A Different Street

I’m a stay-at-home parent and school volunteer, but I also have a ten-hours-a-week telecommuting job for a large search engine company. They pay me to evaluate whether particular search results are relevant or not. It doesn’t do much for my feelings of alienation (I don’t believe I have ever spoken, even on the phone, to anyone there — it’s all done on the web/email), but it helps with my occasional feelings of being a leech on society/my spouse.

With so little human interaction, it’s difficult to see any way to work out Christ’s purpose for me (as if I even know what it is) in this work setting, except one. They have anywhere from 5-8 people evaluate the same search results, and we all have to come to a rough agreement of how relevant the result is, on a scale of 1 (perfect) to 5 (completely off-base), using criteria that are of necessity vague. The agreement is reached by people anonymously defending their choice of rating and persuading others to agree.

When I first started this job, there was a fair amount of “fronting” going on in the comments, a sense of “I’m right and you’re wrong/stupid.” Homie don’t roll that way, so I started trying my active listening and consensus building techniques (which requires a bit of creativity since comments are supposed to be brief). I figure everyone wants to be listened to, and most people want to be part of a solution. I also offer compliments when they are deserved, and admit I’m wrong when I err. And, unless I’m very much mistaken or flattering myself, the overall tone of the comments has softened over time. I like it much better that way.

Many people have observed that the anonymous nature of many Internet interactions brings out the worst in people, and this is no doubt often true. But all that means is that our online communities, whether for work or leisure, are as much in need of our patience and our community building skills as our other, IRL communities.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 28th, 2007 at 3:13 pm and is filed under Community, Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.