I watched the last severance episode.
A manager (an 80’s looking, strong and tall black man so you identify him) is told during a performance review he “uses too many big words”.
To me, while this character can appear pretentious, he is simply an articulate man, like somebody who was taught at Oxford or Princeton. It’s simply how he was raised, it’s not his “fault”.
I would feel attacked is somebody told me that for trying to use an appropriate vocabulary to describe or explain something, like being posh was something to be ridiculed.
If a coworker told me that I’d use a more detailed description so he understands what I mean but otherwise keep using my regular vocabulary. If a manager told me that I’d start looking for a new job, as it’d signal he feels entitled to micromanage me and a job doesn’t have to be stressful.
Am I too thin skinned?
Real answer: if you’re communicating, you want to be understood at some level. Knowing the audience changes the dynamic to fulfill that goal. If you use big words and your audience is 5 year olds, you likely won’t be understood.
If someone gave me this advice, my first reaction wouldn’t be “You’re attacking me!” It would, “Hey, thanks for the advice. Can you unpack it further for me?” In work, I’ve done well by having a growth oriented mindset. There absolutely are bad faith actors, but listening to the advice of others has helped me grow.
Communication can be an important part of one’s job and communication encompasses more than just being able to speak to someone, but also being able to tailor your speech to your audience.
If a manager feels that your vocabulary can hinder how much a client or customer will be able to understand than it is reasonable to ask them to tone it down a bit in certain situations. In other where you are communicating with colleagues in adjacent industries it would probably be a boon to have someone sound super smart and knowledgeable and then you want them to tone it up. It’s situational and can be a positive or a negative but the employee needs to be able to recognize the situation they are in and adjust accordingly.
I have a coworker right now where we have this issue. He’s a very knowledgable person but also a little arrogant and always wants to sound like the smartest person in the room, but when you are explaining stuff to a random person on the street you don’t want him to be blasting off technical jargon and Latin names for shit as it doesn’t help the person understand anything and doesn’t encourage increased dialogue.
People who are very knowledgeable in their field often have trouble “dumbing” things down. They make a lot of assumptions of base level knowledge that genpop doesn’t possess.
I admit that I was that way for a while with IT, but I guess my mother being a teacher left me with the skill of being able to relate my knowledge to something they’re familiar with.
It got easier once I realized that if everyone possessed the knowledge that I do, I’d be out of a job. Also made dealing with tech illiterate people much easier.
You understand that this series is fictitious and intended to initiate self reflection in subtle and indirect ways.
I don’t know how common it is, but when I grew up, being smart was basically an insult. Not being posh, but any sign of smartness. I was already a quiet kid, which made me a target (because quiet people are smart? My grades surely disagreed), using “difficult” vocabulary is definitely something you had to avoid; kids better not find out you have “smart” interests like computers or reading or something or you’d be ridiculed.
Maybe people carry their hate with them in adulthood but just don’t show it so much (until it’s time to vote 🙂)
I got called into the office by my supervisor for a verbal counseling because I used the words “myriad” and “recalcitrant” in an email to a subordinate who was not doing their job.
