General > General Technical Chat

No, you didn’t “reach out”, you CONTACTED them

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Bassman59:

--- Quote from: bsfeechannel on September 19, 2021, 11:33:09 pm ---Now I am confused. Should I sing along "contact and take it"?



--- End quote ---

No, you should surrender to the dream police.

Cerebus:

--- Quote from: Bassman59 on September 20, 2021, 05:07:17 pm ---
--- Quote from: Cerebus on September 19, 2021, 06:13:08 pm ---Obviously the worst offenders are the management types and the marketing types, but at least with them the interpretation or translation becomes easy - it almost always boils down to "I said nothing of substance" or "I know nothing".
--- End quote ---

The Bard said it ages ago: "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

--- End quote ---

Well, they often make me want to clutch a dagger.  :)

SiliconWizard:
Well, they say that only 10%-20% of communication is verbal, the rest being non-verbal (like body language, the way you speak, and so on...)

Now, in those 10%-20% of verbal, how much "content" matters in terms of communication? Because I guess the "wording" is still verbal communication. If we extend the above a bit, maybe it's the same proportion - meaning that only 10%-20% of the verbal part of communication is actual content, the rest being the wording.

If so, that would be only 1% to 4% of actual content in communication, the rest being noise. Does that sound right? ;D

TimNJ:
I think the emergence and prevalence of corporate-speak must somehow be related to:

1. A self-consciousness/doubt that (perhaps) your cubicle computer job doesn't really contribute much to society (even if it really does!) Imposter syndrome? Needing to prove it to yourself? "I studied hard in school, barely had a childhood, went to the best college, and now I work this cubicle computer job. It was all totally worth it!.....right??"

2. The fear of being "found out" by  others and the need to prove to others that your cubicle office job is in fact a valuable contribution to society

I think the modern corporate job is pretty "unnatural" in the sense of human evolution/biology etc. I'm totally unqualified to talk about this (apart from being a human), but surely there is some psychological effect of taking a species whose work, for 99% of its history, was tangible and hands-on, and making them send emails all day. I dunno; I feel we aren't wired for it, and so perhaps we have to over-compensate to make us feel better about it.

I think people tend to speak in these weird roundabout ways when they are not comfortable with whomever they are talking to. To me, it indicates that you, in some way, have your guard up.

Pragmatically, I've found that when I speak as naturally as possible, through email or in a meeting, this encourages other people to speak naturally too. Another way is to speak about your own shortcomings/failures in an equally natural way. Obviously we all mess up...everyone knows this, but in a corporate setting, the tendency seems to be to save face. Letting people know that you are human too encourages them to let their guard down and talk to you normally.

Recently, I listened to a discussion about the difference between the corporate and blue-collar worlds, and found it very intriguing. (For those unfamiliar with the term "blue collar", it basically just means "trade work", like carpenters, electricians, factory workers, etc.) The observation was that opinions in the blue-collar culture tend to be very blunt and out-in-the-open. If someone wrongs you (or vice versa), there may be a heated exchange, swear words, non-PC language, etc... but by the next day, it's almost like nothing happened..On the contrary, in the corporate world, this kind of behavior is "not professional", HR gets involved, and yada yada...Personal conflicts between two people are not allowed to happen in a "natural" way, and you have people boiling up with animosity, ready to explode.

As a reminder, I have no psychology degree, but that's how I see it!

tooki:
Totally agree!

!
--- Quote from: TimNJ on September 21, 2021, 02:50:24 am ---
1. A self-consciousness/doubt that (perhaps) your cubicle computer job doesn't really contribute much to society (even if it really does!) Imposter syndrome? Needing to prove it to yourself? "I studied hard in school, barely had a childhood, went to the best college, and now I work this cubicle computer job. It was all totally worth it!.....right??"

2. The fear of being "found out" by  others and the need to prove to others that your cubicle office job is in fact a valuable contribution to society

I think the modern corporate job is pretty "unnatural" in the sense of human evolution/biology etc. I'm totally unqualified to talk about this (apart from being a human), but surely there is some psychological effect of taking a species whose work, for 99% of its history, was tangible and hands-on, and making them send emails all day. I dunno; I feel we aren't wired for it, and so perhaps we have to over-compensate to make us feel better about it.

I think people tend to speak in these weird roundabout ways when they are not comfortable with whomever they are talking to. To me, it indicates that you, in some way, have your guard up.

--- End quote ---
My observation is that the use of artificially complex speech has a direct, inversely proportional relationship to the actual skill and intelligence of the speaker. Someone who actually knows their shit doesn’t feel the need to couch it in fluff.

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