English In the Workplace
Lieutenant Kim, as his name suggests, is Asian. If I made a stab at his country of origin I’m sure I would be so far off as to frustrate the entire continent of Asia so I haven’t bothered, even at a very personal or secret level, to assign him a region. It’s a big continent and I don’t know much about the facial features associated with various parts of it. But I do know, from his accent, that English is not his first language. I also know that he is new to the battalion and has handled the discomfort of transition in one of my least favorite ways -- he’s trying to speak like, act like, and in all ways be like the enlisted community. It doesn’t feel natural or sincere and so he comes off as insecure and affected.
Our annual three week field exercise, FEX, is a very big deal. It involves over 600 personnel, lots money, and its purpose is to prove to some big military guy in the sky that we’ve not only been training, but that we’ve retained that training and understand how to apply it in a contingency situation. No one wants to blow it, so we practice. Practice happens a few times in homeport, each time lasts one day, and is called CPX. We had a CPX this week.
For the upcoming FEX I’ve been assigned to the MOCC which means I’ll be working with a super butch bull-dikey Equipment Operator. Together, operating on scandalously minimal sleep and unappetizing food, the two of us will record, communicate, and account for all convoys to include transportation of troops, fuel runs, and anything else that requires personnel to travel in vehicles.
This past CPX Butch and I were done with our work before noon and had nothing to do for the rest of the afternoon. She vanished and I sat around in the tent with our equipment and talked trash with my roommate from Cuba (we have a mutual friend whose ex-girlfriend tested positive during the last command drug sweep). By 1400 we were ready to go home and started asking around about the scheduled end of the exercise, always called EndEX.
Right around 1430 Lieutenant Kim walked into the tent and I asked him, “EndEX Sir?” He looked at me with a blank stare and then at my roommate. She said, “EndEX Sir. EndEX?” He shot us another quizzical look and then said in his thick and sometimes undecipherable accent, “What are you talking about?” And I answered, “EndEX Sir. Are you here to tell us that it’s EndEX?” Suddenly the subject changed, I can’t remember to what, but the Lieutenant was very interested in the new topic because he’s intent on being one of the troops, and I thought I was off the hook with the whole EndEX thing. But I was wrong because when the conversation came to a lull he asked, “Now, what were you talking about?” I answered, “We wanted to know if you came in to tell us the exercise was over. The end of the exercise. EndEX.” Lieutenant Kim looked me in the eye and said, with his accent and a stern tone, “You need to learn how to speak English.” And then he walked off.
I noted the irony, and the proof that Lieutenant Kim wasn’t sincerely interested in speaking or acting like the enlisted community (although, for the record, the word EndEX is universal among the ranks), and then promptly forgot about the exchange.
But this afternoon, gossiping with two women in engineering about who was pregnant and who lost her baby, I learned that the Lieutenant’s comment during CPX is the talk of battalion.
He deserves it.
Our annual three week field exercise, FEX, is a very big deal. It involves over 600 personnel, lots money, and its purpose is to prove to some big military guy in the sky that we’ve not only been training, but that we’ve retained that training and understand how to apply it in a contingency situation. No one wants to blow it, so we practice. Practice happens a few times in homeport, each time lasts one day, and is called CPX. We had a CPX this week.
For the upcoming FEX I’ve been assigned to the MOCC which means I’ll be working with a super butch bull-dikey Equipment Operator. Together, operating on scandalously minimal sleep and unappetizing food, the two of us will record, communicate, and account for all convoys to include transportation of troops, fuel runs, and anything else that requires personnel to travel in vehicles.
This past CPX Butch and I were done with our work before noon and had nothing to do for the rest of the afternoon. She vanished and I sat around in the tent with our equipment and talked trash with my roommate from Cuba (we have a mutual friend whose ex-girlfriend tested positive during the last command drug sweep). By 1400 we were ready to go home and started asking around about the scheduled end of the exercise, always called EndEX.
Right around 1430 Lieutenant Kim walked into the tent and I asked him, “EndEX Sir?” He looked at me with a blank stare and then at my roommate. She said, “EndEX Sir. EndEX?” He shot us another quizzical look and then said in his thick and sometimes undecipherable accent, “What are you talking about?” And I answered, “EndEX Sir. Are you here to tell us that it’s EndEX?” Suddenly the subject changed, I can’t remember to what, but the Lieutenant was very interested in the new topic because he’s intent on being one of the troops, and I thought I was off the hook with the whole EndEX thing. But I was wrong because when the conversation came to a lull he asked, “Now, what were you talking about?” I answered, “We wanted to know if you came in to tell us the exercise was over. The end of the exercise. EndEX.” Lieutenant Kim looked me in the eye and said, with his accent and a stern tone, “You need to learn how to speak English.” And then he walked off.
I noted the irony, and the proof that Lieutenant Kim wasn’t sincerely interested in speaking or acting like the enlisted community (although, for the record, the word EndEX is universal among the ranks), and then promptly forgot about the exchange.
But this afternoon, gossiping with two women in engineering about who was pregnant and who lost her baby, I learned that the Lieutenant’s comment during CPX is the talk of battalion.
He deserves it.
posted by Jessica at 19:34
3 Comments:
Wow, the fact that your lieutenant hadnt't even heard the term is frightening.
I had a governmnet source guy, Lock Trong was his name, and I'm sure I spelled that wrong, but in any event, he came to source some parts and on letterhead from the Government, which gave us permission to produce parts for the Space Shuttle Main Engine was the aronym SSME. He requested an official document as I could not prove who this mysterious SSME was. I must have argued with this guy for over ten minutes. Thank goodness it didn't have NASA or a DPAS rating on it as well. The parts would still be sitting on my dock, I'm sure.
It just blows my mind that people with no grasp of the English language are placed in positions where reading is so necessary. And these are not people working at your local Stop n Go. They work for the government which just makes me shudder.
Which is why I think it is so wonderful that we have someone like you who is intelligent, in our military.
It gives me hope.
PS I miss you at knit knight.
I miss you at knit night, too. Puppy class in on Thursdays, and Mark is out of town for the summer and quite possibly for the fall, so Dasha and I are going it alone. I love her so much it could make me cry. I took her to Seabee Days last night with the rides, screaming kids, mayonnaisey onions on the ground, and sounds of gunfire from the game booths. She was spectacular. Overwhelmed, but spectacular. Joan is very good at her job.
Well said.
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