Why communication can kill you

Don’t look now, but there’s a new sickness on the horizon that is going to be even more devastating than HIV/Aids. It’s called communication.

Seriously, communication is going to be the death of us if we don’t watch out. Companies are simply going to have to start implementing procedures to prevent employees from burning out in their early 20s. We simply can’t go on like this. I don’t think we were ever meant to.

Let me show you what I am getting at.

My elderly next door neighbour will probably live to be 100 years old, because unlike most of us who do our banking on our home computers via the Internet, she gets into her car, goes and draws money, then drives round town paying her accounts.

She doesn’t have a cellphone or even an answering machine; is not remotely interested in having a VCR; and doesn’t much watch satellite TV, because she’s so used to where SABC 1, 2 and 3 are, on the remote.

She writes letters to her children on paper and walks down to the corner shops to post them. She prefers it if her husband prints out e-mail replies and then gives her the piece of paper to read.

Like many of my peers, I do everything by cellphone and e-mail via an ultra-high speed modem that connects to the Internet in less than a heartbeat. Everything happens quickly and efficiently.

Unlike my neighbour, I don’t go to the bank anymore. I don’t seem to have the time to get in the car, look for parking, and stand in a queue chatting to fellow men and women. I do it all over the Internet, and if it takes more than two minutes for me to do my monthly banking chores, I get tetchy as a bulldog without a car to chase. And unlike my neighbour, I continually wonder why time is flying by so fast.

Admit it, you’ve also been aware that the long awaited year 2000 went by in a flash. It’s long gone, old hat. Even those bottles of champagne with which we celebrated the turn of the millennium are looking dusty and jaded.

It’s not because we’re getting older that time seems to fly by so fast; our kids are also beginning to complain about tempus fugitting at an incredible rate of knots.

What’s happening, quite simply, is that communication has speeded up. We don’t have to have meetings anymore, we can have video conferences. We don’t have to wait for letters, we can get instant e-mails. We don’t have to return phone calls, we’re always available on our cellphones.

All this can’t possibly be good for us. Even when we go on holiday the ubiquitous cellphone and laptop are so readily at hand it is almost impossible to resist the temptation to check up on what’s going on in the office.

I can’t even go to the bathroom in peace without taking my cellphone and electronic diary, just to avoid having to call someone back to set something up.

I’m not alone in all this. All the business world is beginning to look like that movie comedian hanging on to the back of the train with his legs pounding away in a blur.

What’s is the answer? It’s not simple. No company can expect its employees to look after themselves to take a break from this hysterical rat race. They’re going to have to insist on frequent vacation, and insist that laptops and cellphones are handed in before leaving.

Do I seem a little hysterical myself? I hope so. Business has a nasty reputation for simply ignoring such things as HIV/Aids. Someone else’s problem…

This painful new disease called communication is our problem, and it’s going to bite us all badly before long.

Praying for peace has a new and urgent meaning.