Negotiating the Workplace Task 1 : Linguistic Commentary

by Mohd Asri bin Jusoh

INTERACTION 1

The first conversation occurs on 23rd of December 2010 at 4.30 p.m. which
involved three personnel: Trainee A; Miss N, the supervisor; and Mr. S, Head of
Department at the Town & Country Development Department Office. It begins a
week before the date above, when Trainee A was given a task by Mr. S, the Head
of Department to write an article entitled ‘The Transformation from Dungun
District Council to Dungun Municipal Council’. Later, the article will be includes in
the Dungun Municipal Council’s Official Monthly Bulletin. Mr. S also stated that 1 st
January 2011 as the due date for the task. Later, Miss N, the supervisor of
Trainee A asks the trainee regarding the task given by Mr. S. and she also wants
an outline or draft of the article before submit the task to Mr. S.

The miscommunication occur when Trainee A send the outline of the

article to Miss N, as she shocked and really surprised with the draft. She criticized
the draft because lack of illustration, images and photos which related with the
article. For once, Trainee A was taken aback and confused with the surprising
comments as he works so hard for the task and later he find out that actually
Miss N was mistakenly thought that Trainee A was asked to make a new bulletin
for the department instead of writing just an article for the government agency.

A quote from movie Alice in Wonderland which related with the context "I
know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you
realize that what you heard is not what I meant”. The statement simply means
that miscommunication are common and the most influential factors which lead
to the problem is making a quick assumption without further explanations or
feedbacks (Messick, 2009)1.

For the scenario, Trainee A should make a double confirmation with Mr. S,
Head of Department about the task as article and bulletin is two very different
entities. Based on Oxford Dictionaries, the word ‘bulletin’ is a regular newsletter
or report issued by an organization while ‘article’ is related to a piece of writing
included with others in a newspaper, magazine, or other publication. Other than

1
Messick, Wayne. 2009. Miscommunication Hampers Workplace Conflict Resolution.
s.l. : Ismael D. Tabije, February 10, 2009.
that, Miss N, the supervisor also should clearly understand the task given by the
Head of Department before jump into confusing conclusions as it can lead to
conflict. As for Trainee A, he should be precise and accurately explain the task
given by the Head of Department.

From this incident, ones can learn the importance of clarification. In the
workplace, a productive worker should be clear and precise in every particular
task and always avoid from doing continual mistakes. One of the ways to avoid
the situation is always ask for feedback from the colleagues whether they
understand the nature of the message each time after the explanation given to
them.