corporate telephone

I've been thinking lately how communication can sometimes get a little squirelly inside companies.  Something gets interpreted out of context and then passed along down the line just like that telephone game we all played in kindergarten.

I think this gets even worse with geographical distance.  I worked at a company once with the R&D center a full 5-hour drive from where all the brand managers sat.  Things used to fester all the time.  The only way to keep communication smooth was to meet face-to-face as often as possible.  We sometimes used to hop in the car, drive 5 hours for a 2 hour meeting and then 5 hours back in a day.

Anyway, I'm definitely feeling this a bit lately now that I'm in a satellite office in London and the rest of the team is in San Francisco, 8 time zones away.  So, I nursed my frustration by drawing this little cartoon.  Ah, now I feel much better.