perfidy

About 2 months ago I had a phone interview with an organization in the UK. More precisely the interview was with an HR firm that organization had hired to conduct this particular search. I didn't believe anything would come of it- a belief that was borne out as it happens- and that's not really my point. My point is that it was funny getting past the language barrier.

The woman running the search was supposed to call at 11 local on the designated day. Her assistant called instead, and explained that the boss was running late with other calls and, if it was quite alright, she would like to call back in 20 minutes. That’s the translated version.

At that moment though I was having trouble:

"Yes?" [Me, in standard by-God Amurrican English. Since I was expecting this call, I wasn’t as abrupt as I usually am. But I still answered like I had just eaten a rare steak. I’m not sure why, but that was an important image to convey telephonically.]

"Hello, is this Geeklethal?" [Him, with the Queen's diction, polite and helpful with just a wisp of priss.]

"Yes."

"Geeklethal, this is Mott Hooply with Frothingsham Limited. I gribniff the eltra docalax for katy in the hibell and foralently."

"...?" [The ellipsis, here, means near total incomprehension: face pinched; eyes shut tight; lips frowning with grim tension like I was a mathematician working on fucking Enigma and the outcome of the Battle of the Atlantic hung on whether I could just get the damned key and I knew I was close, but I couldn’t get my mind working on the problem because all I had going on in my skull was my own voice yelling ‘FUCKING *WHAT* did he just say!?’ So, that’s what those three dots meant there. Moving on.]

"If that's alright...?"

"Ah, ok..." [As I slowly worked on a general sketch of comprehension, with growing awareness of an awkwardly long pause over what was probably a very routine and undemanding question.]

"And shall she criff at this number, or friddle theraflu alta?"

"....Ahhh, this number's............ffffine?" [Near-total guess, there.]

"Splendid!"

Phew, this is going to be harder than I thought, um, I thought.

When she did call 20 minutes later, it again took a few minutes to shift my eargears into British but more surely and with less grinding than with her assistant. At first it was like I was speaking to her on the Moon, with a gap between her question and my answer. But the gap was due not to distance but me "translating" what she'd asked me. I had to listen carefully, wait for my on-board translation matrices to filter it, re-understand it in American, and go from there. Later I realized that my brain does precisely the same thing, in the same way, when trying to navigate a conversation in German- starts out ok, readily grasping the first few words in the sentence, then falls off a cliff, then comes many seconds, sometimes minutes, to recreate in my mind what that was all supposed to have meant- if I ever even get an answer. Funny it was the same in unfamiliar English too. It smoothed out after a bit, and by the end was cruising right along, but never quite got the ease of comprehension we all have with each other as native American speakers.

So I basically had to blather about how dynamite I am, which if you've never done it on the phone in this manner is hugely awkward. It is in such a situation that we realize how much we rely on body language, eye contact, and a dozen other physical cues from our audience that we use in turn to modify our speech. Such body language is probably not so very culturally distinct as speech.

Compounding that awkwardness was the distinct sensation that the more I spoke, the more I felt that what she heard on the other end was not my disciplined, thoughtful responses to her questions- themselves the result of careful reflection on a brief but respectable career - but more like "UUU HUH HEEILK YES'M I SHO' NUFF AM DA MAN FO' DA JOB". I felt as if I was from the deepest piney woods of Fuckbuckle, Arkansas, was applying for the presidency of Harvard, and any second would ask the women on the hiring committee who was keeping the house all day if they were here?

Well, since I wasn’t subsequently invited to England for a real interview, I didn’t have to figure out how I was going to communicate with them on their home turf in their own language. But after that call I could see some QESL (Queen’s English as a Second Language) coursework in my future.