Opening Lines

IT WAS tough on Joe McHugh last week. Not a wet second into the job and already people were questioning his abilities.

As someone who was once a manager and often not had a clue what people were saying to me, I sympathise with his predicament in being the Gaeltacht minister and being less than fluent in Irish. No doubt he’ll have meetings where fellas in flat caps will be leaning on sticks in corners hurling excoriations at him from Dinneen’s dictionary. When he asks them what they’re saying, they’ll just say “I was only saying that it was a grand soft day minister”.

I do have a partial solution to make Joe feel a little better: LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the business social network. A bit like Facebook, except you have connections rather than friends. If Facebook is a rowdy shebeen full of shouty, needy people, LinkedIn is the chaste bottle of sparkling water in the hotel-bar after a conference. Professional, but no crack. It does, however, have one feature that gives the spirits a little boost.