ReNe: checking the weather outside

Today, my colleague sitting beside me today suddenly said, "My (weather) pop-up just told me it's a thunderstorm outside now."

We're sitting in the middle of the office so we're not beside any windows. Thus, instead of being able to look out and know the weather, we have to get that knowledge through the internet. Or we could walk into one of the offices that do have windows (but that's rude), or we could take the elevator down to the first floor (but that's slow). In other words, the most polite and fastest way to know what the weather outside our building is via the internet.

I snickered. "This is like those sad office jokes about people who sit in the same office sending instant messages to each other."

Mike and I do that sometimes. We could be in the same room, both on different computers, and sending IMs. Why? At first, when IMs first became popular years ago, it was because we could. IMs were extraordinary. Nowadays, it's because sometimes when we get so engrossed in whatever we're doing on the laptop, the only way to catch the other's attention is through an IM. IMs are now ordinary.