My Co-Workers: You, You, and YOU.

A few weeks ago, my friend Stacy put words to something I’d been thinking about for some time. Appropriately, she said it via Twitter: “…twitter is like the watercooler for the self-employed.” Of course! I thought. That’s exactly what it is. Since I am self-employed, I see very few other humans during an average workday, and while I generally consider that one of the perks of this gig, it can get lonely from time to time.

But social media gives me that hit of humanity, just enough to make me feel like I’m not the tree in the forest that didn’t really fall since no one heard it. I check in to see what everybody’s up to; we compare notes on the weekend, on how everybody hates Mondays, on what our kids and spouses did–oh, and the projects we’re working on.  Occasionally we lose or gain cohorts.

It’s been nearly a year since I shared an office with @Loops91 and nearly six since I worked with @bbrasier–but because they’re both on Twitter, I can ask a question, make a snide comment or continue to beat an old inside joke into the ground with no more effort than if I were there with them. (For which they are no doubt unendingly grateful, given my love of beating old inside jokes into the ground.)  My friends @randibuckley and @fridaworld are on the other end of the state and world, respectively, from me, but most weekdays we check in with each other fairly regularly. And although I’ve yet to meet @sarahjbray or @WhenIGroUpCoach in person, they may as well be just down the hall from me.

It is a bit ironic, no? We get away from the watercooler and promptly find a new way to replicate those same dynamics. But here’s the thing: they may be the same dynamics, but now we have the luxury of choosing the minds and personalities with whom we’re brainstorming, commiserating and/or verbally jousting. As Sarah and I were saying from our respective offices [actually, she was outside on her property somewhere in Virginia Beach and I was at my kitchen table in suburban Los Angeles] the other day, it’s nothing short of delicious to be able to find whole enclaves of those all-too-rare-in-real-life, like-minded individuals. It changes how we think, how we feel, how we work.

So it isn’t quite business as usual, no. It’s business, but better. Call it Post-Watercoolerism, if you like. I’m just calling it great.

Photo by NidalM.