Communicating with my supervisor has been one of the most difficult issues I face using email. Let me just set the stage by explaining the factors involved. I’m a relatively new employee still on probation and I have not had the chance to get to know my superiors well. We work opposite hours and the only communication we have is really for official purposes. As I have stated before, I’m a face-to-face kind of guy. I like to read body language and “feel out” the person I’m speaking with so that I can really get my message across. I don’t like the “cues filter out” approach (Wood and Smith p. 79). My supervisor, consequently is the same way. When I use “immediate communication” as Wood and Smith describe (pg. 6) I will adjust my messages, such as the choice of words, my tone of voice, the length of my messages, and even my responses, and other non-verbal contexts to certain personalities. When I use email and I have to represent my “mediated self” (Wood and Smith pg. 7) which is difficult to establish for me to a superior. I find that I have to carefully construct my messages (which are predominantly email) so they don’t come out wrong. Remember I am communicating with a superior and there is more pressure to not sound out of line. I get frustrated with mediated communication when I don’t know the personality or characteristics of the receiver. Especially when the receiver has power over my job. When I’m not familiar with my receiver, I find myself putting my foot in my mouth more often than not and I have no idea why. I then have to go explain myself to them in person as to the real meaning of my message. Again, I’m not sure why this happens, all I know is that I’m terrible with CMC.

That being said, my current supervisor, as I briefly explained, is like me, he is much better at face-to-face communication. I have written several emails to him and then deleted them all together. I chose not to send them at all and instead use the telephone to get my message across. The main reason is that most of my messages are about how to approach solving a certain issue or problem. In these instances I need immediate feedback. As I mentioned my supervisors and I work opposite hours, and if I don’t get that instant feedback, the issue still remains. The delay would look unprofessional. The conundrum I face here is that I have to phone and get a hold of my supervisor when I’m not supposed to be working (I value my free time) and get the issue resolved, instead of simply sending an email then receiving an answer when I go back to work.

When I thought about writing this assignment I had a hard time trying to find a way to incorporate this weeks reading. Then I thought about our companies email system itself. One of my main complaints about our email system at work is that its totally contained within the office. I cannot access it from outside nor do I have an “email” address. This is somewhat ridiculous although its for security purposes. In reading Wood and Smith and about the issue of “Accessing the Machine” I wonder if the people who designed my email system were thinking ahead about the amount of access to email and to the internet that people would have in the future (I‘m assuming here that our system is old and outdated). I envision the creators of our email system shaped their design back in the 80’s and 90’s when most people seemed to access the internet (if at all) at work for work related purposes. Now in today’s society of “hotspots” and online access at McDonalds (Wood and Smith p. 166) we can be and are at work all the time because of the availability and access to the internet. I would like to think that our work email system is archaic and outdated and I would probably be right. The creators probably didn’t’ realize that the State Governments, like Kentucky, Oregon, Nebraska, and Wisconsin were going to go as far as requiring internet wiring in all state funded housing (Wood and Smith pg. 175). They probably didn’t expect establishments like Starbucks and McDonalds to give their customers free online access. They also probably didn’t realize that as more people got “wired” that we would be able to access our accounts from homes and expect to be able to access our “work” from home as well. As we become more and more connected, other companies expect to be able to communicate via email with your company just as you would with theirs. Just imagine that every time I go to training or meet with someone outside my office I have to tell them that my company has a secure email address which they cannot get an email address for? I had to use my personal email address for most of my work correspondence outside the office. Archaic and obsolete, I rest my case.

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