I hold a degree in Communication Arts*, please keep your thoughts of Communication majors to yourself. I know all the jokes - I even wrote some of the jokes. But, communication is really a tricky thing, especially when you’re halfway across the world surrounded by people whose first language is not the same as yours.
I have found myself in a bit of a situation with communication, both with Boss People and friends, and I can assure you there’s nothing more frustrating. My character has never been questioned before, nor have I ever heard that I have an uncaring or bad attitude, but apparently that’s how my ~cool New York sensibility reads to some people here. I feel my somewhat laid back and pensive inclination has misrepresented who I actually am. I know it can be rectified, but having the core of my personality scrutinised is enough to throw me into a Who Am I and Who Am I Coming Off As tailspin. I’m not quite sure what more I can do, as my normal even-tempered self isn’t doing me justice.
Then there’s the more comical end of miscommunication. I quote the ever valiant Inigo Montoya: I do not think that word means what you think it means. I was actually able to say this phrase (almost with a straight face) in real life. As an actual sentence. To an actual human. To be fair, said human had been steered wrong by those meddlesome Canadians and their odd grasp on the English language. Let’s take a poll, shall we? The phrase “take care.” What does that mean to you, and what how would you feel being told it upon departure not once, but three times? That’s what I thought.
Perhaps it’s because of my constant use of colloquialisms, but I must work harder at this German conversational skills, because English just isn’t cutting it for me.
*This is where I say that Communication Arts is different than plain Communications and I hold a double major in Sociology. So. There.
…and adding a ? so that some may actually answer the ~poll I have above. (?)
