Why the chat window is the new water cooler

There was a cartoon in The New Yorker once. It showed a shrink’s couch placed in front of a water cooler. A couple is shown sitting on the couch. The woman says to the man, “I just thought we should talk more.”

The water cooler’s reputation for being a place where employees chat has led to the term “water cooler conversations”. Typically, the water facility is away from people’s desks. It necessitates a small break, which leads people to drop their guard a bit and talk with colleagues. That is the basic idea behind water cooler conversations.

But nobody talks that much at a water cooler anymore. They didn’t even in pre-COVID days, when people went to office. At least not in India. The phrase “water cooler conversations” still carries meaning. But it no longer has literal truth. Just like no one really does 'back-of-the-envelope' calculations anymore.

Back when people did natter at the cooler, they often seemed urban equivalents of village folk at a river, bonding over something water-centric. You, your boss or your colleagues, carrying invisible burdens over your heads, were not much different than a group of village women balancing pots of water on their head. Nor was Jeff Bezos at some point in his life. Neither were Jim (Jason Krasinski) and Pam (Jenna Fischer) and all the others from The Office. All that was missing was buffaloes taking a dip around you.

Where do Indian officegoers have their water cooler conversations now? Oh, they are spoilt for choice. In many ways, the chat window on the computer has become the new water cooler. It is open and buzzing across computer screens the whole day. Often there are multiple windows open for simultaneous conversations, filled with gossip, slander, secrets, evening plans and weekend plans, in code language, naturally. (This writer has been guilty of many things but never this sneaky practice).

The fluid outflow area, the bathroom, is also a water cooler of sorts. Nothing sensitive gets discussed here, as there could be people in the toilet stalls. But while the conversation may be banal (“match dekha?”), there is genuine ease here, for men especially post the ‘me too’ movement. With cameras and invisible boundaries all around the rest of the office, this is one space where men can use swear words, tell a dirty joke and generally be at ‘vishram’ before snapping back into ‘savdhan’. In one of my earlier offices, the bathroom door, unbeknownst to us, would stay half open, while we would be staring at the wall and doing our business and talking rubbish. That some of this may have been caught by passersby is a scary thought.

Till not long ago, flirtation was the secret or open agenda of most officegoers. This was true of both genders, as much as some may deny it. In modern offices, the real water cooler, shabby and cold, was no longer ambient enough a setting for a guilty pleasure. That honour went to new-age coffee machines, steaming, hissing, percolating, spurting. Here, a cappuccino could be nursed over a longish conversation, all the while enjoying the undercurrent of attraction.

There is a type of water cooler conversation or flirtation that happens around fire and ash, over cigarettes in smoking zones in the office or on the street. In the open outdoors, the man holds the flame for the lady. They exchange a glance that lingers just a little longer. Heads are thrown back to release smoke and stress, and as they kill themselves a little with every puff, they commence the noble art of bitching about colleagues.