Have you ever had a conversation where you just didn't connect? Not on an emotional level or anything serious like that. But more along the lines of after a few moments you realize you are talking about two separate and completely different things.

Person A: While walking my dog yesterday I came across a ....
Person B: ...vector control is stepping up enforcement by my house, they keep leaving bait traps...

? ? ?

Many of you may have has similar experiences while making small talk to a Senior Level management Mucky-muck at your company.

Well, that's how I feel when I talk to someone with a radio shack press'n'play speakerphone or on a connection with an inordinate amount of lag. Did I talk to early? What did they just say? Damn that background noise that threw off the VOX sensitivity!

Then there's that awkward pause as both parties are playing an invisible game of chicken to see who talks first. I'm reminded of ethernet packet transmission. If packets collide, both NIC's wait a random timeout before resending. Instead of milliseconds - it's 2-10 seconds! And if they do collide - they randomly try again! Ahhhh! Lather, Rinse, Repeat!

All that effort focused on the timing - and no time left over to "read" the emotional state of the other party. ::sigh::