Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Working in the 21st Century

I was made acutely aware today of the fact that we are well and truly into the 21st century and the shift has affected everything including how we communicate with our co-workers and even supervisors.

I was told by my boss a few days ago to text him if I am sick. He is a Chinese-American who reads English better than he understands it so it works better for him to do so. Still, "Text-in sick?" It was certainly a strange revelation.

Then this morning I was made even more aware of the ways technology is changing the workplace: I was fired by text message! By now we'e all heard of people being broken up with by text and we can imagine how incredibly humiliating that feels. My boss took that concept to the next level. Texting me my termination notice with nothing more of an explanation than "an integrity issue."

It made it abundantly clear that the ways we communicate as a society are changing, and not for the better.