I've been in the same job only five years and I have newer people coming to my desk asking "what do they mean by that?" because these emails get sent out with instructions that don't really make sense with current processes. I can infer what folks above me are trying to tell me to do, but the phrase used is a case of institutional memory and the process described/referenced is obsolete. No one has bothered to update the phrasing to fit the current situation and newer employees then don't get a detailed explanation of what it means (what the goal or purpose is) so it is slowly turning into gibberish. Over a longer scale, I can well imagine this can get much uglier. And I have an entry level job, not some high paid job with super specialized training and all that.
This is like a family of 1st, 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants. The 1st generation (the managers sending down gibberish instructions) use language that most people don't understand and refer to people, places and customs from the old country that have no meaning to anyone here.
The 2nd generation (you) are responsible for keeping communication going in both directions, and making substitutions and translations in both directions, sometimes changing words and orders into something that makes sense even though it wasn't at all what was asked for.
That's an excellent analogy but I don't agree that it should be on me to clarify instead of on the better paid, more powerful "first generation" folks to stay current and make their instructions legible and coherent and stay in touch with the processes of their people, especially since those new processes get handed down from on high. I assure you, we folks at the bottom aren't making them up for shits and giggles.
Suffice it to say that if I could find a means to monetize my websites, I would be gone. And it's a good company to work for. It really is. I occasionally note that if this is an excellent workplace environment, god help the world if you put me in a bad one cuz I will go postal and show up with a machine gun one day. I have little patience for such things. I was a homemaker, full-time parent and homeschooling mom for years. I am used to an environment where I am in charge and I have the power to effectively implement my "unreasonable" (high) standards and expectations. "A reasonable man conforms to his environment. An unreasonable man expects his environment to conform to him. Therefore all hope lies with the unreasonable man." The Fortune 500 company I work for seems disinclined to bend to my will (what with me having an entry level job and zero authority). If I can cross the chasm between here and monetization, I will be happily on my own at some point.
Oh, not at all. It just reminded me of the many immigrant families I've known, especially how the middle generation acts as a bridge between old and new.
My mom is a first generation immigrant. I often let her assumptions and misunderstandings of my sons simply stand. My sons tend to get a lot more of those explanations out of me, though sometimes only months after the fact (long, machiavellian story there). A similar pattern is emerging at work. I do explain stuff at work when asked. But I guess my policy at work mirrors my policy at home: I explain it to people I trust and who ask nicely.
