gchat me

I'm banned again. I mean, well, I've always been banned from using IM's but this time even iloveim.com can't even help me. As much as I think web messengers come in handy, even they can't provide this thing called discretion.

You see, iloveim.com's messenger pops up when a new message comes in. Everytime someone types a line, the window will automatically pop up. I can't do anything about that because of its limited features. The only good thing is it helps me get connected to the rest of the world.

The other day, the manager was using my phone and I forgot to switch off my monitor. Someone messaged me, and coincidentally it was Valentine's Day. I don't know if she actually read the 5 lines that my friend typed while on the phone, or if she even knows what IM's are, but I cannot risk it anymore.

I've heard of an acquaintance of a friend of another friend who got fired because they found records of his chat messages in which he complained about the company. They used that as evidence to fire him!

I have friends whose companies get them YM accounts so they can be connected to regional offices around the world. I also have friends who communicate with their tech-savvy clients with YM. I, on the other hand, work in a company where not only are IM's banned, but Internet access is limited to managerial staff and some privilege few who have to connect to the WWW for work purposes, like yours truly.

But I found another way to circumvent this. Google has just offered a chat client which is incorporated into Gmail. It's even more basic than most web messengers, but I ain't complaining. A austere tool is still a tool, and it's up to a person how to best take advantage of it.

So if you guys have a gmail account (if you don't have, I'll invite you ;)), please add me using myblogspotnickATgmailDOTcom. It's better than nothing.

IM = Instant Messenger
YM = Yahoo Messenger
WWW = World Wide Web