SO! It Has Come To This!
I remember seeing this Kevin Costner interview on the Graham Norton show a few years ago, and in it he talks about helping someone to the point they become helpless and refuse to help themselves.
Well, I have one of those stories too. Not a friend, just somebody I felt sorry for, as did a good portion of the Irish Linkedin audience.. So here it is. Me calling that person out with the hope they sort their shit out!
World meet the unretouched Philip O’Malley
Actually that has John & posture and confidence hacks written all over it. The one below is what rocked into the studio.
So, Philip posted a video on Linkedin. Linked here through the Joe.ie article and very quickly the video gained traction.
In it he talks about being from a small town in Sligo, not being able to find work which was causing him pain and effecting his mental health. All entirely understandable. So it seemed to grip the Linkedin community.
People rushed to offer him help, somebody in a store in sligo gave him a new suit, and my phone started to hop around the room with everyone from the guy who works in my local off licence, to people from Linkedin teams I have worked with telling me I should do my psychology headshots thing on him. They were too late. I had already got him booked in!!
So, the date was in the diary, we had organised to get him into Linkedin for some mock interviews, some help beefing up his Linkedin profile and a tour of the building, then he was to come over to the studio where I was going to work with him to show whatever awesomeness was going on inside…. all great in concept until the day of the visit.
You may want to start cringing now!!
When he arrived to Wilton place, home to a park an apartment block and 3 Linkedin buildings at the time. He spent his time calling the contact in Linkedin, aggressively stating he couldn’t find Linkedin, which was 3 of the buildings he was standing outside of, but look. We all make mistakes.
When he was brought inside, he was registering into the building and handed his visitors lanyard by the head of security, to whom he said “So I suppose you’re the receptionist” with epic levels of condescension.
After a very quick tour of the office, regally shaking peoples hands as if he was doing them a favour he demanded to leave, over 90 minutes early to go over to my studio, and a taxi was to be ordered and paid for by Linkedin for him, he barked!… not part of the deal, its a 7 minute walk, but lets roll with it.
In the studio, I work with people of all confidence levels, some happy having their headshots taken, some terrified and uncomfortable. On this day, I was working with a lady who was quite uncomfortable but we were getting her there, then my phone started. Calls over, and over, and over from the same number. Surely something was wrong. So I made my apologies and answered. Nothing wrong. It was Philip, 90 minutes early and outside the studio angry he didn’t know which bell to press, and that I wouldn’t answer the phone.
Needless to say, I knew this was not going to be a fun shoot.
I let him in, sent him into the back room of the studio so I could finish the 10 or so minutes left with the client and tried to return to some semblance of normality, that was until he came straight back out of the room, stuck his mucky shoes onto my couch and proceeded to tell me he had “Done his research on me” in a tone as if he was a detective solving a murder.
”You shot Darren Killeen!!”
Darren!
Darren. Exhibit A. Above.
”I did, do you know Darren?” I asked, hoping this would calm the situation.
”Yeah, we have history, myself and Darren dated, well not so much dated, but we had fun, you know yourself”
Insert John turning his back and both John and female client rolling eyes at the same time. She didn’t know who Darren was.
So, to skip the boring bits, finished all the while apologising to client. She wished me luck, I shot headshots for Philip, ( he was hard work, not because of his appearance, because he was rude) got him out of the studio, he can get his own taxi thanks and sent him the images with his drool scabs removed. Life was back to normal and everything was great.
Side note. Philip was offered a number of Jobs from the post, but refused them all because… they were beneath him. He is still unemployed
UNTIL!
Let’s call this chapter Philip finds a hobby.
Oh how Philip loves Twitter. From John Collins to TV Critic, Philip loves a night in by the fire, or TV on the laptop setting up Twitter accounts before darting back and forward on them abusing not only others, but himself for good measure. He must at this stage have 3, maybe 400 accounts if not more.
So he spends his time tagging me in his posts on Twitter, and I block his accounts, which he follows from his other accounts, all set up together and all followed by… the many Philip accounts he has, so he sets up more accounts to abuse people and tags me and the circle goes on. I have reported him to Twitter hundreds of times but they don’t answer and don’t ban him. He isn’t Gemma O’Doherty.
So here we are. Where the straw broke the camels back. After a tirade last night of abuse, where I was the #HiredHelp and my images were 1980s polaroid in quality and had he had good images he would be in Government for Fine Gael “riding high sucking from the #Taxpayerpurse”
Click to scroll through the images below!
