A black and white image of an old punch card machine with a punched card in it.

Worst bio page ever… ever.

BySherwin Arnott

Many of us hate writing our own bio pages. And here is a good example of what can go wrong if you write your own.

I’m not providing the text here because I sincerely hope he deletes it and starts again. And to be fair, at least he didn’t lie about his credentials.1

screenshot of Tim Irvin's page

  1. I admit that it is partially redeemed by it’s honesty. And maybe it’s because I know and admire Tim but this bio page is the worst. ↩

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10 Comments

  4. I kinda liked it. Kinda. Although the joke would have been better if it had been 30% shorter. The worst bio in the world was probably written by a yoga instructor, but I’m just speculating.

    Now that I think about it, was Tim’s bio perhaps a reactionary attack on mine? I should go edit it. Soon.

  6. Now, if Tim *did* want to write a serious and sober bio, I would suggest that he has plenty of those little life data points that populate good bios to draw on.

    “Tim Irvin has worked as a bear guide, government biologist, lynx tracker, treeplanter and firelog painter. He failed at daffodil picking. He has canoed pretty much the entire freaking arctic more than once.”

    That kind of thing.

  7. Hmmm, yes. I don’t think the bio needs to entertain though. The bio can be boring.

    Tim Irvin has academic training as a biologist.

    He has worked as a polar bear guide.

    His work as a guide in the raincoast of Western Canada gave Tim the opportunity to speak with people about natural systems and to bring them face to face with grizzly bears.

    Tim Irvin worked for the Ministry of Environment in British Columbia for a number of years balancing the human rights framework of the duty to accommodate with the conservation and management policies of the Department of Fish and Wildlife.

    Tim Irvin has canoed pretty much the entire arctic more than once.

  8. Interesting.
    Perhaps a good place to start before I re-write this thing is to get a consensus on what the goal of the bio is: pure entertainment, information, branding, simple self praise? If I knew that then I could decide if I agree with Sherwin (worst EVER) or wyndi (priceless entertainment value).

  10. Actually I thought it was pretty funny.

    Except the part about the poo. Didn’t need to know that.

    But I’m pretty excited for you about the whole Ministry of Magic thing. I didn’t know they were into canoes.

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