June 3, 2008: What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate
By Bill Drury
Ever been around someone who talks (I’m about to pound down very hard on the keyboard) REALLY LOUD! And if you attempt to have more than a 3-second conversation with them, you run the risk of coming out of their office with no skin.
These people don’t need a phone. All they have to do is open a window, talk “normally,” and people as far away as China will be covering their ears and screaming in tympanic terror.
Note: For the record, the word “tympanic” refers to a BIG boat containing Leonardo Di Caprio which sank thanks to an annoying iceberg. And, so, what does BIG boats and icebergs have to do with communication? Absolutely nothing whatsoever. But my columns are NOT just case studies in mental illness. I like to toss out tiny tidbits of trivia so that you will come away with a well-rounded education.
But anyway, in sharp contrast, there are people who talk very quietly. (Notice I just touch down very lightly on the keyboard, and I trust you can tell the difference from when I pounded down very hard on the keyboard above.) And they pretty much always whisper. And you find yourself forever leaning closer towards them, and closer, and closer, and closer, until your head is inside their mouth. BUT you still can quite make out a word they are saying.
And then we have the people who don’t say anything at all, to anybody, at anytime. They just sit there, and when people talk to them they show their agreement or disagreement by making bizarre facial expressions (e.g. they roll their eyeballs until they pop out of their faces and roll bowling ball-like their way down the hallway). And so when this person is in a meeting, everyone else in the meeting comes wearing a catcher’s mitt, and all can be seen squatting, viciously punching into their mitts, and preparing themselves to chase after who-know-who’s-eyeballs, scoop them up, and shove them back into who-know-who’s skull.
Of course, who could forget the person who talks with their hands? And whenever you speak to one of them, with all the waving and gesturing, you think you are in some sort of prize fight with Mike Tyson, and you spend most of the conversation ducking and dodging, because if you don’t you might wind up being scrapped off of the canvas.
EXAMPLE
“Tony.” (Swing)
“Yes, Mike?” (Duck)
“Did you see the Celtics game last night?” (Swing)
“Yes, I did.” (Dodge)
“Man, did we kick butt!” (Swing)
“You betcha.” (Duck)
PUNCH!
“Oh, gee, sorry Mike. Don’t worry, I know a good dentist.”
And the only thing you can do to stop them from beating you into a bloody unrecognizable pulp is if you tackle them and tie their hands together. But if you do that, they will go mute, and then it’s pretty much a one-way conversation from that point on, which arguably might not be a bad thing. At least you’ll keep your teeth.
There are also those people who absolutely refuse to make eye-contact with you. And so you are standing there attempting to have a conversation with them and they are busy staring up at the ceiling. Consequently, you start to look up at the ceiling wondering what in the (nasty word) they are looking at. Eventually, they lower their eyes, but they still will NOT look at you.
So you start to TRY and make them look at you by making them make eye-contact with you. But they are very, very good at NOT making eye-contact, and they look away. And now you are pissed, and bound and determined to make them make eye-contact with you, if it is the last thing you do.
To achieve this, you move your head in the direction to which they are looking. But they spin around, and you follow because you are GOING to make them look at you if it is the last thing you do. But they continue to spin, and you continue to follow, they spin, you follow, they spin, you follow, and the next thing you know, you are running around in circles, as they spin violently in place like an ice skater. All in all, it winds up as a very productive conversation, well, minus the part where you throw up from motion sickness.
So, anyway, if you’ve learned anything about effective communication from this column, it’s to never name a BIG boat after the technical term for “ear drum,” because if you do, it just might sink.
