Mailing Systems Technology - September/October 2008 - (Page 46) Kate’s Slate BY KATE MUTH Partners Need to Communicate I discovered that I use the word “actually” a lot when I speak. I taught an English class for non-native English speakers and the students asked me one day what “actually” means. I asked them where they had heard the word and they told me that I say it a lot. “It means ‘in fact,’” I said, “and, actually, neither one are really necessary in a sentence.” It’s a verbal tic, really. Something I add to my dialogue without even thinking about it. We hear this in conversations all the time, words such as “like” and “you know,” which don’t add meaning or substance. Americans pepper their conversations with all sorts of added words and colloquialisms — things we wouldn’t necessarily write in an essay or even in an email. But conversation is much different from the written word, which is yet another reason English is such a difficult language to learn. In the mailing industry, we speak a unique language as well, one built around acronyms and technical terms that we toss around at meetings, and too bad for the poor sap who is sitting in his or her very first gathering. It sort of feels like you get in the club once you’ve mastered the language. But if we get too clubby, we don’t open the door to a wider community. Imagine if you were new to the industry and your boss told you to get out there and figure out how to mail smarter, or more efficiently, or just mail more. Isn’t this just the type of customer the Postal Service is looking for? Isn’t this where revenuegeneration opportunities exist? So, your boss sends you to an industry meeting and you hear something like this: “Over the years, we’ve incented mailers to dropship to the DDU. Of course, that means you’re bypassing the BMCs where we have all those SPBS (pronounced ‘spibs’) being underutilized. So the TDSN concept will help us improve efficiency and we can use that space for phase two of FSS.” Huh? You’re sitting there wondering if “incent” is even a word, nevermind the four or five acronyms that came after it. You’re not even sure if we are talking about a machine, a person or a ��������������� ����������������������� ������������������������������ ������������������������������ ���������������������������� ���������������������������� ����������������������������� ������������������������������� ��������������������������� ���������������������������� ��������������������������� ������������ ��������������������������� ���������������������������� ����������������������������� ���������������������������� �������������� ���������������������������� ���� ������ ��������������������������������� ��������������������������������������������� ������������������������ ����������������������� 46 SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2008 | WWW.MAILINGSYSTEMSTECHNOLOGY.COM http://www.MailingSystemsTechnology.com
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