Back when I was working full time, RL, at a job that was well over 45 hour a week, I frequently had a thousand things to do (OK, an exaggeration... usually only 423... *snickers*) the minute I walked into my office. The waitresses would nod, or say hello politely then leave me alone a while, the Big Bosses would not come bother me, or call until after they presumed I'd had some time to get organized, and the public was not even allowed in the building for two hours.
As a consumer, and consultant for other businesses, I knew to give others the same respect. I would never have dreamed of calling a food sales representative at 6:30 AM, though I knew they would be in the office, except in case of an emergency. I didn't call clients I consulted with, until I was fairly certain that they had enough time of a morning to take care of the incidentals, before going into full blown "I'm ON, now" mode. Hell, I won't even call my RL "not a boyfriend" and disturb him of a morning, until I'm sure he's had time for some coffee and to read the paper... essentially to "wake up", which is what a log in to SL is the equivalent of. As human beings, even those of us that are major multitaskers can be inundated and overwhelmed by too many things requiring our attention at the same time. In many ways, this also carries over into SL.
The minute I log on, I get hit with numerous group notices, IM's that were sent from associates of all types while I was offline, etc.. I'm sure I am not alone in this. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty certain that anyone with any SLife at all is in the same boat. It is time consuming to "take care" of all these things, and even a necessary evil, because too many messages get "capped", and then you miss deliveries, or might miss a business opportunity if you don't clear the ones that did get through. (Yes, I have IM's directed to email, but I still have to go through them upon log in, one by one, to make sure that I don't delete something that needs to be kept by mistake.)
Why then, when so many of us are in the same position, do people feel the need to IM you the SECOND that you log on? I love my friends. I love my various families on SL. I love talking to them all....it's the primary reason that I'm there. I actually appreciate the fact that they are (mostly) happy to see me when I log on. (Some I suspect have other motivations at times........)
I leave my autoresponse on for a reason. I will answer friends that IM me, if and when I have time to, or if I'm even really paying attention to SL. Many a time, I'm actually logged on to increase sim traffic, or to listen to music, or whatever, and actually off doing something else RL, or on the web. There are some that I feel obligated to answer immediately, some that I WANT to answer immediately, and some that I have to prioritize, because I know where the conversations generally lead.
Coming back from an extended AFK to find four or five IM's, where people berate me for not answering them AFTER they've been given an autoresponse that says, in effect...."Hey, I"m not here. I will respond when I have time, if I can.", where they've sometimes literally written paragraphs (plural) and then wonder why I haven't responded, is frustrating to say the least. The fact that "they" have now gotten angry with "me" for not jumping immediately into their window is just icing on the cake.
May I suggest that people let someone at least rez first, before the IM attack begins? Sometimes we really DO have stuff to deal with immediately, either before we forget, as is often the case with me due to some of my medical issues, or for various other reasons.
Five more minutes of waiting to contact someone, except in some kind of SLemergency, won't kill anyone. After all, most of us have been online WAY too long on any given day anyway, right? *Evil Grins of Admitted Addiction* (Don't EVEN get me started on those that either map or cam tp directly to a person, w/o asking if they are busy, or changing clothes, or whatever.... that is a subject for a whole different blog post, although I have been guilty of it myself upon occassion, when I've not thought, and was excited to tell someone something or whatever. LOL!)
*Patiently yours*
Tel
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