The other day at cell group, some of my working friends were mentioning about how their colleagues and bosses would prefer to be emailed rather than have face to face chats. Apparently it's because they may not necessarily be free when people want to talk to them, but they can read their emails at their own leisure anytime.... and also because some bosses want to have things in black and white so they can refer to the emails in case they need to clarify things (and potentially get their employees in trouble). And in my office, when anybody has any issues, instead of taking the person aside and talking to them about it, they send emails to each other....sometimes even to the whole office (which right now is only five people)! I guess it's kind of sad that people are so used to contacting each other through email these days that they would prefer it over personal human contact.... even within the same office where everyone is so close together, you just need to talk loudly a bit in order for everyone to hear you. At the same time, I know I myself have used email for the same purpose, to talk to people about certain issue without actually having to confront them and possibly get involved in a blowout. Also, I'm the kind of person who gets tongue-tied easily when it comes to fragile situations like that, so I prefer to really sit down and think about what I should or shouldn't say first before writing anything. Whereas in a conversation, once I say something I don't mean, that's it... there's no erase button to change what I said. So it does help to avoid unwanted misunderstandings and the tension of a face-to-face confrontation... and yet I still can't help but wonder whether people like me become a bit too reliant on technology, so much that we lose out learning how to build personal relationships. Perhaps one day in the future, everybody will be talking to each other only through computers. Wouldn't quite be the same as the real thing. But anyway, I just find it an interesting trend.
Anyway, one of the things I'm supposed to learn how to do at work is using Adobe Illustrator. We need to use this program to design posters and flyers or whatever that needs to go to print, and my supervisor lent me the cd to install in my comp. And since there's no one to teach me, I pretty much have to learn it up on my own. The thing is, the help topics in this program would make just as much sense to me as it would in Greek. The terms used are either completely alien to me (eg. opacity masks, rasturize, etc...) or I understand what they mean on their own, but not what they mean in the program (eg. vectors, slicing, knock-outs, etc...). And there are a billion and one things that can be done with this program. Just that it would take me a billion and one years to understand how they're all done. Right now, it's just so exasperating, I'm actually thinking of going out and buying 'Abobe Illustrator for Dummies'.
Ok, me needs to get to bed again!
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