I'm an administrative assistant at a somewhat large corporation. (20K-30K-ish employees) We use a Lotus product, Sametime for IM. It's very basic, no smileys, no pictures, just text. We're expected to have it on when we're in the office. We have three settings, available, away, and do not disturb. We can change the message for those but no one reads them. We use it for quick questions or tasks or to collaborate with something quickly. And for social purposes. Which we're officially not supposed to do, excesively, but everyone does. The usual, "Going to lunch?" or "Wanna get coffee" etc. I'll be honest I usually chat with a good friend of mine all day.

It's good because we're increasingly spread out. People are in different office across the country and world, people work from home, and now folks can have it on a Blackberry too. It's nice to be able to ask quick questions. I have folks on their Crackberries ask me what room they are in for X meeting, etc.

It's bad because like everyone else said, it's a distraction. But honestly if I really do not want to be distracted, I put myself on DND. That way nothing is getting through. Basically means "Call or email me if you REALLY need something." Some folks have taken to putting themselves on away when they really aren't. I guess it cuts down on the IMs but then even folks who don't do that get IMs when they are away because others assume we're really their. If I'm on away, it's for a reason, don't expect a quick answer at noon, I'm at lunch. I've told the folks I support that I prefer not to get work requests via Sametime. A quick request or very time sensitive one is fine. IMing me and saying "My flight got changed to NOW can you change my hotel and get me a limo immediately" is fine but "I'm going to the Texas office next week can you do my travel arrangements" is not. And the simple reason is CYA. I've had folks IM me with something, I do it, then they claim they asked me to do something different. Our chats are not automatically logged on our PCs. IS probably has them somewhere but they aren't readily available for disputes like that. So if someone asks me to do a task like that via Sametime I ask them to please email it to me instead.

Other bad things include our help desk. Most of them are "off shored" and will often IM about a ticket. Which is fine except you'd think they were all 14 years old. Using IM/Txt chat at home is fine but in a business environment, it's not cool. I'm not THAT old but I still shouldn't be given a headache trying to decipher what they're saying. The regular language barrier is difficult enough.

Honestly I wish the powers would be would come up with a "Sametime Best Practices" document that everyone is expected to adhere to. It would make my life a lot easier.