Sitting in silence

I’m currently working at Yahoo! (the ! is obligatory branding, not an indication of my excitement).

When I was shown around the offices on my first day and saw the quirkily named meeting rooms (named after pubs, festivals, movie stars etc), the students union-style café and the enormous, amusing images on the walls, I thought – this looks like a wonderful place to be. The quintessential internet company.

It wasn’t long before I realised things were not as they seem on the surface. The walls may be colourful but the atmosphere certainly isn’t. People generally don’t speak to each other, not on my floor anyway (I’ve heard rumours things are a little more upbeat on other floors). There is no witty banter and not much idle chit chat. Something I soon realised was that, although people are not talking out loud, they’re often chatting with colleagues on Yahoo! Messenger. People are communicating but not in a way that lets other people join in. Most of the time Messenger chats replace phone calls, so you don’t even get the chance to listen in on a phone call to find out what’s going on with someone.

There’s also a big international mix. British, Americans, German, French and the odd Spanish or Italian. Does this cross-breed of nationalities mean that perhaps people don’t share the same sense of humour with the people sitting around them?

I’m only at Yahoo! temporarily and if I don’t stay on I’ll know that I want the atmosphere at the next place I work to be a little more irreverent and the people to be a lot more willing to chatter away with the kind of jokey comments that keep you sane when you’re staring at a computer screen all day.