One new thing in my work schedule in this new year is working the late shift every Wednesday. On these days I start work at 10:30 am instead of 8:30 am. (And for the past three Wednesdays I have been auditing my friend Dr. Matt's 9:00 am class on the Holocaust at Washtenaw Community College. First experience in the community college setting, so I'd like to write about that in another post and will probably do so eventually).
As soon as 5:00 pm hits, my partner in crime Katie and I hit the phones as "Service Reception - how may I direct your call?" We're still in the thick of busy season but there are less calls in the queues once the clock strikes 6:00 pm. The Customer Service queues have significantly less people calling as well - which makes for lots of time for the late-nighters to gab about things they divined from their fortune cookies (for example: tonight, we ordered Oriental Express and one person got a fortune that said, "You have 365 days in a year; may all of your 365 dreams come true!" She thought it was a terrible fortune and wanted to return it. Mine said something like, "Service to many leads to greatness" - which, depending on how you read your fortunes, is nice for a person working in Customer Service currently). (Yes, they also talked about end taglines for fortune cookies - but we won't get into that right now...)
We also started discussing the Opportunities Weekly e-mails sent from Human Resources with internal job listings because apparently one person who left a vacancy got escorted from the building. Two of the late-nighters, Linda and Trent, were discussing the events surrounding the dismissal. Trent eventually ended up walking over to Linda's cube - which is diagonal from mine on my right-hand side - and I heard him say, "Do you have Facebook up?" almost in disbelief. I figured right then that she was caught in the act (I should explain that Trent, a young twenty-something, is a senior representative, and Linda - while considerably a few years Trent's senior - is a product lead but has only been with Thomson for one year. Generally, Facebook is blocked and marked as a "restricted access" page).
"No-ooo," she replied haltingly.
"Okay - can you log in for me?" I heard him say over my cube wall.
Lots of murmuring in hushed tones and then Linda said, "oh, I thought you were going to have me log in because he posted details about leaving Thomson on his Facebook."
"Oh no," said Trent. "I just wanted to see if you were able to see some pictures that my girlfriend tagged of me...but I guess you can't." Trent's voice started to sound more distant - I gathered that he had walked away from Linda's desk. "I guess it's because you're not friends with her. No - you are not her friend."
Any bystander not understanding that the two had just logged into Facebook would think that Trent was a heartless soul, coldly stating that his girlfriend was not Linda's friend. The thought of how Facebook has transformed our culture into referring to electronic connections through a social networking website as "friends on facebook" or just "friends" made me laugh out loud literally. Linda understood this immediately and let out a big "wahhhhhh."
"No Linda, that's not what I meant!" was the belabored response.
Between calls, I heard Linda telling me, "My sister just posted on my son's wall...so-and-so just joined the group 'I love guts...'" All the while, I was "thomcom-ing" (Thomson's instant messenger) Katie about how funny it was to listen to these people - who four years ago didn't have access to Facebook when it was just Facebook for college kids - and their fascination with status updates and notes posted.
Our conversation looked something like this:
imm [at 7:25 pm]: Isn't this hilarious?
kcm (Katie) [at 7:25 pm]: I wonder what technology will be like for us in about 20 years
So do I...
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