Devil woman, I am
We had words my counterpart and I. Strong words. And this isn’t the first time either. Who would’ve thought that the short-tempered, short-sighted (in every sense of the word) and short-statured Tolai man would’ve clashed with the persistent, passionate, comparatively young, comparatively tall, white girl from down south? Recipe for disaster? Well, perhaps not disaster, but there were definitely some lightning bolts exchanged.
Clear communication is near non-existent here. And although I’m no mind-reader I like to think myself as quite an intuitive soul. Non-verbal conversations are colourful enough but with spoken words from three different languages forming something resembling a sentence, it’s a surprise anyone can keep up especially when only half the population barely understands two out of three tongues.
Enter stage left – me. Realising that no one in the office knows what the other is doing (hence everyone thinks the other is doing the work for them), I set about introducing weekly staff meetings, little templates for phone messages, filing (I decided to avoid colour-coding at this stage), communication boards, email, attempts at yearly planners (admittedly a giant leap!!), databases for mail merges and everything in between, to try and jumpstart the tourism office into action.
So when I get yelled at down the phone for something that I have apparently done but knew nothing about (I would’ve been a notch under irate if I knew what the bloody hell was going on) I was less than impressed. Trying to rationally talk with a cut snake who thinks you’re the devil in disguise doesn’t work. Period.
There’s a phrase in Pidgin that I’ve grown to love – ‘tok stret’. Literally translating to ‘straight talk’. (There’s actually a bunch of people that are called ‘stret tokas’ who go out into the community to speak about AIDS awareness) So after the cut snake and the devil in disguise had a few days apart, we reconvened and got down to ‘tok stret’.
After explaining that my love for working here was compromised when I got hissed at down the phone (and that this is probably not the best way to get your point across – yes, including the workplace) he was very apologetic and we shook hands to start afresh. One small step for me, one giant leap for my counter-part.
Lesson 22: The only time you make a deal with the devil is when you’re apologising to her.
Clear communication is near non-existent here. And although I’m no mind-reader I like to think myself as quite an intuitive soul. Non-verbal conversations are colourful enough but with spoken words from three different languages forming something resembling a sentence, it’s a surprise anyone can keep up especially when only half the population barely understands two out of three tongues.
Enter stage left – me. Realising that no one in the office knows what the other is doing (hence everyone thinks the other is doing the work for them), I set about introducing weekly staff meetings, little templates for phone messages, filing (I decided to avoid colour-coding at this stage), communication boards, email, attempts at yearly planners (admittedly a giant leap!!), databases for mail merges and everything in between, to try and jumpstart the tourism office into action.
So when I get yelled at down the phone for something that I have apparently done but knew nothing about (I would’ve been a notch under irate if I knew what the bloody hell was going on) I was less than impressed. Trying to rationally talk with a cut snake who thinks you’re the devil in disguise doesn’t work. Period.
There’s a phrase in Pidgin that I’ve grown to love – ‘tok stret’. Literally translating to ‘straight talk’. (There’s actually a bunch of people that are called ‘stret tokas’ who go out into the community to speak about AIDS awareness) So after the cut snake and the devil in disguise had a few days apart, we reconvened and got down to ‘tok stret’.
After explaining that my love for working here was compromised when I got hissed at down the phone (and that this is probably not the best way to get your point across – yes, including the workplace) he was very apologetic and we shook hands to start afresh. One small step for me, one giant leap for my counter-part.
Lesson 22: The only time you make a deal with the devil is when you’re apologising to her.
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