Opinion: Language Barriers

I had approximately a year to gear up for it.

My first day on the job was roughly the day after NAFA's 2011 Institute & Expo in Charlotte, North Carolina. I arrived at the Princeton (actually it is Plainsboro...it's complicated) office on a day where some of the staff was still in transit back, while others were taking brief R&R spells. These conferences were, as I would find out less than a year later, a lot of work over a prolonged period of time. I sensed that the staff, while welcoming me very warmly, also was wondering why they couldn't have taken the new guy too, just to help shoulder the weight.

Make no mistake about it. If we have to drag out the sports metaphors, and we must, the I&E is NAFA's World Series, it's our Super Bowl. It is the point at which everything the Association does comes together in one place. Getting all those players out on the field and working like a team takes a lot of doing, and it requires knowing the lingo.

You know about the lingo, and I thought I knew about the lingo. However, all it took was one session faculty member to start talking about SEO like it was "cheese and onions" for me to realize I still hadn't fully mastered the lexicon. I knew my CAFMs from my CAFSs, my ROI from my lifecycle, and therefore I thought I was prepared. All it took was one person to drop the SEO-bomb to remind me I was still in learning-mode.

In automotive terms in case you didn't know, SEO means, "Special Equipment Options." Well, of course it means Special Equipment Options.

But here's the thing. For those that knew the lingo and spoke it fluently, the I&E was something few people might have expected it to be -- a relief. Like a teenager who has grown up with texting and the Internet, and now has to explain to their sheltered parents what the difference between an OMG and a ROTFL is, or else acquiesce to the reality that they cannot speak as per their norm to said parents, the attendees could speak in the terms they used day in and day out as fleet professionals. They were relieved that they didn't have to explain a single one of those terms to anyone there (except for me, perhaps).

I can imagine how the scenario might go when a fleet manager goes home to the family and starts to trade in the terminology of their field, and everyone around the dinner table either shuts off the conversation or looks at him or her like they just landed from Venus (and yes, Venus is the new Mars). Not at the I&E.

Instead of awkward explanations and quizzical looks, they networked. Networking is partially about making business connections and partially about sharing ideas, but it is equally about speaking to one another in an unfiltered fashion, with no translations to gum up the flow. You could see it in the eyes of the people who were there, saying, "I love my family dearly, but you people get me."

The conference has been having a true upswing of growth. Each year has been an exponential (pardon the pun) move upward from the last. Rebounding economics helps, as they always do. I believe that growth is also thanks to an atmosphere where those who arrive in that host city feel at home there, and that's because there are no language barriers to separate one from another.

I'm sure you'll still be able to drop a few terms that will outright blow my mind.

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The opinion expressed is solely of the writer's and does not necessarily represent the viewpoint of NAFA Fleet Management Association.

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