“They weigh an average of 100 of their kilograms, and subsist on a diet made up entirely of vegetable-derived matter. Their political opinions are all based as hell, and they fucking love fire trucks. 7/7 Florgles, we should open a line of communication with their leaders immediately”
At one point in my job I was effectively the translator between English speaking Indian software devs, and American project managers. If I can translate technical information into something understandable to a PM, and vague program specs into actionable technical requirements for the devs I think we’d actually be alright with the aliens.
But merely being able to communicate with people has never been sufficient to make peace with them, at least from my experience. Otherwise I’d be much more popular with people, because I never had trouble reading, listening to, and writing to people, but I’m not good at talking to people. I typically need a lot more prior information (i.e. cultural norms, dictionary of body language, recent local history, a catalog of an individual’s interests and their definitions, etc.) to talk to people effectively, which I often don’t have or acquire by fucking up enough times to figure it out by hand 🙃.
I am pedantic to a fault, capable of simultaneously being the most specific and most vague person you will ever speak with, and have the social skills of a carrot. I am also debilitatingly ADHD, reasonably autistic, and more intelligent than is able to produce an emotionally functional adult.
I will leave it up to you all on if you want me to be the model, but I’d be happy to if it were up to me.
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