Communication – make it simple and life easier!!
It happened in my office some time ago. One of my colleagues came to me and asked, “Hey Arun! Can you help me understanding something?” “Tell me what it is. Lemme try”, was my reply. He then showed me an extract from a chat with one of the Change Managers. It read like this. I don’t (want to) remember the exact words. “Let the team consider the documentation I’ve put up. If they find any variation to be made and enhance the scope of this, let them give us a FYI CR. We’ll file it in our repository and keep it for any upstream requirements.” He told me that he understood this, but needed a confirmation that his understanding was correct, as the communication was not in English, but in jargon.
I looked at him for a minute and we both laughed it out. Then I confirmed that it was what he thought it was. The change manager wanted the engineers to study the document he prepared, change if anything had to be and send him the one with changes, so that he could keep the updated document for future use. We were lamenting for a couple of minutes about jargon becoming almost omnipresent in communication. We all understand that jargon is inseparable from professional communication. What started out to be terminologies oriented to the profession, gradually evolved as a unique mode of communication, which later took a turn of a dialect sounding meaningless to outsiders.
“By default” is a term that drives bankers crazy while being used by IT people. IT guys use the term to mean that by nature, while for bankers default is kind of a taboo.
सत्यं ब्रूयात् प्रियं ब्रूयात् न ब्रूयात् सत्यमप्रियम् ।
प्रियं च नानृतं ब्रूयात् एष धर्मः सनातनः ॥
Speak the truth. Speak sweetly. Avoid speaking the truth that hurts. Never speak a lie that is good to hear. This constitutes the eternal Dharma.
