e-meeting

No, the title is not an attempt to graphically represent a mispronunciation of the English word “emitting”.

The above expression was found in the slogan of one of the companies permitted to do e-marketing at the annual, week-long virtual conference for freelance translators hosted by an organisation of which I am a subscribed member.

In attempt to steer away from advertising, I shall paraphrase the slogan, which said that they looked forward to e-meeting me. Very friendly approach. I simply don’t feel that “they” really needed to say “e-“.

This is a virtual conference. Attendance in one’s sheepskin slippers is permitted. Everything at this conference is “electronic”. No electricity, no Internet? No conference.

I am unlikely to meet any of the people I interact with online by chance, or even by design, even though the professional relationships one cultivates across the Internet may well make such a meeting a pleasant one.

I have not attended much at this year’s virtual conference. I have been working instead.

The presentations I did attend seemed to lack the depth and intensity I was after. I joined a group discussion for a short while, but found that too intense, and somewhat disjointed. Most people seemed so agitated, and some decidedly off-key.  I got all e-conferenced out after about twenty minutes of such dissonance.

I retreated to the peace and quiet of zero volume.

Looking forward to e-meeting me, are they? Why?

So they can get the measure of me from my warm but not sweaty and firm but not knuckle-crunching e-handshake? So they can place me e-socially as Hannibal Lector does Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs by referring to her “good handbag and cheap shoes”? So that we can share an e-coffee or an e-lunch while discussing mutually beneficial e-business (and thereby pick up all sorts of other e-cues about each other’s e-suitability?

No. None of the above. I had it figured out eons ago. What they are really looking forward to is my e-transfer of real cash. Not today, sunshine!

Allison