mush ado

Hts today

The boss sent an article round the office today, outlining some reasons why it's better to phone people than to send an email.  The gist of it was that when communicating by email, your interlocutor can't hear you, which I admit was something that had never occurred to any of us before.  Nor can they interrupt you, hang up on you, or deafen you with a sudden cough. 

Email.  It's rubbish! 

It was a good article, and I'm looking forward to the next one, where the author will suggest that the trouble with phoning and emailing is that you can't see, smell or touch your interlocutor, and will recommend riding round to our candidate's places of work in a horse drawn sleigh. 

I noticed that Susan Greenfield has a new book out.  It appears to develop some of the themes of her book Tomorrow's People, which argued that modern technology is 'directly tampering with the essence of our individuality.' 

She may be right.  When you communicate by email all the time (or when you stick posts on your blogs, or leave comments), you are in a world with its own rules.  But personally, I think that the diminished threat of being punched for saying something stupid makes me act more authentically individual, not less.  Specifically, it makes me act like a more authentically stupid individual. 

My position regarding use of emails in a professional context is simple.  I don't want to waste anyone's time.  I think that closed questions are underrated labour-saving devices.  I think if I need to use a ;) to convey an emotion to someone with whom I have a business relationship, I should perhaps think about trimming back my verbiage and sticking to the point.  I think if I try to build a rapport with you in an attempt to manipulate you, you'll see through me, and you'll think I'm a slime, and you'll be right.

True, you don't 'build relationships' by sticking to the point - if by relationships you mean a fake buddiness cultivated with someone from whom you plan on making money, and who plans on making money from you.  But you do show people more respect by not forcing them to play games with you.  After a foundation of respect is built, you tend to reach a point where your purely functional communiques seem a little cold and inadequate, and then a bit of personality begins to creep in quite naturally.  But this isn't something that can be pushed.

Also, we at HTS don't want to be seen, heard, smelled or touched.  Because we're all heavily tattooed circus runaways.

OK, I'm just being contrary.  I do see the boss' point.  She doesn't want to hear nothing but the clacking of computer keys all day while she sits in her office mixing cocktails and playing internet blackjack.  She wants to hear talking, hustling, and the sound of receivers being slammed down in jubilation after big ticket placements. 

Also, she has recent first-hand experience of how the internet doesn't quite equal reality: she started doing her weekly shopping online last week, and - having not yet gone metric - she misjudged the amount of mushrooms she needed ('I ordered about a hundredweight') and has been eating nothing but giant mushrooms since last Thursday.  She has bags and bags of them.  Our fridge at work is full of them.  You wouldn't believe the effect that a diet of mushrooms has on a person.  They'd might as well have been magic.  Today she brought in five or six bottles of 'special' homemade wine for anyone who wants it, and we're all keeping our distance.

To draw an analogy, our illustrious leader wants us to be out there feeling the weight of those mushrooms in our bare hands, not making guesses.  (Or funguesses.)

Whatcha think?

Incidentally, our Lead Consultant replied to the boss' email by asking why the article's author couldn't have phoned us with his insights.

Gnome picture from http://jessicasuzanne.com/