Drama! Tears! Exhilaratus!

Perception is a rather fragile human attribute. How many times has your opinion of someone/thing been influenced by others? Not so a case of judging the book by its cover rather judging it by what others say or feel. This is one of the  most imperfect of all human attributes and yet the most interesting because in a way its who we are.

Sadly, this element is slowly disappearing at the work place.  Technology has become so effective at the work place that we have forgotten how things used to be in the old days (about 35 years ago), when getting information involved a phone call or walking to the person and asking for it. Nowadays all we do is send emails to say thank you, complain, etc. It has replaced face-to-face communication at the work place. We only meet for meetings, everything else is done via email.

Perception is left to what you read, a rather narrow mono-sided approach to influencing opinion. Where’s the beauty in having your emotions/reaction invoked by human expressions, voice intonations etc? Emails simply invoke good or bad feelings to which we react many at time wrongly.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not against emails at the workplace, just that as a species we are losing that what is vital to us. Wouldn’t it be better not easier to raise a complain with whomever face-to-face than by email?

There’s a saying in swahili that goes “usiache mbachao kwa mswala upitao” (One does not throw away one’s old praying mat just because of a new one that one has borrowed).  Too many of us are hiding behind emails replacing this beautiful attribute of human contact with technology.