Monday, January 24, 2005

Email is down. Long live word of mouth.

I've just taken part in my first grown-up game of telephone.

Without email, how do you let everyone in your department know that the Monday Meeting is cancelled? If you're my boss, you tell your assistant to go spread the word. Then she tells all the supervisors, and they tell whomever they happen to pass in the hall. Those people filter it back to their office neighbors, and they call out to random passers-by.

I am a passer-by. I am the last link on the telephone chain, the one who repeats the garbled message out loud so everyone can have a good laugh. I can only guess at what the original message might have been. All I know is, I'm glad no one brought a monkey to work because there's really nowhere for it to sit.

Bathroom update: Now it smells like pipe tobacco. Curious.

No comments: