Shoot My Mouth

I’m having one of these moments I want to go back in time and hit myself in the head.

There were a couple things I got pretty offended by when I went to Tennessee. It wasn’t anything outrageous in the retrospect. They skipped me when they were going around the room to introduce everybody. So I started out the meeting by feeling like I was taken lightly.

When I started translating, I posed once to ask a question to make sure I understand what the person meant. I didn’t do direct translation, because English and Japanese have such different strictures and direct translation often doesn’t convey what the person really wants to communicate. So I wait until I get all the information necessary and reconstruct the sentence to maintain the flow of the conversation. This is not acceptable in certain business deals or politics where the nuance of each word has higher significance. But for the industrial technology meetings like the one I was in, I find it almost to imperative to regulate the conversation to avoid dissolving into a total chaos (and lots of wasted minutes).

But to somebody who is not used to having discussion through a translator, it must have not been clear what I was doing. Maybe they interpreted my questioning and reconstruction of the sentences as incompetence. They turned to another guy from Japan who can speak English but not a part of the company we are in. I suppose they felt more comfortable with him. It really irritated me. I take pride in what I do, and I need to be trusted to be truly effective. I spend quite a bit of time studying the material we were discussing, and was pretty confident to carry out the duty. I felt I was discounted and run over.

I understand, though, they were really desperate to make the meeting go successfully. They did not mean to offend me, and even if their action was influenced by the prejudice towards my age or gender, it’s not my problem. I got paid for my time, and they were really very nice to me before and after the meeting.

By the time I got back to Michigan, I wasn’t upset about the whole thing any more. I actually liked this people a lot, and was looking forward to seeing them when I go home. Despite the Holy Spirit nudging me to let it go every time I thought about bringing it up, I opened my big mouth and mentioned the incident to my boss, and to the engineer in whose place I went to the meeting. My urge to get sympathy overridden my good sense.

This morning I found out both my boss and the engineer e-mailed them a complaint about the way I was treated. I was so embarrassed. The people would have no idea. They probably thought they treated me as well as they knew how (which they did). I might have exaggerated when I told the story, too. The part of their actions that bothered me was most likely unconscious anyway. I practically made an ass of myself with the combination of my stupid pride and self-pity.

I’m writing about this so I won’t forget. The verse in the Proverbs has pierced me like an arrow. The proud will be put to shame, and the humble will be honored. Rather humiliating way to find out.