This week, I asked my students to write about a "communication gone wrong," something they had written (or said) that was misunderstood, caused unintentional consequences, or otherwise had a negative outcome so that it taught them something valuable. I also promised to reveal my own large article of dirty laundry, so here goes...
My master's degree is actually in literature (not writing...gasp!), and I adored modern/contemporary ethnic lit. One of my very favorite writers was and is Gwendolyn Brooks, an African-American author who began publishing in the 1940's. One of her poems, "We Real Cool," frequently appears in anthologies. In the Mecca is my favorite of her works, and my husband gave me a signed first edition of it 10 years ago. Therefore, you see my faux pax started with something dear to my heart.
When I began teaching full time, I had hopes of an eventual chance to teach some literature and the desire to stay up to date in that field. With only a small amount being published on Brooks at that time, I wanted to find out if she was still alive and writing. (Remember, this was before the web.) At this same time, Maya Angelou was very popular. Since she was in the same milieu and at the time lived in the same city as Gwendolyn Brooks, I decided to write Angelou a letter to ask if she was aware of Brooks' current living and publishing situation. I worded the letter very carefully and made sure to tell Angelou that I appreciated her work as well. I sent this on department letterhead.
Two weeks later, I received a phone call in my office from a very terse and annoyed administrative assistant to Angelou. "We received your letter and don't understand what you need from Dr. Angelou," she said. First, I was flabbergasted to receive the phone call, and second, I was caught completely off guard. I stumbled around and tried to repeat what I had explained in the letter. The silence on the other end was deafening. Finally, the assistant said, "If you want to know about Gwendolyn Brooks, why don't you just look her up in the Chicago phone book?" Feeling absolutely stupid, I thanked the assistant and we hung up.
This interaction taught me a lot: I needed to carefully consider the implications of my approach to gathering information, letterhead gave my inquiry a bigger impact than I intended (stirring up the assistant, at least), and above all, I had not communicated my purpose/rationale clearly enough for my audience. That administrative assistant may have been having a bad day or may have been grumpy by nature, but even if she had handled it with a little more grace, I had been naive in what I had done. Especially when communicating outside of my typical purposes now, I am very careful because of this embarrassing and humbling lesson.
Two weeks later, I received a phone call in my office from a very terse and annoyed administrative assistant to Angelou. "We received your letter and don't understand what you need from Dr. Angelou," she said. First, I was flabbergasted to receive the phone call, and second, I was caught completely off guard. I stumbled around and tried to repeat what I had explained in the letter. The silence on the other end was deafening. Finally, the assistant said, "If you want to know about Gwendolyn Brooks, why don't you just look her up in the Chicago phone book?" Feeling absolutely stupid, I thanked the assistant and we hung up.
This interaction taught me a lot: I needed to carefully consider the implications of my approach to gathering information, letterhead gave my inquiry a bigger impact than I intended (stirring up the assistant, at least), and above all, I had not communicated my purpose/rationale clearly enough for my audience. That administrative assistant may have been having a bad day or may have been grumpy by nature, but even if she had handled it with a little more grace, I had been naive in what I had done. Especially when communicating outside of my typical purposes now, I am very careful because of this embarrassing and humbling lesson.
