It started out like a normal email exchange. I needed to schedule a meeting with some guy to discuss something—what, where, when and why are immaterial. I emailed him a time the following day when I could meet. He agreed to it. I wrote it on my schedule, and that was that. Or so I thought.
The number one rule of corporate America is never let anything remain simple if there’s a conceivable way to complicate it. Ever the industrious lot, the business world has now found a way to apply this principle to the scheduling of a meeting between two people who are both willing and readily available.
I received an email from my meeting counterpart. It was titled “D.F. Krause Meeting Invitation.” I was being invited to another meeting? Already? That would make little sense, but it would make more sense than what was actually happening.
The message header indicated there was an attachment, so I opened the message. There was no attachment to be found (and I don’t have one of those annoying security settings that preemptively nukes them, so it wasn’t that), but it opened with “BEGIN:VCALENDAR,” and then there was this:
DTSTART:20080722T140000Z
DTEND:20080722T150000Z
TRANSP:OPAQUE
SEQUENCE:0
UID:040000008200E00074C5B7101A82E0080000000060360000
DTSTAMP:20080721T161001Z
DESCRIPTION:When: Tuesday, July 22, 2008 9:00 AM-10:00 AM (GMT-06:00)
Central Time (US & Canada)
And lots more in that vein. What did any of this mean? Aside from the fact that I was apparently supposed to be in the United States and Canada at the same time, I hadn’t a clue.
I was tempted to send a reply filled with random numbers, letters and symbols. But since I’d already wasted enough time looking at this monstrosity, I settled for writing:
“What the heck is this?”
He replied, “I was sending you an invitation to our meeting tomorrow.”
“But the meeting was my idea, and didn’t we just confirm it?”
“Well, yeah, but not on my Outlook. This way you can confirm it and it’s in my Outlook calendar.”
“But I just confirmed it over email two minutes ago.”
“That’s not an official Outlook confirmation!”
Oh. Well. We can’t have a meeting that’s not officially sanctioned by Outlook—or apparently, he can’t. He explained to me that, without an Outlook confirmation from his meeting counterpart, he just can’t seem to get the meeting mentally worked into his schedule. Translation: Unless you press this button so Outlook reminds me, I won’t remember.
Apparently, to accommodate him, I’d have needed some sort of program or setting on my computer that I don’t have. I certainly wasn’t going to take the time to load, download, frontload or whatever I would have to load.
“All I got is a bunch of mumbo jumbo,” I explained. “And there was no attachment, so let’s just consider this my ‘acceptance’ of your invitation to the meeting I invited you to, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Once his cold shakes stopped (roughly three hours later), he presumably tied a string around his finger or something. Amazingly, when I showed up for the meeting, he was actually there. Darn proud of himself too: “I remembered, D.F.!”
I remembered to have dinner last night. Didn’t get any help whatsoever from Outlook. No wonder Bill Gates had to retire.
Trends in corporate America often take root as a result of early adapters getting into a “don’t-you-want-to-play-with-my-new-toy” sort of mentality. Guy uses Outlook to keep his calendar. He likes Outlook. Fine by me. He could write his appointments on his inner thigh, and I wouldn’t care, as long as he remembers them (and, in the case of this particular example, as long as he doesn’t show me).
But nooooooo! That’s not good enough. He has to rope me into his little game. If I’m still arranging meetings using old-fashioned, 1850s technology like email, I need to be shown now that no meeting is official until every participant has confirmed an Outlook invitation. And if an Outlook invitation turns into mush before it hits your inbox, meaning you haven’t yet received the mark of the Outlook beast on your hand or forehead? Warning, Will Robinson! This does not compute!
The failure of Business Trend Borg to assimilate me is humiliating—to them. Dorks in presentation rooms all across America, who say things like, “Let me ping you back on that,” are falling on the inserts from their IBM Blade Centers.
I messed up everything. I have a habit of doing that.
It’s a slippery slope from “I don’t need that newfangled thing” through “I love my newfangled thing” to “I can’t function without my newfangled thing” and finally on to “I can’t function unless you use my newfangled thing!”
This dynamic probably existed in the business world 40 years ago, although I can’t say for sure, because at the time I was mainly occupied with blowing snot bubbles. Business people are very susceptible to starting to think like everyone else, and then convincing themselves everyone must be thinking like them.
So when you receive an email that contains scintillating information such as “E008000000006036D151,” and you don’t understand it, the problem obviously lies with you.
The way the business world is going is global, or micro, or Outlook invitations, or viral, or whatever. Surely you’re on board. Surely you’ll ping me back, lest my new toy and I feel left by the side of Trendy
Road trying to remember which way to the horizon.
Does that seem hopelessly nonsensical? Good. This is your confirmation. No pings will be forthcoming.
