when in doubt, assume miscommunication

When in doubt, assume miscommunication is the third of the three laws in Bird's Razor. I bring it up again today because of this article in the Chronicle-Telegram. The short version is that a Lorain city employee was looking to hire a secretary, and called another city secretary who was interested in the position to let her know the details of the job. Here's the pertinent part:

Then he said he told her she would be one of only two secretaries and that the job can be overwhelming.

"I told her, 'If you don't like high-stress jobs, this isn't the place for you, but if you do, then you'll do fine,' " he said.

But Safety-Service Director Mike Kobylka, who has scheduled a disciplinary hearing for today regarding the conversation, said Desvari "intimidated (Garcia) to ensure she would not take a position within your department."

Of course, the article is really only giving one side of the story. Nonetheless, until I hear more about it, I'll give the guy the benefit of the doubt. It truly amazes me how people will blatantly and wildly misinterpret conversations.

A few weeks ago at work, one of our dealers called inquiring about the pricing and availability of a product we distribute. We acquired these products during a very hectic time and have not had time to properly shelve and catalog them, although we know where everything is and can get to them fairly easily if an order is placed.

The woman who called also wanted to check the instrumentation for this piece, because the description said it was for full orchestra, yet it was listed in the string orchestra category. So our editor said he would get a set and actually look at it, but that he'd have to call her back since he'd need to look for the archive copy in a box. He found the piece, called her back, and said it was indeed for full orchestra.

Later that day, we received a very irate e-mail from the widow of the composer of this piece, who said a dealer had contacted her and said all of her late husband's music was "sitting in the bottom of a box" and that we "weren't sure when we could send it out." And, she sent this e-mail to the president of our company, who had no idea what she was talking about.

Nor did anyone else, because that's not what happened, nor what was said. How this dealer jumped from "hold on, I'll have to look for the archived copy" to "it's in the bottom of a box and we don't know when it will be available" is beyond me. Especially since our editor told her he was holding a copy in his hand and we could send it out that very same day, and the woman faxed her order naught but hours later. And who is this person who's calling up the widow of the composer to tell her all this anyway?

Reminds me of the fender bender I got into when I was 16. At one point in the story, I told the magistrate I "had never driven down that street before, so I wasn't quite sure which driveway I was looking for." The judge chewed this up and spit it back out at me as "You didn't maintain awareness of your surroundings." Uh... what?

And those are just but a few examples. Miscommunications are rampant in job interviews, where interviewers are often reluctant to ask further questions after an applicant's response, and just take everything at face value based on their immediate interpretation. Maybe that's why I see many of the same graphic design jobs being posted over and over again every few months.