When a story is told from person to person it gets distorted and often exaggerated. This process is called "Chinese Whispers". Terrible thing though it is, as it suggests that Chinese people can't whisper, I find it quite amusing. The definition seems slightly outdated though. Indeed I think the definition should expand to cover those all too frequent situations where a message is communicated through emails within an organisation and given the ambiguity of the written English text in Asia, particularly in some places, you have each one of the recipients of the email/memo/letter, forming their own opinion about what this means and what they should do. But I suspect that this may often be down to the first whiper; "Please ensure highest hygiene conditions on site" said a recent memo, in the receiving end of which I was irritatingly included. "When are you available", said another, obscuring its purpose. Well I am available all sorts of times and in a variety of combinations; so perhaps if you have an open ended question, come and talk to me. Talk... which does bring me to my next complaint. The verbal analogous of "Chinese emails": "Chinese meetings" I've recently interviewed a number of people on what they think the way forward is, following a large senior management meeting in my organisation, and everyone had their own interpretation of it, which, by the way, they were absolutely sure of. Answers ranged from "we need to start over from scratch in our planning approach" to "it is the usual update; no biggy". Seriously? Does this happen in other walks of professional life as well? Is one, for instance, when visiting the doctor's for an irritating cough, equally likely to be (A)given a couple of panadols and asked to drink lots fluids or (B)sent straight to the operating room to remove one's prostate? That's disturbing. I'd like to think that's not the case. I'd like to... but I don't. Deep inside my heart of hearts, I know, that every time I am given pills for a stomach condition which I've gone to great lengths to explain to a GP, I may be getting treatment for uterus infection, and every time I place an take-away order over the phone the thing that usually gets to my door, as sometimes it doesn't, will not resemble the food type I thought I ordered. It never gets easier...
