The Machine Has Stopped - Let's Meet!

A year ago we started hearing the phrase "the new normal". It quickly became one of my most hated phrases, along with "unprecedented", "you're on mute" and "next slide please".

Life became a version of EM Forster's The Machine Stops, all of us locked up at home and interacting via video calls.

My 2020 ended with a Zoom quiz and started with midnight beers celebrated via video link. Adverts for Microsoft Teams convinced us we need never attend the office or see anybody in person again...

Early in my career (so basically a long time ago in a galaxy far far away) I had a role as a Fraud Investigator in the Department of Social Security; a role that taught me a lot about human interaction. We used to have to interview the more difficult customers in secure rooms with a window between us, a barrier to protect us as staff in case the customer turned a little aggressive. Which they often did. Because these could be tricky conversations that the customer felt trapped by and they would bang on the table and the glass in frustration at the questions asked and be marked on their file as PV (Potentially Violent) for doing so.

You weren't allowed to interview a PV customer in an open room, but one day I chose to go in to a room without a barrier. I took a colleague and sat with a customer I knew could be temperamental under pressure and started my interview with them. They remained calm, worked with me on my questions, accepted the Department's decision and left the room with nary a bang of the fist on a table.

I hadn't interviewed them differently. I'd asked some awkward questions. My colleague had remained quiet, sat back from me.

But there wasn't a barrier between us and it removed the tension.

I was reminded of this when I started a new role in March after seven months of pandemic unemployment. I met all my new colleagues via video call, and it was tough. You can't figure out people's emotions on a video call, you can't see them well enough to read body language. Especially when they're people you don't know; you've never met before. Your brain hasn't created the persona it needs to understand in order to figure out how they're going to behave.

The screen, in this case Microsoft Teams, is a barrier that restricts normal human interaction and, as the "newby" trying to get a grip on this fabulous new role in this great company, trying to help these new colleagues solve their problems, I felt like I was quickly failing.

That's not something you like to admit out loud, especially when you're in your probation period, but I'm somebody who benefits greatly from being able to see and read body language.

I'm obviously a lot older than I was when I made that decision in the DSS. Today, I've got tinnitus in both ears and a further slight hearing issue in my left ear; even with my Jabras in, on a video call I'll miss things people say. When we were having issues with a supplier I'm now responsible for, it felt like the images on the screen were telling me it was all my fault.

Recently, we've all been allowed out to play again. Over the past few weeks I've met my new colleagues in person (trying to work out who's who with their masks on has been fun...) and these conversations have taken place in person, where human interaction is different, more natural, and where body language can be interpreted and reacted to and where, with all of these factors combined, the tone of voice is easier to interpret.

It suddenly didn't feel like the challenges we were facing were my fault. It suddenly felt like I was able to get my point across clearly, and at the end of the conversations there were smiles and comments on how the weather is rubbish or how funky my shoes looked. We were all able to walk away calmly without pressing Leave and ejecting ourselves instantly from each other's day.

We don't have to be in the office every day. Flexible working is the New Normal. And video calls do make up part of the narrative of our day now. That would eventually have happened anyway but, like QR Codes and Order and Pay apps, Covid has sped up its adoption in to our life and it's definitely better to jump on a video call to discuss something than ignore it.

But nothing will ever replace human interaction. Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution have taught us how to read each other without even knowing we're doing it. So, if there's an awkward conversation you're uncertain about having with somebody, try and do it in person where you can and the outcome will be positive.

The Machine Stops is one of my favourite science fiction short stories. Written in 1909, it tells the story of a world in which the population live solitary lives interacting via a machine that shares their thoughts and ideas in EM Forster's scarily accurate prediction of social networking. Inevitably, it all collapses and the moral of the story is that you cannot survive without the human interaction with others.

I'm bloody glad to be seeing people again. To be out in the world. To be able to understand what's going on. And to get on with taking this job to the next level.