I remember my first day at my job at Merrill Lynch working as a consultant. I sat in a meeting and they were discussing the project I was to work on. The terms were flying back and forth. What the fuck were these people talking about? I'm not stupid. They just violated the curse of knowledge. They knew the terms like the back of their hands. But I had no idea. It can take time to understand people. So I'd recommend jotting down any terms you don't understand and try to google them. I'm not a big fan of acronyms unless you know what it is. Sometimes acronyms are the word to use to represent something and you don't even know what it means. Two acronyms I used at work were CECE and GCPAR. I don't know the meaning of these acronyms but I know they are a permit system and a repository. Why the developers didn't use those two terms is beyond me. Pronouns It's easy to use Pronouns in your speech and not the (she/her) type denoting gender. The type that makes it confusing to follow the conversation. Accents Another issue you can have are accents. Some people at work can barely speak English. This can make it hard to understand what they're trying to say. If this is the case, just be honest, blame yourself and try to communicate via the written word. Names In meetings people will use names like John will ..., or "Contact Sue for ...". The person can be very familiar with these people. Some people have foreign names that are hard to pronounce and remember. Terms that have a dual meaning confuse me Left vs. Right Excel terms Basic Terms Confusing Terms
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