Usually I don’t mind the articles LinkedIn suggests for me in my inbox, but the first headline “I Don’t Understand What Anyone Is Saying Anymore” by Dan Pallotta caught my attention well enough for me to actually read the three “teaser”-lines included in the e-mail, which then caught my attention well enough for me to actually click the link and read the whole article.

I only really have one word for this article that actually matters, and that is “Word!”. But you know me, I won’t stop there.

The thing I’ve struggled with the most throughout my life is to really understand what people are saying to me. For many years I felt really, really stupid, and I’d do my very best to hide it. I would avoid taking subjects further, or even avoid some people all together so they wouldn’t figure out how dumb I am. Now I usually just do what Dan does and tell people to clarify. The people that knows me the best don’t even make me say it, they know that a silent pause means “try again”. Actually, they know it so well that one time one of my friends mentioned “thralls”, and I didn’t respond he didn’t think twice before he said “A thrall is a kind of slave..” so I had to stop him and say “yes, I do actually know what thrall is”! But I like how this has turned out, how well received it has become that I tell people to clarify instead of being ashamed. I know people respect me now more than ever, and see my value more clearly - which results in me gaining a greater respect for them for being smart enough to see my smarts, even though we don’t quite speak the same language.

Not all people understand this of course - I’ve met people that really put a lot of effort in talking as abstract and fancy-smancy-technical as they can and bash on me when I don’t respond with the same terms and mind my “language” like that. That’s usually where I give them a huge smile and then walk away to find someone else to talk to - I’m really not here to tickle your balls.

I like keeping things concrete, detailed and clear, and I love when people communicate back to me in the same manner. In the long run, that’s the language people are most likely to understand, no matter length of field experience or work position. One of our great software testers actually reminded me of this when I tried the technical talk on her, she mentally slapped me on my fingers and said “girl, how can you even fit these words in your mouth?” (this even though my mouth is pretty big :D), so then I’d take it down to my real level, and she’d understand exactly what I meant.