There is that acronym again; those three letters seem crucial to the person talking; however, I can’t make heads or tails of the gibberish letters. I suspect the problem has more to do with the agenda of this meeting than my mere ignorance of terminology. I’m also out of my depth. I’m currently serving year 9 of potentially 12 total years as a community board member for our local non-profit hospital. As chair of that board, I’ve grown accustomed to acronyms used by the medical personnel sitting on the board. Still, this meeting combines university personnel, emergency room doctors, administrators, pharmacy representatives, and me.
Her use of the unfamiliar acronym makes it challenging to concentrate. My background is finance, and the three letters the university head keeps rumbling off are the symbol for a stock I follow, making it problematic to keep my mind focused on the topic when I hear the phrase. I know she isn’t talking about the investment; I just can’t figure out “her” context for the letters. I glance around the room, and everyone seems to be following the conversation better than I am.
A service organization once gave me an award for being someone “willing to ask the hard questions.” As I’ve reflected on that award over the years, the questions I have generally asked were who, what, where, and why, so here I go again. “Pardon my ignorance, but, what does XYZ mean?” The emergency room doctor, without hesitation, rattled off the name of a heart-related issue. The pharmacy representative named a drug, and I said, “good, I hoped you weren’t referring to XYZ stock.” The university head smiled, my point taken, clarified the meaning, and at least I was able to garner more from the conversation as it went forward.
Acronyms are critical to any occupation’s terminology, and I embrace their use when speaking to someone familiar with the same context. However, when speaking, care must be taken to avoid using the standard when it may not be customary to everyone in the room. I wish I could say the same for buzzwords. How the proliferation of meaningless jargon continues to invade everyday communication is beyond me. Perhaps that is a “touchpoint” for another day when we can do a “deep dive” into the “pain points” of communication to create better “synergy.” Sigh...
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From Journal Entry dated April 2017
Written: July 29, 2022