Earlier this week I was working with a colleague at a customer site. My colleague encountered a technical problem and since she is fairly new at her position she jumped on Teams to get advice about what to do. Several people responded but they were all saying something different. So she chose a procedure that she hoped would save her a lot of time and get the customer up and running much more quickly. Unfortunately, it fixed the immediate issue, but created other problems down the road, meaning that instead of saving her time, it actually cost her much more time because in the end she had to start over, which was what she was trying to avoid. Late in the afternoon she got a message from one of the more experienced techs who advised that the method recommended earlier might not work.

I have long had the option to join a Teams group at work, and I did for a while. But it seemed to me that the people who did the most talking were the ones who knew the least. I never saw the people who really knew their business responding; they, like me, were too busy working to deal with the constant chatter. If I’m in a tough spot and need help, I have several different people I can call, depending on the situation, and that’s what I do. No general consensus from the tribe, just expert advise from someone who knows.

I have always been a quiet person. Maybe that’s why I can’t quite understand the new group think mentality. Yes, email and messaging are nice to have, and it’s very difficult to function these days without a smart phone. But for the life of me I can’t understand why anyone would sign up for Twitter. I had an account at the very beginning of it’s existence and quickly decided that, 1) I don’t have that much to say of any importance, and 2) I am not giving anyone the ability to spam me whenever they want to. It’s one thing to be interested in someone, their career or even their opinion on things. But to be constantly on the ready for whatever they want to say, no thank you. I notice that most news sites now prefer that you sign up for their ‘alerts’. I much prefer the old way, of when I want to hear from you, I will turn on the television, or go to your website, not the other way around. It gives me a little bit more control in a world where soon I’m concerned we will have none.