#517 Runaround

I’m not sure if our skills at communicating are getting better or worse.
The other day I was at a meeting. It was on education and the efforts the school district is making to prepare our youth for the real demands of day-to-day employment.
One way to do this is by using a job shadowing program.
Personally, I don’t like that whole job shadow thing. I feel like I’m being stalked.
And as a salesman, I’m ever sensitive to the impression I’m making on the person I’m selling to. Sometimes having a 17-year-old hovering at my shoulder is not the best way to close a complicated deal.
Still, since I believe sales teaches one to be an effective communicator, I’d like to show young people that the essence of conveying meaning is the time-honored acronym, KISS.
Keep It Simple Stupid.
Say what you mean. Say it quickly, since that shows you value your prospect’s time, and don’t use lingo, jargon, or inside terminology. Use direct sentences.
I’m not sure kids are getting that from many educators.
And it’s not the educator’s fault, it’s just the nature of being a member of a bureaucracy. You tend to adopt bureaucrato-speak because everyone around you is doing the same thing.
At the meeting, the presenter was trying to explain about how one of the job assignments worked. She said, “This was the job we tasked our young people to do.”
“Job we tasked our young people to do.”
How about, “this was the job we gave them”? Do we have to verbize a noun? Can’t we just cut to the chase?
I guess I shouldn’t have expected too much. Later in the program, as she was summing up, she described her students as, quote, “the future workforce of tomorrow.”
As opposed to the future workforce of yesterday, I guess. I mean, the prospect of the outlook for the potential future workforce of the labor market is all tomorrow has at present.
Today may be the only opportunity to currently address it right now.
America, ya gotta love it