Important Business
Today I had a complementary breakfast in the office with 3 other early birds including our HR lady. During the breakfast conversation, the HR lady asked this guy from the Netherlands, "What does your father do in your country ?". The question made the two other guys burst into instant laughter. Why ? Even I was curious.
Instead of getting embarrassed the guy took a little while to think how to answer. Probably he never had to answer this to a woman. He said, "My father provides raw materials [you know what it is] for artificial insemination of pigs". One could have easily evaded the question by answering something else. I liked his honesty. I have observed this guy during meetings. He is very precise and clear in what he speaks. I learned two additional things: First, every work is important in life; someone has to clean toilets, some one has to inseminate animals where farming and animal husbandry is important and so on. Second, articulation of speech is really a skill and can have a completely different effect on the listeners.
Instead of getting embarrassed the guy took a little while to think how to answer. Probably he never had to answer this to a woman. He said, "My father provides raw materials [you know what it is] for artificial insemination of pigs". One could have easily evaded the question by answering something else. I liked his honesty. I have observed this guy during meetings. He is very precise and clear in what he speaks. I learned two additional things: First, every work is important in life; someone has to clean toilets, some one has to inseminate animals where farming and animal husbandry is important and so on. Second, articulation of speech is really a skill and can have a completely different effect on the listeners.
2 comments:
That kindaa reminds me of a lunch time conversation we had once in the grad lounge at BU with one of the chinese students. The conversation was basically a very lunchy one where folks talked their food habits, likes/dislikes etc. So this chinese student commented on how she likes eating "cock" where she actually meant "chicken". This had indeed resulted in a lot of uncomfortable silences and something to smile about even now.
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