This post is titled Nobody Wants to Hear You Brag for the simple reason that nobody wants to hear you brag.
I suppose, first and foremost, this is yet another lesson for young writers trying to land jobs. I repeat: Nobody wants to hear you brag. We don’t care that you revolutionized journalism at Syracuse’s student newspaper. We don’t care that you were the best writer there. We certainly don’t care that you think Peter King is overrated or Bill Simmons sucks or you can be doing an 800-times better job than Joe Posnanski or Jon Wertheim or David Maraniss.
Nobody wants to hear that shit.
I used to brag. I thought I was hot shit; thought it’d impress people; thought—by touting my own amazing, dazzling, born-to-be-a-superstar skills—that I was helping myself and my career goals.
No, no, no, no, no.
Bragging sucks. It’s ugly and, even worse, transparent. People who brag all the time aren’t saying, “I’m awesome!” They’re saying, “I’m not comfortable enough with my work to let it speak for itself.” Hell, a few days ago I was listening to a person brag and brag and brag about his job performance, and I wanted to vomit. Not only didn’t I care about his job performance (hedge funds. yawn), but I started to not care about him—period.
Wanna be smart? Whenever the urge to brag comes along, ignore it and be humble. Ask someone else about their work; about their day; about their family. Whenever you feel like breaking out pictures of your kids (nobody wants to see them. Trust me), request to see someone else’s photos.
OK, just wanted to vent.
PS: Wasn’t this the best post ever!?!?
