The neophyte does not know, he believes that everything is fine.
The neophyte is cheerful and carefree in his new world of courtesy and politeness. He comes from places like Naples, or Florence, where everyone raises their voices, swears, is arrogant, and arrives in this enchanted, LOVELY world, where no one is apparently aggressive, where they smile and treat you well.
After a few months, however, even the most naive of MEDs understands that in UK there is a lot of courtesy, but sometimes the concepts expressed with courtesy do not exactly correspond to reality. Especially in a work environment.
After a few months, even the dumbest immigrant begins to understand that English should not only be read, but must be INTERPRETED, and there are various ways to be aggressive.
For example, the British don't yell, but they write highly bastard emails.
There are some apparently innocuous phrases that must immediately raise the guard.
Some example:
1) "Does that make sense?”. Translation: the meaning of the speech was plain obvious, you didn't understand it, now we have re-explained it to you with large words written on the blackboard. What you were told is an order and if doesn't make sense for you is not at all relevant.
This is on par with the more formal "Reattached for your convenience". Translation: we send you the document a second time, but we have already understood that it is a waste of time. Adios muchacho, we tell you this in Italian so you understand better (see: the sub-anomaly of Disinterest for the Difference between Spanish and Italian language).
2) "Please let me know if I am missing something". Translation: you are a jerk, we obviously did not miss anything and we do not want your opinion, do not try to object anything.
3) "Friendly reminder". Translation: it's everything, really everything, except friendly. You’d better learn how to be a dishwasher.
4) "Can you think of a way we can avoid this in the future?". Translation: The mistake was yours and it was clearly inadmissible. The future won't be there, book a taxi for Stansted, Luton or wherever you can find your low cost flights.
5) "In case you missed it". Translation: It is obvious that you missed it, asshole, but I'm here to remind you and probably this is our last correspondence. Bye bye
These are just passive-aggressive starters in Albionic style.
In the fabulous installation organized by Banksy in 2015, Dismaland, in Weston Super Mare, there was a poster saying:
WE REALLY LOVE YOUR WORK BUT.
Here we are.
Especially when it comes to academic work, the perfidious dialectical weapons are sharpened to maximum power, and even the smartest among us will take a long time to learn to read between the lines.
Basically, we have this sentence that would not arouse suspicion, which would be clearly positive: “We really love your work”.
You read it and think that everything is going well, that they are happy with you, they love what you are doing, you will be confirmed / hired / promoted / elected president or provost.
But NO. It can mean a number of things including, also, that you suck.
In principle, if you read that sentence, just starts looking for another job because you are screwed. Change your profession and continent as well.
You will realize that here that the difficulty is extreme, because you have to enter a perverse mechanism, from which it is also difficult to get out.
If your boss is telling you, using a positive sentence, that he is happy with your work, but actually means the opposite because otherwise he would never use those words, then what are the sentences that are really reassuring and that really express appreciation?
In general, feel reassured by a less formal language and not embellished by various lovely, brilliant, cool, wonderful, amazing… then it's up to you to interpret the Cumaean sibyl.
Do not expect advice from me because I personally did not understand at all how the perverse mechanism works.
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