Thursday, June 25, 2009

I can't! I won't! I never will! Wait! You have access to email....yes!

Would life be simpler if emails hadn’t been invented? Set aside the idea that tapping out a thought or happy face smile to a friend or family member has connected more conversations than Harry Potter or the Twilight series. Every day, every hour and chances are in the past six seconds…someone you know just got busted thanks to the root of our current evil...an email.



During the mid80’s before internet addiction I once had a boss who refused to send his radio on-air talent inner office letters because it invited too many headaches. Words on paper don’t feature properly intended emotion. We’re extremely guilty of reading too deep or not far enough into a simple gesture or lack thereof.



I’m constantly getting fingers shoved into my computer screen from readers who assumed they knew. Writing and reading an email is like standing in an art gallery and each person who passes by exposes their separate view. One second the painting is a blue frog with well whittled teeth. Then it’s a transformation of a darker period that enlightens the inner spirit like an ocean vomiting seashells for collectors who rise at midnight. What? Exactly!



Probably one of the biggest and most dreaded email adventures is the infamous, “Oh no! I forgot to attach a valuable piece of information to the letter sent to my boss!” You’re forced to make a choice…return to work or give the man in control the ever so secretive password to that little island located within a manmade tower of gadgets and disc fragments.



What is the most professional way to approach what could end up being a major disaster?



Racing to your rescue is Anne Marie Sabbath a true master of workplace manners. She says, “No matter how tight the plan or how disgusted you feel having to return to work or cough up the secret word…the center point of gravity is simple: you don’t own the computer connected to the document. Everything inside is 100% company time. If there’s something inside that wouldn’t inspire wandering eyes…grab a power drink and hoof it back to the job…keeping in mind, no matter how safe you feel keeping Indiana Jones out of your email system, at any given moment…everything inside can legally be viewed at anytime no questions asked.



So let’s say your lunch break consists of bring it from home sandwiches and last nights mashed potato surprise…rather than sit in a nearly nonexistent lunch room, the more comfortable place is your desk surfing the web and in walks the decision maker who catches you on a site that paints your face sixteen shades of red. What gives?



Anne Marie says, “Close the webpage and let the boss set the tone.” You aren’t instantly off the hook if no words are shared; they’ve taken a digital picture of the moment which requires some down time to piece together. Your momma was correct when she said, “Silence is golden.”



This is a clear case of using office time and money in an inappropriate way and manner. If nothing leaps from the walls that make up your cubical, use the experience as a learning tool in the way of never, never, even if the boss is on vacation end up on a website that invites shame.



Computers and their unique shapes of conversation land more people in the doghouse than forgetting to take out the trash or load the dishwasher. How and what we say will never be taken the same way it was meant to be delivered. A friend of nearly twenty five years recently wrote wondering why my voice was featured on two competing business commercials. Rather than pick up the cell and punch in the digits…I double clicked reply which led to not one but several digitized conversations leaving both parties wondering how a quarter century could end such a way.



A phone connection was finally made three days later with a guarantee by both creative teams that verbal communication and not email messages would keep the paths of success on the brightly lit yellow brick road.



Lesson learned…99.999% of the time even the major leagues of well documented college graduates with their million plus two plaques on the wall look at my written concepts of thought and say, “What the?”



Emails…we can’t live with them or without them. Every tick, tock, tap and thought makes its way through that manmade system and stays there well beyond your living years. What are you doing to protect your legacy? The only thing a computer can’t do is smell your feet. Wait! Give Apple and Microsoft another week…trust me, its coming.



arroecollins@clearchannel.com

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