Written by: Megan Miller, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
I have a theory: the first 6 months and the last 6 months at any job that you willingly start and end are the toughest.
When you start a new job, the butterflies are moving in full force. There are the new tasks to learn and complete, yes; but more importantly, you’re learning how to navigate new personalities as well as the inevitable “code” that’s thrown around as the lingo or jargon of the workplace. In food service, we memorized menu items and table numbers. In the farming community, horses and cattle were counted by head.
No matter where the work takes place, everyone has their own language.
In my first corporate job, every single program had its own acronym. And of course, there were dozens of programs. For the first week, I took papers home to quiz myself on what it all meant: not because I cared that much about the meaning, but because I cared more about fitting in.
Wherever the environment, it’s crucial that your identity and language match up in order to fit in. And the opposite happens when you leave a job: the mourning period begins. Not only are you mourning your sense of loss of resources and community, you’re also mourning the investment of time and energy into that shared language that has since become endangered.
Why are we like this?
Onboarding and training employees take up a lot of time and attention, to the point that some companies operate at a loss when a single new employee is onboarded. Investing in someone as soon as they’re hired makes sense for companies where their image is everything. Nomenclature, acronyms, and key cultural cornerstones are taught, yes, but something else happens. It’s a way to keep new employees homogenous… not only in the wording, but also in the tone. When accounts get passed from person to person multiple times in a year, it’s important that the client expectations don’t stray too far from the norm. Coherence and homogeneity add to the culture and reputation of a company. This culture extols that “Personalities are great… just don’t bring them to work.”
Aside from aligning us to a corporate entity, language is also how we align ourselves demographically. Using shared language helps us bond together and is a powerful force that can either unite us or divide us, based on the implicit rules.
Take the sentence, “You need to be here on time tomorrow.” There’s an explicit meaning and message of this sentence: arrive on time (neither late nor early) at some point in the next 24 hours.
Yet, there’s also an implicit meaning – and for this, we rely on interpreting the audible tone (angry? Frustrated? Caring?) as well as the context. What else was happening in the conversation before this sentence? Were we speaking about how so-and-so is always really early? Were we talking about a product launch or deliverable? Is there a guest coming into the office?
Miscommunication arises when the implicit and explicit meanings don’t reach equilibrium based on our perspective, in accordance with the culture of communication we have come to know and trust. Perhaps this is why we use emojis and punctuation to convey tone. After all, miscommunication carries the risk that our linguistic bond may not be as strong as we’d like.
Use this to your advantage
If I came up to you and said, you’ll need to learn Mandarin in a week, how would you feel? Unless you already know Mandarin (and if so, simply substitute another language in), your palms probably got a little clammy and your heart started racing. Perhaps your breathing got a little quicker – or, if you’re immune to Internet suggestions, you immediately dismissed the idea and are already halfway to another article.
These physical signs are all classical symptoms of stress and anxiety, and unless you’re a professional guinea pig, you probably feel it when it comes to learning a language. It can be stressful to constantly work on learning another way to verbalize what something is, or learn how to conjugate a verb again (or even, what “to conjugate” means!).
But you’ve already done it.
Not only have you already learned your native language, you’ve also learned so many other languages from the workforce. Use this knowledge as fuel to keep your motivation and confidence up. We can and do learn new things all the time when it comes to workplace lingo, new technology, and updated processes. The cliché of “The only constant in life is change” is a cliché for a reason!
Perhaps it’s connecting the language you’re learning to a nonprofit to volunteer with, or a class or Meetup group to attend. After all, it’s easier to learn when you have a safe space of other people surrounding you, having similar questions, and similar challenges. If you’re struggling with consistent practice, perhaps having a language exchange partner would help. If you’re struggling with boredom or want to learn something useful, open a TED Talk and follow along with your transcript of choice.
Everyone is capable of learning another language – after all, we’ve all done it at least once before.
Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn and visit my website for additional motivation and education tips. Reach out to let me know you’ve read my article; I’d love to hear from you!
Megan Miller, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Megan Miller is a leader in Spanish <> English teaching and bespoke habit-based language learning. Ever since discovering the worlds beyond words as a child, Megan has dedicated her efforts to mastering Spanish, English, and how to create lasting habits to improve and maintain language skills. She is the CEO of Aprovechar Language Solutions whose mission is to empower those in need of a bilingual voice.
