Communication Breakdown

There has always been one constant hurdle we have had to deal with throughout our history and no matter how far we have come in the past 200 years we struggle to fully understand each other. The reason is simple and it is only one word. Miscommunication. More than likely we are all guilty of getting into an argument or having a heated disagreement with someone over something that was said, and afterwards once you allowed them to explain what they were trying to say, you find out that it was something completely different from what you had originally thought. How many times in a given month would you guess that after speaking with a co-worker, friend or just someone we are close to on a daily basis and be confused about what they were talking about? The problem is that some of us will simply pretend that we understand what they’re saying, just because we don’t want to offend them by asking them to explain themselves.

Depending on the culture of the environment where you live it is quite possible you have various communication problems because of language barriers. About 8 years ago I worked in a Honda production plant that assembled seats and I felt completely out of my element. I have always gotten along with others without much issue, but the plant was very diverse having people that ranged from Macedonian, African, Mexican, Philippine and Japanese. While we were working everyone spoke English the best they could and once on break everyone would break up into segregated groups and I was really one of the few that didn’t some so when most of the workers that were born in America left to smoke, I was left sitting by myself most of the time.

I would try to sit with several of my co-workers that didn’t smoke, but they normally seemed annoyed as they were all talking in their native language. For the most part I never let the communication barrier bother me and I’ll admit there were a few times I just guessed what some were trying to tell me to do because I could...