L'enfer, c'est les autres

Isn’t it strange that in a world awash with communication tools, we’ve so successfully managed to right royally roger the art of communication? We have more opportunities than any other time in the history of humankind to communicate and yet time and time again we ask it to drop its pants and bend over.

My theory?

We are living in our own little worlds, our own little bubbles. We travel with headphones on, listening to our own music, watching a video. At work we fire off emails, we send texts, we chat via Messenger. At home, we blog, we tweet, we update our status, we record, we watch………

When do we talk? When do we listen? When do we truly interact?

Communication has become so easy that we don’t think about what we say, or how we say it. It’s just another thing. Something we do.

The Manager pinging out emails from the bunker of their office
The repeated use of text speak and avoidance of any sort of grammatical basis
The use of social networking to replace friendship

I’m not saying that these things are bad per se (I throw that in to show I’m an educated chap - don’t you know). Everything has its place but at the end of the day it’s hard to beat good old face to face communication. It has been going for thousands of years and looks pretty future proof to me…….

So I’m going to stop.

I’m going to change.

From this moment on I will not be participating in anythi

How often is poor communication the cause for confusion, anger, upset?

How often do we send a text message, speak on the phone, type an email (or all three for the superbly talented) whilst we are doing something else?

How much importance do we really place on ensuring we are communicating effectively?

These are the questions I’m mulling over having miscommunicated badly. Really badly.

As in nearly end of the world, meteor storm showering the earth badly.

As in poke every square inch of my body with a red hot needle badly.

As in…..well you get the picture….

I knew the message I wanted to communicate, I knew the message I wanted to get across. But I was really busy and I got it wrong.

Under challenge I was defensive. I mean if you look at the words that were communicated then sure they could have been taken the wrong way. But that wasn’t my sentiment that wasn’t what I was trying to get across. That wasn’t the message I wanted to convey, I mean can’t they understand that?

The cold light of day shows me that it was my error. It didn’t matter that I was busy. It didn’t matter that I had a million other things vying for my attention. I was more concerned with task than with the message.

How many times does that happen each day?

4/10 HRD. Must try harder.

Now I've heard everything.

160 characters to apply for a job by text....for guess what? A marketing role. (I refer you to my previous comments.....)

But in the sake of experimentation and participation I proffer the following,

"Grumpy HRD. House trained. Fully flexible. Neither long in the tooth nor green. Laughs in the face of misfortune. Comes with own teeth and hair. Discount on bulk orders"

And did UC there was no text speak involved? Although I can't help feeling it sounds more like a dodgy lonely hearts entry.....

Do I get the gig? Can you better it?