Communication is not just about what is said and the other cues verbal and nonverbal
may lead to miscommunication or misinterpretation. For example, a few years ago my eighteen-
year-old brother and I were working at the same place, and the manager came to me about my
brother. We were both working at a fast-food restaurant. I was working day shift, and he was
working night shift, but to call out he had to call the day shift manager. On this day he had a
really bad ear infection, so he called out. After the day shift manager got off the phone with him,
she came to me talking bad about him and was mad because he called out. She told me that I
needed to tell my mom that he called out. At this point in time, I had not lived at home in five
years and my brother was eighteen, so he was responsible for making his own decisions. By the
time I was having this conversation with the manager I was already in a bad mood because I had
just finished a lunch rush on backline alone. I told the manager that I was not in charge of my
brother because he is an adult so if she had a problem with him or the situation that she needed to
talk to him about it not me. After I said that to her, she started crying and walked away. The
manager did not speak to me for the rest of my shift unless they needed something from me and
to send me home at the end of my shift.
The verbal communication used by the manager and I created a communication barrier
between us for the rest of my shift. She was calling my brother lazy because he called out and
telling me that I needed to tell my mom, but my brother was an adult, so I felt I had no place to
tell him what he needed to be doing or to tell my mom that he called out. When I replied to her
the choice of words that I used came across as me being annoyed or even mad. Because of the
words that were exchanged between my manager and I we did not speak to each other very much
for the rest of the shift.
The nonverbal communication that was used in this situation also played a role in
creating a communication barrier that day. The tone I used showed annoyance not
necessarily because of what she was saying but because I had just got through a rush by
myself. I also had my arms crossed which can also be a sign of someone being annoyed
or even mad. The nonverbal cues from the manager that created the communication
barrier was the tone she used when speaking to me about my brother. The tone she used
confirmed that she was mad about him calling out because he was sick. Then at the end
of the interaction, when she started crying and walked away, I knew I had made her
upset, so I did not want to speak to her first.
If I was able to make changes in that situation to improve communication
between me and the manager, I would start with my word choices. The words that I chose
to use in this situation were not the best and they escalated the situation to a level that it
should not have been on. I would also change my tone and body language in this situation
to not be interpreted as me being angry with her. One nonverbal cue that I did not take
into consideration when I responded was that she was already showing signs of being
annoyed and upset before she answered the phone. The impact that my communication
style had in this situation was that the manager and I did not speak to each other the rest
of the shift, which made the job harder than it needed to be.
