I met with a contractor yesterday and within seconds, we got right into it. I didn’t ask about her kids, her weekend, her summer plans. It just didn’t occur to me (and it didn’t occur to her, either). It’s as though no one wants to spend the time chit chatting anymore. We’re soooo busy. At work, we’re hyper aware of going beyond our allotted meeting time (somebody’s got to jump!). And despite so many of us working at home, we’re slammed. The morning commutes are gone, but now we’ve got video fatigue, context switching, and a dearth of screens, devices, and annoying notification noises coming at us. All. Day. Long. So is chit chat now a matter of quantity over quality? And if it’s quality we care about, how do we cut down to the layers and the pieces that matter most?
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