A brief thought about social media and mf

This morning, I learnt that Polling Day would be 7 May from a FB post from the Overseas Singaporean fan page, because FB is the first thing I log into every morning. I then checked the weather and my emails before clicking on the CNA website to read the detailed news.

This says two things:
1) I can no longer do without FB.. And because I'm sure I'm not the only one..
2) Social media tools really work! (Duh..)

Unfortunately, we won't be voting - we didn't register ourselves and we aren't rich enough to fly to the polling station in NYC for a day! Anyway, we're going to be bus-ing around over 6-7 May my time.

But I will vote for Singapore to stay the way I like - more on this in my next post. Or next next post, depending on when I finish writing it..

Brief, right? :p

But I get long-winded when I think of the IT behind it.. I mean, we rely on IT for work and personal leisure. Undeniably, IT has helped us a lot in getting things done. BUT! It can also hinder. When it breaks down, for example..

I had grieved so much over IT, especially since I started work! Bad or no connection, loss of access to certain emails, expired passwords that cannot be changed via VPN! And because of all the security precautions in the machine, everything runs at "break-neck" speed, as in I want to break my neck as it loads. Argh! Now I use my work laptop for emails and intranet, and my mac for the real work. A thumbdrive helps with the transfer of documents between machines.

And, I think we need to pay our IT staff more - it's not easy dealing with demanding users like me! :p And we also need to attract good people who are able to quickly diagnose the problem and solve it. Sometimes, call centres cannot really help.. I still remember spending an hour on the phone in a hotel room in NYC with a call centre guy likely located in India because the LAN wasn't working - it turned out that the power was connected to the lights but I switched off the lights cos it was a bright day!!

IT also hinders work-life balance. The days of putting stuff in out-trays and doing other work while waiting for stuff to return to in-trays are long gone... Yes, emails are more efficient but with emails, work goes home with you at the end of the day! I really don't like the blurring of lines between work and leisure time. Will elaborate on work-life balance when I have more time..