When she stepped out into real world.. Review on First Date Experiences

I don’t know whether I have put it under the right MS category…but after I read Neeraja’s review on first date…I thought I would put my review under the same category.

No, I am not going to write a review on my first date…that event has never occurred. This review is about how people turn out to be entirely different than what they are on the inevitable chat messengers, in my case it is MSN messenger.  And I describe my first date the one when I met one of my senior colleagues, in person.

My work requires me to appear online on the messenger the entire time I am at office and if I am out on official business, then my status is set Away.  Constant interaction with my boss and other colleagues in Chennai and the U.S. is inevitable on any workday.  So the first thing in morning I do at work is sign in on the messenger.

When I started off at this job, I was the only one in the team who was late in discovering the usefulness of MSN.  It took others almost a month to convince me that I need to log in for work to progress.(Well, till then chat messengers were just for fun…not anymore)  At that time there were only four Chennai contacts with me, all key persons and I required interaction with only three.

Sometimes, my messaging turns out to be annoyance and there are times when they feel…OH NO NOT AGAIN!…The maximum they can do is sending those emoticons or those winks, which they never did…but this is the virtual workplace after all. There was one person in particular with whom I needed to sent a minimum of five messages to get an idea across…. my average for others were two.  This was driving me mad sometimes and later on I preferred to message this person as a last resort.

Lives progressed and work too…. I noticed once that the particular person is offline.  I was surprised because this particular person appeared to be a workaholic to me as I see her all the time online.  I thought good for one day.  The next day, the day after and for nearly one week, she remained offline.  Hmmmm………I wondered what happened, but never bothered to find out.

Almost a week after she started appearing offline to me, one afternoon, I opened my eyes and looked around.  To my surprise I found her popping in other colleagues systems.  I enquired with others and was told that she has been there all the time. Well, I thought the offline thing was only for me.  I never complained as I regarded it to be in her power to avoid messaging me.(There is an option to block a contact, but you will appear offline to the blocked contact) Somebody told me there is some problem with her messenger.  But I never believed that, as she remained offline only on my messenger.

Weeks passed…but I couldn’t keep this offline incident to myself.  Someone discovered this and urged me to resolve this. The next day after signing in I was determined that I would attempt an email to this offline contact.  Wait a minute, I was appearing offline to another colleague in my office, but online to others.  Now I got the answer I was looking for-MSN messenger was the culprit.  Finally, the puzzle was solved and I added that contact again and there she was online.  We talked and cleared all misunderstanding.

A week later, when I arrived at office, there was a new lady in the seat next to me. I thought it would be some new recruit and went about with my business.  I took some time to take my seat and the new lady called to me “Hello, Jyotsna!”.  Well, I got it. Somebody had hinted to me that the person was supposed to visit Kochi, but I never took it serious.  It’s the offline contact in person.  Hmmm… It took almost a minute for me digest the real picture, as the one in my mind based on the messages on the MSN was totally different.

We both were too busy the first day to know each other more; the next day too went the same way.  But slowly I began to feel happy when I noticed this person approach me. Towards the end of her visit, I had a newfound respect for this person and I was not scared of messaging her anymore.  These days I approach her first if I have any doubt and we work like a great team. Of course, MSN is now most inevitable.