I’ll start with a confession. The original plan was that this essay would be a somewhat nostalgic view of what we lost when we replaced secretaries with computer software programs. It would touch on the insanity of managers, supervisors, and professionals typing their own correspondence and reports. It would note that the process inevitably results in a poorer product than would have been the case in the old days when experienced typists actually knew how to produce decent business correspondence.
And then it struck me: no one cares.
A lower standard has been embraced. Speed supersedes quality.
Sparse messages have nudged aside well-written letters. Quick updates have replaced the slow building and fostering of relationships.
We have chosen to focus more on the message and less on the metamessage.
One of the initial advantages of email was that it was a great alternative to playing ‘telephone tag” when setting up meetings.
All well and good.
But then people became hooked on electronic messages. There soon was a widespread decline in the quality of communication as we lost the human touch and became very transactional.
Our electronic “letters” got right to the point as if we were back in the days when you had to race to leave a phone message before the recorder beeped.
And it has gotten worse.
Text messages are now replacing emails; indeed, the street-savvy advice now is that if you want the other person to read your message, send a text, not an email.
As one cynic put it, “Who has the time to read email?” No one, it seems. We’re too busy being busy.
And purging style. If communications were a form of fashion, text messages would be Mao suits: sparse, functional, and devoid of charm. Although understandable when pressed for time, they are now used even when time is abundant.
But hey, we can add a symbol for emotion.
There was no farewell party. People didn’t lift their eyes from their screens to notice when three dear old companions - face-to-face meetings, sophisticated conversations, and substantive business letters - were escorted out of the room. No one signed a card.
No bang. No whimper.
In the future, anthropologists may uncover our electronic hieroglyphics and wonder: “What happened to these people? A few decades earlier, they were writing normal correspondence and then they shifted to a brief, staccato form of writing as if they were being taxed by the paragraph. Whatever happened to the personal thank-you notes? Where are the letters of appreciation? What happened to their humanity? This stuff looks like it was written by, not just on, a machine.”
And while they are at it, count on someone to ask, “Whatever happened to their handwriting?”
I don’t have a magic answer. I had hoped to show how the new technology could be used, perhaps via voice recognition software, to produce a mild version of what we once had. Upon reflection, I now see that such a change is unlikely, and our best hope is to review, constantly review, ways in which we can re-humanize our workplaces and communities.
If we don’t carefully explore and initiate ways to connect with one another, ways that go beyond electronic grunts, then we risk discovering that the scariest robots in the workplace are ourselves.
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