The Guardian for this meeting was Zen Arado. The comments are by Zen Arado.

The conversation was mostly about the dangers, advantages, disadvantages, perceived or not perceived loneliness, of working alone or from home:

Zen Arado: Hi Riddle :)
Riddle Sideways: Hi there
Riddle Sideways: are you still in holiday mood?
Zen Arado: how are you?
Riddle Sideways: this is a good week to work, no interruptions
Riddle Sideways: unless SL counts :)
Zen Arado: my holiday mood is endurance :)
Zen Arado: waiting for things to get back to normal
Zen Arado: Hi Korel :)
Korel Laloix: HEya
Riddle Sideways: Hi Kotr;
Riddle Sideways: oh dear, can't type today
Korel Laloix: Horrid lagg for me.
Zen Arado: wonder how many are online?
Korel Laloix: did not look... but I bt a lot.
Zen Arado: nothing else to do :)
Zen Arado: but many visit relatives
Zen Arado: can't sit in SL then
Korel Laloix: I am at work again.... so not a lot to do here either.
Zen Arado: funny how they work boxing day in the US
Zen Arado: public holiday here
Zen Arado: but then you take Thanksgiving
Korel Laloix: I am theonlypero workin in this buildin thogh.
Korel Laloix: So allage I cant see whati type until aater I pushenter.
Zen Arado: isn't that scary?
Zen Arado: for a young woman
Korel Laloix: It is not haunted or anthing.
Zen Arado: but anyone could walk in?
Korel Laloix: Oh.. and apretty safe area..... ad I can take care of myself .
Riddle Sideways: Boxing day always seemed... well, a little strange. on Xmas you open the boxes and the next day you box them again
Korel Laloix: The have to ring fist or have akey.. or smash a windo.
Zen Arado: ah I see
Zen Arado: many years ago I used to supervise a chemical plant alone

Korel Laloix: That sounds not fun.
Zen Arado: there were plenty of people around during the day
Zen Arado: but the evenings and night shifts you were on your own
Zen Arado: dangerous
Korel Laloix: I go camping my byself.
Zen Arado: there was a little control room but all the main plant was outside
Korel Laloix: Just what I can carry on the motorcycle and me sometimes.
Zen Arado: I used to have to climb ladders onto the top of stainless steel tanks to open valves
Korel Laloix: Great to get away from everyone.
Zen Arado: yes I used to hitchhike like that in Australia
Zen Arado: when I was in my twenties
Korel Laloix: Never hichhiked.
Zen Arado: it was a great feeling of freedom
Zen Arado: I even rode freight trains
Korel Laloix: I like that about the bike...... can park and find a place to camp where no one could find you.
Korel Laloix: That sounds fun though.
Riddle Sideways: hitchhiking use to be a really good way to get anyway
Korel Laloix: Now probably a death wish.... frowns
Riddle Sideways: nowdays, don't see anybody hitchiking
Zen Arado: especially if you didn't have much money
Zen Arado: I think they still ride the freight trains in America
Zen Arado: I saw a TV programme about it
Korel Laloix: Probably.
Zen Arado: I wouldn't do it in Europe this was Australia
Zen Arado: Queens land railways were very easy going
Zen Arado: health and safety wouldn't allow just one person
Zen Arado: to work in a place I think
Zen Arado: not a chemical plant anyway
Zen Arado: with boilers and making formaldehyde
Zen Arado: I remember a guy got electrocuted in that place
Korel Laloix: SOunds smelly f nothing else.
Zen Arado: he disappeared for a couple of days and I was the last person to see him alive
Zen Arado: I was interviewed by detectives
Korel Laloix: Whre as he?
Zen Arado: turned out he had gone up to a damp loft
Korel Laloix: OH OK>
Zen Arado: and stepped into a puddle near a switchboard
Zen Arado: the roof was leaking
Zen Arado: its felt funny to be under suspicion :-)
Korel Laloix: Sad to hear tha.
Zen Arado: yes it was sad at the time he was only a young guy in his twenties
Korel Laloix: To laggd fr me.
Korel Laloix: Take care
Zen Arado: bye Kori
Riddle Sideways: take care
Korel Laloix: ciao
Zen Arado: keep safe
Zen Arado: there used to be a cooling tower in this place
Riddle Sideways: ah well, years ago chemical spills, explosions, dead workers, etc. were not that dangerious
Zen Arado: and sometimes a piece of plastic would get stuck over the inlet pipe
Zen Arado: so what you had to do was climb into three feet of water in a sump and remove it
Zen Arado: or the plant would shut down
Zen Arado: and you might have to do this on your own at three a.m. the morning
Riddle Sideways: sounds like a really fun job
Zen Arado: I only had to do it once
Zen Arado: yes chemical plants weren't good places to work in
Zen Arado: I had to load 80 pound bags of powders into reactors
Zen Arado: you cut the top off with a knife and then poured the stuff in
Zen Arado: and you were breathing the powder
Zen Arado: it used to make my hands itchy
Riddle Sideways: back then those powders were ok to breathe
Riddle Sideways: nowdays very bad for you
Zen Arado: you could wear a face mask but it was very uncomfortable in the Australian heat

Zen Arado: many people have to work alone
Zen Arado: writers and painters for example
Zen Arado: and lots of people do computer type jobs from home
Riddle Sideways: Riddle does
Zen Arado: that must get a bit lonely too?
Riddle Sideways: office-mates are 3 cats
Zen Arado: :-)
Zen Arado: They don't stab you in the back anyway
Zen Arado: office politics can be a drag as well
Zen Arado: but some people like that kind of thing
Riddle Sideways: it is funny that none of the usual workers are on Skype now
Zen Arado: you can talked to co-workers on Skype?
Riddle Sideways: yes, but usually text chat
Zen Arado: that helps I guess
Zen Arado: I wonder if you could set up an office in Second Life and work with people in real life?
Riddle Sideways: many do
Zen Arado: You could set up a little water cooler and chat with people around it :-)
Zen Arado: I didn't know that
Riddle Sideways: there are many nice fancy office building for rent short term
Zen Arado: though I suppose any group in Second Life gives that function
Zen Arado: amazing
Riddle Sideways: some companies have SL conventions and conferrences
Zen Arado: somebody was telling me yesterday about a surgeon who uses Second Life to set up simulations of operating theatres
Zen Arado: it's connected with the way they can do operations long distance m=now
Riddle Sideways: there was an island (somewhere here) with EMT, first responder training simulations
Zen Arado: I think I would prefer to have a real surgeon
Riddle Sideways: so much robot surgery being done now
Zen Arado: I suppose if the success rate is good, why not?
Riddle Sideways: but the lag might be deadly (literally)
Zen Arado: Yes :-)
Zen Arado: not good if they closed the region halfway through an operation
Riddle Sideways: speaking of which... the world has not ended yet
Zen Arado: lots of things to go wrong
Zen Arado: I suspected it might not
Zen Arado: be have been spared once more
Riddle Sideways: well, most of the Mayans are gone
Zen Arado: the prophecy worked for them then
Riddle Sideways: and the wednesday rolling reboot has not ended this world so far

Zen Arado: so maybe they just skip it this week?
Zen Arado: Because everyone is on holiday
Zen Arado: do you prefer to work from home Riddle?
Riddle Sideways: probably they need more than one person in the plant to reboot the worlds
Riddle Sideways: yes, like the solitude (need to get the topic in)
Riddle Sideways: am not lonely
Zen Arado: :)
Zen Arado: sometimes, if I feel lonely, I just sit and ask myself what it is
Riddle Sideways: couple of years ago there was a job that really forgot about anybody not in the building
Zen Arado: does it really exist?
Zen Arado: oh?
Riddle Sideways: so each morning, get up, shower, etc. and drive to a building.
Riddle Sideways: About an hour combined comute plus the prep
Riddle Sideways: seems a waste
Zen Arado: Yes all that unnecessary driving people seem to have to do
Riddle Sideways: now it is get up, make coffee, boot computer, work
Zen Arado: some people say teleconferencing isn't as good as being in a room with people
Zen Arado: but I wonder why
Zen Arado: how much of that is just old habits
Riddle Sideways: most of it
Riddle Sideways: they mention needing to see body language etc.
Zen Arado: but you could see that on video as well?
Zen Arado: You can't shake hands
Zen Arado: don't see that as a big disadvantage
Riddle Sideways: could, but don't use video much
Riddle Sideways: that not showering, dressing thing
Zen Arado: if you were a naturalist you could sit around naked all day
Riddle Sideways: shaking hands seems to have gone away a little also.
Zen Arado: without offending anyone
Riddle Sideways: everybody is using hand sanitazers now
Zen Arado: yes that's true
Zen Arado: I haven't worked in a firm or 20 years so why forgotten what it's like
Zen Arado: I have
Zen Arado: so we all might end up like in the matrix?
Zen Arado: Each in a tiny cell
Zen Arado: but communicating with everyone else
Zen Arado: any time we want?
Riddle Sideways: thanks, Zen. had not been lonely and separated feeling until this chat
Zen Arado: I don't hear much discussion about these things in the media
Zen Arado: sorry Riddle
Zen Arado: :)
Zen Arado: but I was also pointing out that we are all connected
Riddle Sideways: watching the text-ers alone in a resturant or on the street
Zen Arado: in fact I think Second Life connects me with far more people than I ever was able to connect with before
Riddle Sideways: with hundreds of friends online
Zen Arado: isn't that better than having our narrow little bunch of relatives and friends?

Riddle Sideways: yes, we have over a hundred caring friends in PaB alone.
Zen Arado: A woman friend pointed out to me that my Second Life friends wouldn't be able to come and visit me if I were sick
Zen Arado: but I mentioned to her that she never did that either :-)
Riddle Sideways: true
Riddle Sideways: well, need to get back to it
Riddle Sideways: thank you Zen
Zen Arado: kk
Zen Arado: thanks for coming Riddle
Zen Arado: byee