Chatting Redefined!

"You leaving already?"...a silly voice screams from the rear as I head towards the door. "Its only 6:45 dude, what's up? You on a half day? What's the hurry?..Lets catch up for a while?...." There's an excruciating pause for several moments. Was I to post a loud "what's your problem dude response" to this obviously frustrated individual with an absolutely degenerated sense of self, priorities, planning and time?...Or should I have just clobbered him with my outdated laptop ( I needed a replacement anyways)?

I ventured forth into the classical third route with politically correct suave and dignity..and responded in a sombre tone.."Well actually I am headed to meet a potential client for your wife, any idea how the market closed for the day?"

There appears to be a perceptive correlation between the quantum of time elapsed at work and the quality of output in several office environments....E=mc2 ("Efficiency = Minutes at work*Chatting Time * Chatting Time). The more you chat...the more you network, the more you network...the more people you meet, the more people you meet...the more gossip you come across, the more gossip you hear...the more gossip you are compelled to create, the more gossip you create...the more you chat...You get the drift right! Work can really be demanding these days...

In fact we just concluded a project plan design where all milestones have a chat time component, with scheduled chat over-runs and buffers for chat briefings, scoping and even stress testing. Its extremely important to even undertake velocity and stress testing for chat sessions. These could be vital to the outcome, or at least the perceived outcome of the project.

Chatting has manifested and evolved into three categories.

The first is the conference room chat, a light sophisticated blend of hushed and muted exchanges balanced with a mix of sophisticated nods and absorbing glances. These are typically conducted in sets of exchanges with three persons at various co-ordinates of the conference table. In fact vaastu consultants have suggested that one avoid engaging in extended offline discussions at conference tables with persons oriented towards the South East.

The second is the cross cubicle chat, a not so muted exchange, held in seated and standing positions with a mix of crescendoes and diminuendoes interspersed with reverberations of targets, achievements and goals on a firm bedrock of office romance and other intricate cultural affairs. This category has seen the greatest evolution with the chat in person mode being consistently reinforced and intertwined with the sessions on chat messenger, SMS and email of course.

The third is the corner room cabin crew chat, the most refined of them all. Held with a certain air of posterity, reinforced with white boards, printouts and briefing documents strewn in elegantly erratic patterns across the room. This is not for the light hearted novice. This is the virtual pinacle of chatdom. Established on multi layered, deep rooted foundations, requires a pulse and flair for the global stock markets, property valuations and golf swing techniques. These sessions would most definitely infringe on time slots for performance reviews, find priority over team reviews and even dinner with the in-laws....

In fact as a great man once said...."Too much agreement kills the chat!"