Listening #9: Non-verbal communication (due Monday)
Please tell us about a time where you misunderstood a message due to
misreading some aspect of non-verbal communication (gestures, facial
expression, eye contact, space, or touch).
I've worked in an Oil Industry Company where the majority of employees were Engineers, especially in Driller field. The manager of this department was an Engineer from Netherlands, a man who everybody was afraid, He was well know as "Hitler", this nickname was because of his posture, very demanding professional, especially with his team. Being not so friendly neither polite, most of people avoided contact to him. Almost everyday someone came to HR to complain about him. However, his technical competence was outstanding! It was assessment period in the company and all HR team had to give support to the company's managers helping them to evaluate their team. As a result, I was chosen to be his business partner. I was reluctant to go, but I didn't have choice. I remember before going to his office, I made my mind, breathed deeply and very hesitant I knocked his door, asked permission to get into and took a sit in front of him. I just remembering me talking about the activity that we supposed to do together, the advantage about it and the steps that we had to do. For my surprise he smiled, I've never seen him with this expression on his face. He had agreed to collaborate and then we spent all the afternoon doing the work. It was fantastic! I had one idea about him which was provided by others. When I made my mind before going to his desk, I said to myself "let you to have your own impressions about him" and it worked. Indeed, he had very strong personality, someone who preferred to be alone, concentrate and very objective and direct in his speech. Thus, if I had the same kind of conversation with him, maybe would work and it did. It was very productive that day!
2 years ago, i went to a soccer camp in Florida, Bradenton (IMG academy). When i arrived at the airport, the camp driver was supposed to be waiting for me. But, i didn't know how he looked like, so i have been waiting for 30 min until i noticed this strange man, looking at me in the eyes for about 10 seconds. Actually i thought he was drunk, so i broke the eyes contact. As a result i have been waiting for 2 hours, i was getting bored and the battery of my phone was off. So when i looked around me i noticed that the strange men was at the same place looking at me and then i came to talk to him. Indeed he was the driver that i was waiting for, he told me that he uses eyes contact to aware camp players that he is the driver. Because i didn't know this , i have been waiting for 2 hours at the airport.
When I went in India for the first time I saw many times boys walking in the street hand in hand ,touching ,hugging each other constantly.I remember that I found it was a paradox knowing that it is a very conservative society.In fact, I though that they were gays and it seemed to me very strange to see gays everywhere.After some days during a discussion with my Indian friends I told them how very surprising it was to see that for certain things Indian society was open mind.In fact it is common to see same gender people expressing their affection in public but not common to meet a couple femal/male being so close.they told me that Indians are very tactile between same gender but chaste in the opposite way.
I don't have a own experience, but I am going to tell you my Venezuelan friend's experience. We were at Roy Cullen building when a girl from Saudi Arabic who was friend of mine arrived, my friend tried to introduce to her by himself, so he extended his hand to shake with her hand, but when she saw that he tried to touch her, she turned around and left without saying a word and my friend stayed with his extended hand and without understanding. The following day, she told me that my friend was not polite and she was very upset and I explained her that it is not considered rude in my country.
This is not a misunderstanding but my own experience about sexual harassment on the bus. In my country, people usually travel by bus because the air plane tickets are quite expensive and unaffordable. Three years ago, on my travel back to my hometown, I bought a bus ticket and sat next to a young man dressing very formally with a stripe shirt and black trousers. Taking the night trip (it took me 8 hours to get home), I sat down and was ready to sleep a little bit. The bus ran. 1 hour passed. Suddenly I woke up because of the feeling that someone was touching my lap. Opening my eyes, I saw nothing happened. I went back to my sleep. However, as the second time I felt that, I was sure the man beside me was taking advantage of the intimate distance on the bus to do bad things to me. I opened my eyes slowly with no body movement. Then, I caught him trying to touch my lap again. I glared at him and shouted: “what are you doing?!” He looked at me surprisingly and confusingly. This is because in our country, this kind of situation is very common, but normally, the girls tend to be too scared to react. Moreover, we don’t have any specific law about this issue. Then, everybody started to notice us and ask what happened. I stood up and politely asked another man in the seat behind me to switch with me. It seemed like he understood my situation right away because he agreed with no question. Eventually, I got home safely, and I guessed that young man learnt his lesson and hoped that he would be too embarrassed to ever do that again.
There was a time when I was in Philippines with my family and one day I remember that we went to a mall that is called Green Hill, so I decided to go by myself because I was looking for a place in which I could repair my laptop. I start asking around until a helpful woman told exactly where I have to go. Then, I finally arrived to the place and I asked if they could repair laptop, The guy took my laptop and started checking in his inventory and then his computer and after a couple of minutes later he look at me for a couple of seconds without saying anything, so I asked again and he look at me and he doesn’t say anything but I could notice something that he was doing with his face, so I tried to ask a third time and I finally saw that he was lifting his eyebrows. Obviously I could not understand was he was trying to say. Finally, I said could you please tell me YES or NO because I don’t understand. After that, the guy says YES I can, so I was relieved. When my dad arrives I started telling him what happened and he laugh out loud and he told me, “Son when they lift their eyebrows means YES” and then I was laughing because it was so strange for me that I couldn’t understand it.
I've worked in an Oil Industry Company where the majority of employees were Engineers, especially in Driller field. The manager of this department was an Engineer from Netherlands, a man who everybody was afraid, He was well know as "Hitler", this nickname was because of his posture, very demanding professional, especially with his team. Being not so friendly neither polite, most of people avoided contact to him. Almost everyday someone came to HR to complain about him. However, his technical competence was outstanding!
ReplyDeleteIt was assessment period in the company and all HR team had to give support to the company's managers helping them to evaluate their team. As a result, I was chosen to be his business partner. I was reluctant to go, but I didn't have choice. I remember before going to his office, I made my mind, breathed deeply and very hesitant I knocked his door, asked permission to get into and took a sit in front of him. I just remembering me talking about the activity that we supposed to do together, the advantage about it and the steps that we had to do. For my surprise he smiled, I've never seen him with this expression on his face. He had agreed to collaborate and then we spent all the afternoon doing the work. It was fantastic! I had one idea about him which was provided by others. When I made my mind before going to his desk, I said to myself "let you to have your own impressions about him" and it worked. Indeed, he had very strong personality, someone who preferred to be alone, concentrate and very objective and direct in his speech. Thus, if I had the same kind of conversation with him, maybe would work and it did. It was very productive that day!
2 years ago, i went to a soccer camp in Florida, Bradenton (IMG academy). When i arrived at the airport, the camp driver was supposed to be waiting for me. But, i didn't know how he looked like, so i have been waiting for 30 min until i noticed this strange man, looking at me in the eyes for about 10 seconds. Actually i thought he was drunk, so i broke the eyes contact. As a result i have been waiting for 2 hours, i was getting bored and the battery of my phone was off. So when i looked around me i noticed that the strange men was at the same place looking at me and then i came to talk to him. Indeed he was the driver that i was waiting for, he told me that he uses eyes contact to aware camp players that he is the driver. Because i didn't know this , i have been waiting for 2 hours at the airport.
ReplyDeleteWhen I went in India for the first time I saw many times boys walking in the street hand in hand ,touching ,hugging each other constantly.I remember that I found it was a paradox knowing that it is a very conservative society.In fact, I though that they were gays and it seemed to me very strange to see gays everywhere.After some days during a discussion with my Indian friends I told them how very surprising it was to see that for certain things Indian society was open mind.In fact it is common to see same gender people expressing their affection in public but not common to meet a couple femal/male being so close.they told me that Indians are very tactile between same gender but chaste in the opposite way.
ReplyDeleteI don't have a own experience, but I am going to tell you my Venezuelan friend's experience. We were at Roy Cullen building when a girl from Saudi Arabic who was friend of mine arrived, my friend tried to introduce to her by himself, so he extended his hand to shake with her hand, but when she saw that he tried to touch her, she turned around and left without saying a word and my friend stayed with his extended hand and without understanding. The following day, she told me that my friend was not polite and she was very upset and I explained her that it is not considered rude in my country.
ReplyDeleteThis is not a misunderstanding but my own experience about sexual harassment on the bus. In my country, people usually travel by bus because the air plane tickets are quite expensive and unaffordable. Three years ago, on my travel back to my hometown, I bought a bus ticket and sat next to a young man dressing very formally with a stripe shirt and black trousers. Taking the night trip (it took me 8 hours to get home), I sat down and was ready to sleep a little bit. The bus ran. 1 hour passed. Suddenly I woke up because of the feeling that someone was touching my lap. Opening my eyes, I saw nothing happened. I went back to my sleep. However, as the second time I felt that, I was sure the man beside me was taking advantage of the intimate distance on the bus to do bad things to me. I opened my eyes slowly with no body movement. Then, I caught him trying to touch my lap again. I glared at him and shouted: “what are you doing?!” He looked at me surprisingly and confusingly. This is because in our country, this kind of situation is very common, but normally, the girls tend to be too scared to react. Moreover, we don’t have any specific law about this issue. Then, everybody started to notice us and ask what happened. I stood up and politely asked another man in the seat behind me to switch with me. It seemed like he understood my situation right away because he agreed with no question. Eventually, I got home safely, and I guessed that young man learnt his lesson and hoped that he would be too embarrassed to ever do that again.
ReplyDeleteThere was a time when I was in Philippines with my family and one day I remember that we went to a mall that is called Green Hill, so I decided to go by myself because I was looking for a place in which I could repair my laptop. I start asking around until a helpful woman told exactly where I have to go. Then, I finally arrived to the place and I asked if they could repair laptop, The guy took my laptop and started checking in his inventory and then his computer and after a couple of minutes later he look at me for a couple of seconds without saying anything, so I asked again and he look at me and he doesn’t say anything but I could notice something that he was doing with his face, so I tried to ask a third time and I finally saw that he was lifting his eyebrows. Obviously I could not understand was he was trying to say. Finally, I said could you please tell me YES or NO because I don’t understand. After that, the guy says YES I can, so I was relieved. When my dad arrives I started telling him what happened and he laugh out loud and he told me, “Son when they lift their eyebrows means YES” and then I was laughing because it was so strange for me that I couldn’t understand it.
ReplyDelete