A return to the days of yore

At work we recently returned to some old-fashioned ways of doing business, such as communicating with our colleagues face to face or over the phone, rather than through email. This was prompted by the recognition that effective communication between coworkers promotes understanding, respect, and collaboration. Above all, it was prompted by the eternal passing of the company email system. 


The email system was thereafter conducted to a "cloud," a gentle home for broken and defeated computer programs located somewhere in Pittsburgh. 


This event, perhaps, should not have been unforeseen. Even before email's demise, transmission of messages was sporadic. Many of us instituted a backup internal communication system, which works like this:


1. An employee sends an email message to a coworker and waits approximately 10 minutes for a reply. When no reply is forthcoming, the employee walks to the coworker's office or cubicle, 


2. The employee informs the coworker that the employee has sent the coworker an email, and inquires whether the coworker has received it.


3. The coworker says he will check and will get back to the employee. The employee returns to her desk.


4. The coworker checks his email. If he has received the employee's message, he replies to that effect and addresses the topic of the email.


5. Steps 1-4 are repeated, this time initiated by the coworker.


6. After several rounds of this process, during which no actual email messages are received by either party, the employee and the coworker shake hands and agree to do business this way again. After the new system is up, however, the two will likely never meet in person again, unless by accident at the company potluck lunch.


Another method of communication during this difficult time, favored by the IT team, was the handing out of physical memos. These memos were delivered to each employee in person, in real time, defined as "written and printed yesterday, delivered today." The memos contained important information about the evolving email situation, such as, in succession, "Please remember to archive old emails," "Please refrain from archiving any old emails," and "If any further emails are archived, you will be immediately thrown into a dungeon filled with Commodore 64s."


For ease of reference, each memo was printed on a different color of paper. An employee could therefore simply be asked, "Did you get the indigo memo?" and the employee could immediately answer yes or no, unless the employee is one of the 97% of the population who have no idea what the difference between indigo and violet is, and then he or she would totally be guessing. If fanned out in a certain order, the colored memos almost produced the ROY G. BIV spectrum, except that hot pink was substituted for red, creating HPOY G. BIV. 


The hot pink memo, the last to be handed out, announced the arrival of a new email system. Inevitably, this news prompted a return to the old ways of communication, in which we avoided, as much as possible, getting out of the chair or lifting the phone to talk to someone. Some of us are now experimenting with converting our HPOY G. BIV memos to paper airplanes to carry written messages to coworkers in the vicinity. Progress lives.