Take a letter, Miss Jones

IBM has just announced that it is giving all its temporary secretaries four weeks notice, worldwide, and moving secretarial services to Bangalore. That's going to be a bit of a culture shock isn't it.
Imagine the problems there could be.

• tea and coffee for meetings takes days to arrive
• Christmas parties become less fun and
• the gossip and scandal network falls into disrepair.

I remember a secretary who came in to work each Monday with different coloured hair, depending on which food colouring she had used for the weekend party she had attended. Washing it out was always a problem.

Another secretary regarded herself as a personal friend of Tiger Woods. Her name was Alex, interesting Tiger has selected Alexis as the middle name for his new daughter. Alex was a bit of a girl, and these are the sort of characters which office environments need.

Given, though, that mobile working , hot desking and client based engagements, have removed the whole office social scene, the secretarial changes were a cost saving waiting to happen.

Give it a while and we will all be Avatars conducting business on Second Life. After all there are now over 7 million inhabitants. If you come across Witherspoon Gilks, say hello, that's me.