Communication barriers

In the movie Cool Hand Luke, actor Strother Martin famously said, “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.”

I certainly know how that feels.

Let me give you a couple of examples, from my distant past…

Once upon a time, before I began writing books and novels, I spent almost two decades developing computer software.

During the first seven years, I wrote and then supported components for international banking applications, as an employee of Unisys Corporation.

Our Finesse banking application had been designed and developed in Atlanta with domestic U.S. financial institutions as our target market, but naturally a major bank in Australia became our first customer.

My boss shipped me, the “single guy” on our team, Down Under with the software.

I spent the next four months in Perth, helping a small development team customize the product extensively so it would comply with international banking requirements.

Lucky me.

However, I encountered the communications barrier almost immediately on the trip, during my very first pub crawl, only hours after the fourteen-hour trip from L.A. to Sydney.

We had a very serious communication problem there in the bar, even though everybody at my table spoke fluent English.

Our misunderstanding happened while a trio of secretaries were plying me with round after round of free beer, saying they wanted to keep me at their table, entertaining them with my American accent from the Deep South.

From my own perspective, I was a very lucky man.

Three beautiful young women were buying my drinks, in a very exotic location — the stuff from what dreams are made, a Hollywood sort of story that seemed a little too good to be true.

And that was almost the case. Remember, I was even traveling on an expense account.

For several hours, we became pretty good friends, laughing and drinking beer while comparing the idiosyncrasies of American English versus Australian English.

Everything seemed to be going splendidly until one of the young women asked me if I liked a particular brand of Australian beer, XXXX.

The specific words she used were, “Do you like XXXX?”

Unfortunately, she didn’t mention beer. At that moment, I only knew of one product being sold in America, with the exact same phonetic name.

That product happened to be a French brand of condom, also named Fourex.

There must have been an awkward look of confusion on my face. The woman asking the question attempted to clarify what she meant.

She said “You know….” and then sang what turned out to be the jingle from a XXXX beer commercial: “I feel a XXXX coming on!”

That was not helpful. In fact, to me it still sounded like she was talking about condoms.

I turned to the nearest guy at the table and muttered under my breath, “Damn, this girl is forward! Are all the women in Australia this assertive?”

Unfortunately, the women overheard me, or maybe one of them read my lips.

At any rate, I soon found myself having to explain to these three young women the only product that I knew about with that brand name was a French condom.

Two of the three howled with laughter. They thought our little misunderstanding was hilarious.

However, the woman who had asked me the question looked mortified. She turned almost as red as the beets that cooks kept offering to put on my hamburgers.

Only a few months later, I learned almost exactly how she felt.

My second major failure to communicate effectively during that same time frame occurred on a brief return trip back home to America, when I stopped in a salon to get a haircut.

While I had been out of the country, the emerging fad in haircuts at the time among young American men approximately my age was to have a regular haircut, but leaving uncut a single long strand of hair, looking something like a rat tail.

Of course, I remained blissfully oblivious of this new trend.

When my haircut was nearly finished, the stylist asked, “Would you like a little tail?”

I wasn’t sure that I’d heard her correctly. I quickly glanced around the shop and then realized I was her only customer. My mind tried to reject what seemed to be the obvious conclusion.

She can’t be propositioning me, right here in the shop, in broad daylight, can she?

I wasn’t sure if I should be flattered, or offended. Nor was I entirely sure how best to respond. “No” seemed the safest answer.

But incredulous at what I believed was happening, I said, “I beg your pardon?”

She looked mildly frustrated, but repeated her question verbatim: “Would you like a little tail?”

The whole situation seemed a little surreal — the same sort of story that pornography-minded adolescents mailed off Penthouse magazine as a joke.

Honestly, this wasn’t the sort of thing that ever happened to me. Still doubtful it really was happening, I said, “Could you repeat your question, one more time?”

Fortunately, that last time  she slightly rephrased her question: “Do you want me to leave a little ponytail when I cut the hair in back?”

“Ahhhhh!” I said, relieved that she hadn’t been able to read my mind. “No thanks.”

If there is a moral to these stories, perhaps it is this: Choose your words carefully.

Or, clarity is the key to effective communication.

And remember — when in doubt, stall for time.