when a body is voiceless, and will remain so for the rest of this week (aargh, and what shall i do at work, pray?), a skypedown is something of a tragedy.
of course i can use my notepad for communication in an eye-to-eye situation, or do some mime, but my handwriting is … mmm.. well, ppl describe it as ‘very pleasant to look at, but what does it say?’, and i am not very adept at bodylanguage.
and then, of course, i am a teacher. i have to (insert expletives of your choice here) talk. explain stuff. ask questions. all i am left with is a bunch, a collection of Those Looks. but a look does not explain why it is this grade, and not that, and what the mistakes are. and also, i have been blessed with students who are – at a very basic and essential level – mostly copycats. copykittens. if i cannot talk, they don’t. if i draw a diagram on the board right-to-left (being left-handed), they copy it without changing. thank a deity of your choice, i teach text analysis and not something dangerous.
and everyone has skype. ppl use it to communicate. send files. get stuff done. skype is so handy when you are a teacher, and you are voiceless. ghaaaaagh. microsoft, microsoft, what have you done?
on the ironic side, let’s make a list of what microsoft might be doing to achieve a skypedown,
here it goes:
- writing a user manual for extremely dummies
- developing and testing a service pack (and failing)
- taking it offline to create a skype experience
- redesigning colours and buttons
- rewriting the code to include bugs that will require further updates
- trying to read the code and finding it’s written in estonian, which language americans just cannot understand
- experimenting with triangular windows for chat
- sb just lost the ‘online’ button and left
- refurbishing the servers to handle windows exceptions
- the cat ate it
- all the office ppl are trying to catch the cat who jumped out of the window
- the skype experience turned out to be smashing, and now they need new developers
- the dummies did not read the manual
- someone asked the wrong question
- etc
