Page 44 - Volume 17 Number 4

CJperspectivesI haven’t spokento my wife in years. I didn’t want to interrupt her.— Rodney Dangerfield 1921-2004Minced Wordsby Kevin DingmanDo you have trouble communicating with your non-pilot significant other? After flying a trip at my carrier, it takes a day or so for me to transition to civilian normalcy. When conversing with anyone who isn’t a pilot, for example, once I say somethingto them, I expect a response... any response. And my brain expects the answer in a certain order as well; perhaps this comes from copying ATC clearances. And please, answer the question first, and then add and expand with your creative interpretation of what you think I need to know. I’ve been listening and talking on the radio more often than I have normal, in-person conversations, and after every radio call made, I get a response. Like tennis, racquetball or ping-pong, I expect youto hit the ball back to me. If not, I’m compelled by pilot-logic to blurt outthe question: OVER?Tedious Volley of GossipThe process of successful verbal commu- nication with non-pilots can be a challenge. That is, if you consider successful com- munication to be the accurate, efficient, two-way transfer of information and not simply a tedious volley of gossip. We share radio frequencies with many of our brethren, and pilots have learned to be nauseatingly accurate, specific and brief in the way we communicate. Nauseating tonon-pilots, that is; to us it sounds normal. If you fly a lot, you also use the radio a lot and the techniques we use on the radio unavoidably spill over into our non-flying lives. To wit: A lady, when asked by her husband if she was secretly seeing the pilot down the road replied to him: Say again? When her confused husband cautiously but sternly repeated the question about her rendezvous with the pilot, her reply this time was a resounding: Negative! Wonder where she picked up that lingo?When eating at the fast food chain that has sold billions and billions, why can’tI order my breakfast the way we talk on the radio? A Number One meal please; two sugars, one cream – and an extra hash brown. You see, a number two meal is the sandwich, one hash brown and a regular size coffee. I figure when I order the meal, add the condiments for the coffee, and modify the meal with a request for an extra hash brown – that should do it. But no, they have to ask: What size coffee do you want, how many sugars? Did you say cream? Then, of course, once presented to me, the extra hash brown is not in the bag. When they see me staring in the bag they ask: Is everything okay? My answer: Negative!Many of the flight attendants I work with have not adapted completely to our lingo – or me to theirs. One FA said she teaches yogurt. Really, I asked, yogurt? Attemptingto place a pre-departure drink request is an example: Coffee with two sugars and something white please, anything white is fine. You mean cream? That’s fine. Well, that’s what “something white” is when I give it to you. No, it’s not... Sometimes you give me non-dairy powdered creamer, sometimes it’s cream, sometimes half-and- half, sometimes 2% milk, sometimes whole milk... ok, ok, ok – I get it! I should have been more specific. No, you don’t need to be more specific; that’s why I said anything white will do – that way, you can’t be wrong! It would serve me right if she had given me mayonnaise or salt.It’s Not MeNo conversation however, more accurately exemplified the disparity in conversa- tional comfort levels than the following: While between flights, a flight attendant and I were attempting to make small talk. I asked: Where do you live? I’m fromNew York but my parents moved me back and forth from Phoenix. Okay, but where do you live now? I said New York. No, you didn’t; you said you’re from New York, not that you live there. I lived in Phoenix. Oh ya, where? Phoenix. Nice, I used to live in Glendale, out by Luke Air Force Base. Oh, I lived in Chandler by Williams Air Force Base. I thought you said you lived in Phoenix? Same thing– you don’t listen too well do you? I was thinking the exact same thing about you.42 • TWIN & TURBINEAPRIL 2013