of your next cringe-worthy post.
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You’re new at this, aren’t you, Stringer? Adult commenters who remark on another commenter’s post aren’t necessarily addressing that commenter directly, just offering an opinion on that commenter’s post.
My comment addressed only Scott Walker’s correct decision not to force the Wisconsin government to keep unqualified, incompetent teachers on the taxpayer’s dime. It said nothing at all about you.
You’re the one who personalized all this by calling me a “troll” or a “fucking idiot.” So yeah, you’re the puppy waging its tail come looking for a belly rug — here it comes, boy, roll over and enjoy it!
Feel free to come back and roll your tummy up again the next time I criticize the Hamas sewer rats infesting Gaza.
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“My comment addressed only Scott Walker’s correct decision not to force the Wisconsin government to keep unqualified, incompetent teachers on the taxpayer’s dime.”
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The state of Wisconsin is an absolute disaster. I keep seeing people who had to flee the state because of the economic misery and hopelessness and have had to join these horrible magazine-selling outfits because even that is better than remaining in the hopeless shit hole that is Wisconsin. These are all young people, too. In the meanwhile, Walker is trying to make it even harder for them to get an education and escape this misery.
What a priceless fellow.
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It makes me wonder where people store business cards that other people have given them. If I really need the information, I write it down. The cards usually become bookmarks.
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When my job had a purely faculty focus (teaching, little bit of research and service), I had no need for business cards. Now my duties are more administrative (working up a career services program for undergrads in the humanities) and I spend a lot more time talking to nonacademic folks. It didn’t take long for me to get tired of scrawling my contact info on scraps of paper and I finally asked my dept. head for business cards.
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I mostly give my cards to students, so that they’ll have my email and office phone number. I think I’ve given them to people at conferences or to other professional people maybe four or five times.
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My company bought me a stack of 250 cards. Because that was the best value…
The only people I use them for are the suit-wearing type of bsuinessman. There is more behind these cards than to quickly exchange contact information. Just send someone an email and they have it.
No, there is something ritualistic in the way these are exchanged. I don’t quite understand it myself, but watching two of them exchange them is magical.
There is ceremony behind it. It is not that one party will give their card to the other. They are literally exchanged. Like a handshake. Or christmas gift. Both cards need to change hands at almost the same time. Both men usually stand up to exchange them, if they are sitting.
It is not just an exchange of information. It is a gesture. For the two exchangers and those around them.
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I love giving people my cards. But the problem is that I don’t meet that many people. And I can’t seek them out just for the purpose of giving cards.
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When you are good you do not need to network. Networking-driven people reach you instead, and you can choose with whom you want to collaborate At least that is what I am saying to myself and my 996-out-of-a-1000 unused visiting cards to feel less of a sociopath.
Instead of giving business cards I prefer to say that I can be found easily on google. There, you see, I am a sociopath.
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“Instead of giving business cards I prefer to say that I can be found easily on google.”
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I prefer un-business cards, actually …
They’re like business cards, but they’re simply an attractive way to give people basic contact information without saying you’re part of a Critically Important Association, a Generally Confusing but Harmless Quango, or even a Grossly Sinister Enterprise. (For Canadians, the latter is of course a Crass Sinister Enterprise, but of course this should be fairly obvious.)
With special holders, you can attach them to luggage without looking like a Corporate Baboon, a Government Monkey, or worse, an Elite Macaque, and you might stand a reasonable chance of being reunited with such travel kit.
Otherwise, leaving out certain details helps considerably …
“It doesn’t say who you work for on your card …”
“Quite right.”
🙂
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“unqualified, incompetent teachers on the taxpayer’s dime. ”
It’s professors at UW, not ‘teachers’. Like I said, you’re not qualified to enter this discussion. Lurk more often instead of spouting your mouth off on things you do not understand.
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Scott Walker and his supporters are too intellectually limited to understand what they are even talking about. I wish they just went away and concentrated on regulating fantasy football or whatever.
And these are the people who say they favor a smaller government. A government that takes upon itself an added function of supervising college professors is somehow smaller than a government that doesn’t try to regulate this, as well. Idiots, losers, freaks, hysterics.
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“Scott Walker and his supporters are too intellectually limited to understand what they are even talking about. I wish they just went away and concentrated on regulating fantasy football or whatever.”
You reading this, Dreidel?
“You’re the one who personalized..”
Short comment on this. Look, if you’re going to say stupid things all the time at some point you need to face the fact that someone will call you stupid. Of course it’s personal. That stupid idea came from you.
It’s like when racists say ‘We need to have a national conversation about race’ when all they mean ‘Can I be racist in public without you hurting my feelings over this? Please? Pretty please, with a cherry on top???’
The answer is no. Mommy’s not going to kiss that boo-boo away, you fucking child. Grow up.
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Ah, Stringer Boy, you use infantile language like “you fucking child,” and then you tell someone else to “Grow up.” You really need help in anger management — and with adult communication skills in general.
Unfortunately, I’m retired, so you’ll have to find another shrink. Good luck! 🙂
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
Clarissa's Blog 
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