ES2007S Professional Communication

I do not like to quarrel (who likes to? Maybe there are people who do…?), fight my way to get what I want or basically be at loggerheads with anyone. In fact, conflict makes me extremely uncomfortable and if I could, I would do whatever I can to appease the other person. For a long time, I’ve not engaged in a conflict that went unsolved for more than a week or month. Unfortunately, there’s one argument that I’ll never be able to solve.

While on an Exchange Program to The Netherlands last year, I stayed with a Dutch girl and 2 others in an apartment. She smoked and often make the whole apartment rigged of cigarette smoke, turned the volume of her music on to the maximum and cooks rather often but cleans up ONCE every 1 or 2 months. And I suspect that she has SPLIT PERSONALITY! She could be smiling and laughing one moment but shouting, screaming, crying on the phone and throwing things (sometimes GLASS!) the next moment. Since we were on good terms, we would talk about her issues sometimes. These, however, were the LEAST of my worries.

Three months later, she brought home a stray cat worrying that it would get starve to death if it was left alone on the streets. She asked for permission from the rest of us to keep the cat (since this too was against the rules). I was never a fan of cats but to appease her, I agreed to let her keep it. However, trouble started brewing…

I was discussing a project with a friend in my room one day and left both my bedroom door and my window opened for ventilation. Before I could realize, the cat entered my room (not allowed to), jumped onto my bed and out of my window! Wells, it didn’t die but it ran out and had fun for a day with another cat (according to my housemate). As it was my first time and an innocent mistake, she didn’t say much. After all, the cat did return the next night

On another occasion, I received a parcel from a postman on behalf of my Dutch housemate. After signing for it, I carried it in my hand, closed the door using my back and went to her room to pass it to her. The next moment was one of the most tense moments I experienced in my life! She barged into my room and glared at me and said “YOU left the door opened AGAIN!”. I thought that it was extremely rude of her given that a stranger shouldn’t enter another person’s room without knocking. I was surprised because I wasn’t aware that I left the door opened so I just pardoned her rudeness and went on with my things. Suddenly I heard extremely loud and urgent bang-ings on my door. When I opened the door, it was her again. Her face was distraught- covered with tears, yet her eyes were full of RAGE. She started shouting and swearing at me- asking me to “go to hell” several times- for what seemed like ages while I stood stunned. Apparently the wind blew open the door because I didn’t lock it and the cat ran out. However, I still felt that this wasn’t entirely me to blame. She often shouted at the cat, chased it out of her room and left it hungry when she’s out. In addition, she failed to keep the cat in her room (though she’s supposed to) and often leaves the main door opened too (she never locks the front door to the apartment). To avoid making things worse, I just apologized and shut and locked the door to my room. From that day, she was extremely cold to me and though I tried to make things right with her, she wasn’t ready and was in fact very cold.

It was quite a traumatic experience for me and though I did very much like to resolve it before leaving, it was impossible for me. How would you react to her if you were in my position that day- being swore at and accused? What would you do to resolve the conflict? Or would you even attempt to?

Having good communication skills is imperative in many aspects of one’s life, ranging from one’s home, to school, to talking to friends, to the workplace. It is essentially a survival skill. If tactless people are often shunted from and people who can’t speak coherently are given little attention, who’s to deny that one is often inevitably judged based on one’s communication skills. Unfortunately, even in learning environments like schools, some teachers show biasness against students who cannot express themselves well, do not speak out (due to a quiet or shy personality), who stammer, etc.

Among family members and even friends, people whom we are supposed to be most comfortable with, poor communication skills may cause a complete breakdown in communication. This can be seen in the many family spats that we have experienced, read about or heard about. My family is definitely not excluded.

Needless to say, effective communication skills at the workplace is essential. It is not rare to hear of people talking about “politics” in their workplace. Tact has to be employed as one speaks not only to his superior but to his own colleagues. Unlike family members or friends who are generally more forgiving, this is often less so in the workplace. In addition, effective communication skills are needed for writing resumes, giving presentations, writing reports, and many other tasks.

While effective communication skills coupled with confidence may come naturally for some, I guess for many of us, it has to be trained, practiced and corrected. And that’s why ES2007S IS useful 🙂