[mmooss]

> I gotta say, nothing fills me with as much excitement for a job as much as having to have a second job as a Kremlinologist, attempting to scry the motivations of the opaque execs ...

Why is the lack of understanding necessarily the exec and not you? It's a victim perspective to say it's all them and you are a victim of them, and therefore have no responsibility for it. It's irrational - the problems of communication are well known (and if you don't understand them, that is also irresponsble, imho). It's you too; worry about you, do your job well, including the work, and joy, of understanding others.

The problem is usually both - both trying to cram the other's words into the framework of their own perspective. Ash and Barry have different perspectives, different agendas and understandings. When Ash hears Barry speak, Ash makes the mistake of trying to cram Barry's ideas into Ash's perspective, where of course they don't quite work. It's like taking parts from one building under construction and trying to use them on another - 'these parts are awful! they don't fit or work at all!'. Of course not.

Always, if there's a problem and you're serious about it, the place to start is with what you can control and are responsible for - it's in the mirror.

[pavel_lishin]

You're definitely right, I shouldn't have been dressed like that or gone into that meeting alone.

[mmooss]

Where does a clever response, or blaming other people, get you? How are you better off after you said than before?

[pavel_lishin]

Probably the same place victim-blaming does.

I guess our words just don't fit into each others' perspectives.