The World in My Head

While this shot might suggest that I’m standing by to respond to QVC viewer calls, this has actually been my communication web this morning as I’ve swapped between calling card and Skype calls. After more than a decade of working from home (and being the first in my organization to do so), I’m now part of one of four North American time zones featuring home-based staff. We’ve been increasingly urged to adjust to a Skype-based reality (which, being with an organization that employs people with at least 23 languages I’ve heard pronounced Sky-pay, Skipee, Skeepie…)

Though I could still romanticize about a Princess phone I am still not one to embrace Skype conference calls. The dual headset thing is a bit spooky, since it feels that my co-workers are literally in my head. And, yes, I often walk around with the Skype and cordless headsets on at once.

Yesterday, I was on a conference call with domestic staff and people in Ouaga, Quito and Port-au-Prince. At one point, the main thing you could hear were the sounds of Haitian tuk tuks honking their horns, kids playing soccer in Cleveland Heights and birds chirping in DC’s Adams Morgan district. My neighborhood contributed the clinging of a Honduran ice cream vendor’s bell that could have convinced people I was in Tegucigalpa until a crack head started screaming to his gal-pal, “I gonna cut you up you filthy ho. I mean it. I mean it. I know you don’t think so, but I’m gonna.” It was finally drowned out by the sound of the MUNI 48 bus passing by as we heard about the release of the new HR manual.

And, no, I still refuse to become a Vulcan with a RAZR phone.