Yammer

Yammer is the new thing at work. I had received two invites to the site by email, which I noticed upon inspecting my inbox last night. It piqued my curiosity, for sure. According to my review of the site's description as noted in the invites, it seemed to be a site of social interaction, online of course, similar to facebook. I liked this idea. Finally, some enjoyment. I couldn't resist but to sign up within minutes of arriving to work to check it out. Shortly after doing so, a message appeared beside my name, advertising to the other users, 'Beth just joined, let's give her a warm welcome.' Of course no one did.

In reviewing the past comments, nothing noteworthy was seen. One person said, 'Hope you have a good weekend!' while another urged users to 'Join my group!' More coworkers than expected had uploaded a photo to appear on the side of their name. On the bottom right hand side of the screen is a chat bar that shows all users who are logged in versus those who are just a part of the collective whole. Only about two to four others were online most of the day today.

True to form, in an effort to see my vision that I'd witness and be able to participate in quirky interactions to make the work day pass by more easily, I kept popping in and out of the site to see if anything radical would occur; if someone would be bold and brazen enough to bust a move, so to speak, to say what they really meant (in harmless fun, of course). Ohh, I forgot to mention, an email my boss sent while I was out indicated that we must be careful as to what we say on the site as it is a company based site and he'd already seen a post stating, 'I'm so bored.' This made me laugh and gave me hope that someone might have spiced things up a bit. Not so fast. What I envisioned as feverish messages between coworkers, bringing us back to our days of lighthearted fun, and making me enjoy work once more, was not the reality.

Also, just to demonstrate how reality doesn't always quite live up to my ideals, I had felt quite appreciative that two of my coworkers had forwarded an invite, one with whom I rarely converse, and the other who is newer to my department. When I saw one of these individuals today, I said 'Thanks for the invite to Yammer.' Her response: 'Oh no problem. I sent one to everyone, not just you. Not that you're not special.' Which kinda made me feel like an idiot. I laughed because I was so embarrassed. Oh well. So this site in summary is not that special and is not quite the medium I was expecting to encourage some spontaneous fun in the workplace. It's just another mode of business where no one dare infringe upon the underlying protocol. For those familiar with facebook, it is pretty much the equivalent, save the randomness of interactions and liberty for people to write whatever they so choose.