the Gmail revolution

It's been a little over a year since I opened my Gmail account. My life has changed so much because of this. I have an entirely different perspective on email and the internet at large. There are certainly technological aspects of it that have affected me as well, but this entry is all about the cultural and social implications.

Every morning when I come into work, the first thing I do is open Gmail. This window stays open the entire time I am in the office (unless there's some sort of freeze or other technical reason to close it. but it's the first thing reopened!).

Where I used to work, I had work email, using Outlook. JP and I would probably send about 5-6 emails a day to each other, almost none of them longer than a line or two. Enter chat capabilities! If I have a quick question, I don't have to type in who it's to, decide on a subject, write my message, sign it, and send it. Now it's *click*, type, enter. *click*! "Shannon and Will, wanna come to dinner?" *click*! "Silent Bob, are you coming to happy hour?". Things that I would've waited to know, can be immediately answered. I may not see Shannon but once a week, but I know what she did every other day that week from our daily chats.

But, by far, my favorite Gmail feature is the status message. Feeling witty? Let the world know! Have an inside joke you want others to ask you about? Make it a confusing status message and someone's bound to ask you! Having a bad day? Put that there, and people will rally (once they get the chance) to cheer you up. It's an amazing, powerful thing. Share your newest favorite link! Did Zac say something hilarious? Post it for the world to see. Tim misspelled "lead", "led"? We can all laugh at him together! Should JP be on, but he's not? Write "Where's JP?" and wait for an answer! Confused about Excel formulas? Ask the question and see who responds.
Today, Shannon and I had the following (partial) chat conversation:

Shan: are you invisible or something?
me: yes. I can't even see me.

While I had no idea what she was talking about, it was damn funny. Funny enough that I wanted us all to laugh. It's my current status message.

While those might all sound like a great, great use for the status message, we haven't even gotten to the best part: the syncing/battling of status messages.
On the day of the California primary last election day, Brett popped up on Gmail. In order to rouse his anger, I changed my message to "My vote canceled Brett's vote!" Upon seeing this, JP felt the need to contribute something like "And my vote one ups Brett's!", Shannon wrote something like, "Pssst, Brett's a Republican!", and Zac topped it off with "Brett smells." Being in 5 separate places, yet each being able to give Brett shit at once was amazing. It happened again today. Tuesday happy hours spark much discussion - Who's coming? When? What's my first drink going to be? Will Genevieve be there? Today was no exception. Only most of the talking was through status messages: Silent Bob - "Is it time to drink yet?", Tim - "Happy Hourless blues", LeeAnn - "happy hour?", and me - "I know it's happy hour somewhere right now, but why can't it be here, for me?". I know everyone's right there with me, waiting for 5:30. It makes me feel happy and warm and connected.

Although, the warm part may be because the AC is broken in the office.