Cycling UK Forum

'm currently working with someone in the US who is unable to take the hint that writing the user instructions and data recording sections of his batch manufacturing records using 7 point arial font, single line spacing with multiple actions per paragraph is not a recipe for success.

Suggestions for suitable punishments and or pithy remarks are welcome.

Maybetryhisownmedicinewritesoitmakesnosense

I have a good supply of pithy remarks, can you explain a bit more what he is doing wrong?

Do you know him, have you spoken to or met him, where are you and he in the pecking order?

Merci

freeflow wrote:'m currently working with someone in the US who is unable to take the hint that writing the user instructions and data recording sections of his batch manufacturing records using 7 point arial font, single line spacing with multiple actions per paragraph is not a recipe for success.

Suggestions for suitable punishments and or pithy remarks are welcome.

Don't hint. US Americans are used to bluntness, and the British means of gently trying to steer someone in the right direction doesn't work very well. This has been a frequent difficulty in in internal communications in my home. I have some expertise in this area.

State quite clearly: Use XX font size and XXXX type, please.

It will ease the pain, if you also give him/her a clear reason and/or refer to a standard relating to the requirement.

Could be worse.
I once worked with a designer that had a liking for variability, he discovered that Word had a 256 fonts/page limit!

.

Many years ago I knew a chap who had worked in industry. They had completed a large machine and the operating instructions had been afixed to the machine as they evolved.
On the last page they had been atributed to an author "R Suppards"

Vorpal wrote:

freeflow wrote:'m currently working with someone in the US who is unable to take the hint that writing the user instructions and data recording sections of his batch manufacturing records using 7 point arial font, single line spacing with multiple actions per paragraph is not a recipe for success.

Suggestions for suitable punishments and or pithy remarks are welcome.

Don't hint. US Americans are used to bluntness, and the British means of gently trying to steer someone in the right direction doesn't work very well. This has been a frequent difficulty in in internal communications in my home. I have some expertise in this area.

State quite clearly: Use XX font size and XXXX type, please.

It will ease the pain, if you also give him/her a clear reason and/or refer to a standard relating to the requirement.

This!
It is uncertain who said "two nations divided by [the illusion of] a common language", but my original (?) addition there makes it clearer (to me ). Best plan is probably to take the input, re-do it into single-action paragraphs with appropriate spacing and indentation and then return it with "I think this is more understandable by us ordinary humans".

Obligatory...

I would have translated 'quite good' as 'almost good', but otherwise it looks about right.

It is much easier to communicate with Europeans %+)

Cyril Haearn wrote:It is much easier to communicate with Europeans %+)

Except that many of them learn language use from American films...

Vorpal wrote:

Cyril Haearn wrote:It is much easier to communicate with Europeans %+)

Except that many of them learn language use from American films...

Not in Germany, it is hard to find a cinema showing films in original, there are lots of interesting French films for example, one cinema offered three at the same time but all dubbed in German %-(

Soon Churchill will be on the silver screen again, dubbed in German, that really does not feel right

Plenty of German films in German mind %)

Si vous prenez ma place prenez aussi mon handicap – “If you take my space, take my disability, too.”
according to Guardian
if you take a disabled parking space in France

Mr Flinders works with many nationalities. He reminded me of the old saw that the Germans are too truthful to be polite, and the British are too polite to be truthful. He prefers to have to deal with the German approach if he has to choose. (I hasten to add that he is both polite and truthful; I am more German, with dangerous Anglo-Saxon overtones if lied to or otherwise crossed.)

I have a lot of American friends who I like very much and who are very decent people with a good sense of proportion, but I do find that, well, how can I put this? that some other Americans, especially younger ones, seem to need to be told how wonderful they are for doing even the most basic tasks or they get all hurt. That's tiring if you are like me, and tend only to seriously enthuse when someone has done something very special.