Pre-inter-office emails, memos or inter-office memorandums were typewritten and distributed as hard copies. So, at the start of the day, any self respecting office guy/gal rummaged through his/her inbox and read the memos buried there.
Then there were the tasks to be done, and memos to be written back.
Came the advent of emails, and memos, like virus, spread as quickly as the dengue-carrying mosquito.
There was no stopping, bosses didn't ask their secretaries nor admin assistants to type out the memos, they did themselves.
And then the voice mail was born, and office life became one big message and communication centre. People were opening emails and playing voice mails all day, and into night as one responds to private emails and voice mail messages at home.
Texting came along, too, and even while sleeping, people got woken up by the vibrating cellphone, and were literally forced to read text messages in the dark.
It's the 27th anniversary of EDSA I revolution today. 1986 seems so far flung in the innards of our stomachs and nerve centres of our brain. In 1986, we still relied on broadsheets, radio and television to carry the news of the day. The internet was still the sole property of the U.S. military.
In the USA where I was when EDSA fell to the good guys, I was glued to CNN.
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| PEOPLE POWER, a scene along EDSA, circa 1986 |
