Lost in Translation: Cracking the Code of Office Communication

In this episode, we unpack the beautiful disaster that is workplace communication—complete with fur, tinsel, and some light, HR-violating banter. 

From decoding "Bill-speak" to wondering if we need a company-wide vocab Bible, we’re pulling back the curtain on how creative teams actually try to understand each other. 

There’s some yelling, some emotional lint rolling, and a very real moment of grief over a missed “Good Morning Starshine.” Welcome to FreeDive, where the sexy baby and the monster on the hill are just doing their best.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to the Chaos
• 3:00 Sexy Baby and Monster on the Hill
• 7:22 Why No One Understands Each Other
• 9:37 Miscommunications in the Office
• 18:09 Bill Speak: The Enigma
• 20:06 Communication with Clients
• 26:14 Communication with Teams
• 30:23 Good Morning Starshine
• 34:00 Using Unicorn Emojis
• 37:17 Tim Makes Us Sexy (Cat calls)
• 39:09 Hitting on our Coworkers

Transcript

oh God in heaven we're going to get it together we are should I have my hood up I'm worried if I take it off it's going to be like I'm going try to do this straight face hey if I can have Bill cater Walling in my ear cater Walling yeah that just popped into my head I loved that what does it mean like howling oh if I can if I can handle that with a straight face I feel like I can get through this good job brain on that word like I'm impressed today was rough I have so much hair going on that I'm just

I can feel it it's going to be good I think listen I think we just we're going with a really real Vibe and so there's just I'm pulling back the curtain on everything I love it I don't think there's any deception behind the fact that I'm needing to Len myself for this here's what I do need to know where should my my hair be where should my stomach rolls be so my hair forward so we can see the tinsel on this side on the other side this side yeah yes I like it mhm am am I okay yeah okay well here we are lint roll roller and everything um I've noticed you didn't dress in any fur today with me yeah I feel like I missed a memo I thought we were going cash I really thought we talked specifically about today being Fur Day hence I couldn't have gone harder on this I could have gone harder on this does this help okay it's something

it it helps a little I really wanted a fur case for my phone and I looked I looked and I could not find one cuz you don't have an iPhone no I know actually you're not part of the club no I know actually we passed in the wind here I to paraphrase Taylor Swift I Am The Monster on the hill and you're the sexy baby sorry about that um yeah I'm trying to decide which one I'd rather be but oh you're the sexy baby for sure okay yeah for sure I am definitely the monster on the hill so that's I'm deciding now going to be the cover

art and I'm going to put this down so that I stop making noise with it um welcome to the free dive podcast of the monster on the hill and the sexy baby um today it's about communication today is about communication something we clearly need to work on yeah if you don't know us by now we like fur how can you tell listen um you think I'm wearing this ironically I'm not this is who I am it turns some people off the uh the extraness of it but here's what I've learned in my old age of 36 I just turned 36 um I'm bringing back the part of my childhood where I felt smothered like I wasn't allowed to like the things that I liked so now you're smothering yourself so now I'm like I will wear what I love I'm going to smother myself but with fur I remember being like in elementary school and I had this like realization where girls were like the color pink is not cool and I was like oh that really sucks cuz I love the color pink so I was like yeah it's not cool and I had to break up with pink which was horrible and devastating for years because I was like that I hate that pink isn't cool and now I'm leaning really heavily into it in my 30s cuz I'm like uh hey all you little girls and elementary school screw you guys pink was always cool you're old and sad now you guys were a bunch of pikm and I don't need to be picked because I like pink I feel like I have a different trajectory because I agree our friendship is very weird it doesn't make sense it does not make sense I mean I do appreciate faux and I've always kind of liked it but see we're 10 years apart I'm 46 and um well 47 in a couple months and I have recently like fully embraced the faux fur just not today because we didn't communicate we didn't like we usually do but um yeah I was not I was not a pink princess girl at all I was the one being like you got are lame for pink you would have bullied me probably I was horrible to like the cheerleaders at school and like I was terrible it's better that we met later in life cuz I was like I was the cheerleader stop embarrassing yourself with that pink wear a real color what is a real color black the absence of color hey okay I'm going to just divert here a little bit black is the best color yeah you would say that it no it really is okay night sky you think of the universe what color is behind all the stars and the planets and everything it's black there's none it's black there isn't any space is black because black to me symbolizes having the room to be whatever you need to be yeah but that's on a given day to me I'm just like that's just absence of color there isn't any oh but it is a color it's all of them yeah it's everything it's wait is white the one that's all of them or Black's the one that's all of them I don't know I'm just going to say Black's the best okay but yeah I feel like you can be whatever you need to be on a given day if you're wearing black pink you're locked in to a mindset to a to a disposition I feel like so how do we get talking about that like we're supposed to be talking about well it's a it's a form of communication I guess it's not like really you know color is a form of communication in marketing but that's a little abstract we're not really reaching for that well I mean it falls into graphic design that's like a whole other topic yeah I guess it does just wasn't expecting to go there this morning we we're thinking about Communication in terms of well for a lot of reasons one thing Bill shotting off to Europe oh yeah and how that's going to affect the fancy man and how that's going to affect our communication in the office and remote life work and I don't mean to make this a gender thing but communicating with men as women oh it's totally different yeah but like just in interpersonal relationships in the office and how hilarious and frustrating that can be yeah between teams and communication is just so important and we had something happen recently that I that I was just like Kristy our next podcast has to be about communication because this was so funny to me because I feel and I feel it more and more every year every time we hire somebody knew that to be a creative director you have to be multilingual and you have to learn to speak everybody's language especially like our our design team like graphic designers have their own vocabulary and their own language totally do and I feel like our analytics team and our strategists like they speak a different language and anybody our our writers our creative team they speak a different language and so here I am like trying to manage everybody and get everybody to work together and get details from our strategists and our account managers and you know decipher what they're telling me so I can communicate it to our team so we can get the results we need and it's just like I don't know what anybody's saying yeah and there are just moments where it it's it's hilarious like I just had something happened um Adrian and I were Adrian and I were working on this project and it was one where Bill oh and and Bill there is something that I call sorry there's something that I call Bill speak yeah and Bill is such a Visionary that you know he gets all these big Ideas which you know we all get excited about the big ideas but then when it comes to like implementing them like he's like 20 steps ahead my and he can visualize what he wants and cannot relate it but he can't like it's hard for him to dial it back and be like step by step here's here's what I'm actually asking you for and so I will Hound him and be like tell me like I'm five yeah exactly what you want me to produce for you because he'll be like I need you to I need you to make some ads and I need him in two hours like oh okay um can you give me more yep

yes such as you know and then I'll be like more can you give me Dimensions is this a lead in ad is this a display ad is this a custom match like what are we doing and then it's like I can feel his frustration through my my he like told oh God isn't it clear and so there's like a that's a whole like we could spend a whole thing on episode on Bill speak but but we're getting better we're getting better at it and like but I was laughing because this project that we needed to turn around in like two hours I'm like okay okay I'm going to you know well get in touch with everybody I have to talk to Adrien and so Adrian I'm trying to nail down exactly what he needs from our designer and our creative team does he need an image is this like um is this a leadin ad situation um is this a situation where this is a template that you're using so you just need copy in an image or do you need our designer to actually design you the entire ad right with everything in it and we went back and forth I've got to find it because it was don't be mad at me Adrien I'm just gonna preface this with nobody in our agency is an idiot or stupid or anything like this is not a case of wow how could you not get it it's just that we all work there you know there's a high degree of neurode Divergence in our in our office and so everybody's brain is wired just a little bit different and so what seems obvious to one of us is like no you got to spell that out because to me it means this yeah and to you it's something completely different so um so first he tells

me um so like he's talking about the creatives he says the creatives need to be 1080 by 1080 for the dimensions and I'm like creatives what does he mean by creatives because I was asking him like do you need a full ad or do you just need an image and I said so the confusion is over the word creatives yeah I'm like do we need an entire ad or is creatives just the image and he says I guess an easier way to say it is whatever the final product is should be 1080 by 1080 and I'm like so final product do you mean again do you mean is it an image or is it is it an ad and he's like well the final product is the display creative oh boy oh boy I'm losing my mind what do you want like I don't know how else to say it cuz to me I'm being like so plain yeah and he's feeling the exact same way he's like how are you not understanding being confused about because I'm I'm telling her like to him display is an entire ad not an image and I'm like no I need to know because of how my brain works what you want to know that I'm communicating this clearly to our designer right um Sorry my phone's going off um is it an image or is it a full ad and so we had this whole back and forth and it wasn't until he sent me he's like an image of a completed creative which was what it was a complete ad okay and so I was like okay now I know where the disconnect happened I'm like so you're calling an ad an ad the creative word from it's just how he knows it yeah it's how he describes it and how he it's the word he Associates it with okay so like when he gets some a a task from Bill and it filters into his well that I I talk to Bill after I'm like I feel like we need like a Bible of some kind vocab a vocab sheet right so that we know what each other means because communication is not not always easy my yeah no I can see that confusing everybody yeah all these creative minds and they all look at these projects from a different angle and so the vocabulary can be just different enough that you're just like what do you mean though and one thing I love about Adrian um because when we are in calls with Bill sometimes and Bill will ask for something on a project Adrian is like a pitbull he is just tenacious about making sure he understands clearly what bill is talking about and he will just be like but when you say that do you mean this and you can you know he is working to get the information right and I love that he's so dogged about it because you have to be and I I I feel like sometimes we do get self-conscious and we're like I don't want them to think I'm stupid right because I don't get what they're telling me what they're asking me for but it's like you have to do that you have to put your ego aside and draw and your pride aside and just be like look my brain is not processing what you're saying in a way that makes it very clear what you mean can you just explain this a little bit differently or give me a visual or like don't take for granted that I know what you mean you know yeah unless we are speaking the exact same language you know it so that's been like super eye openening and since I've started like really actively trying to appreciate and think about how different people on different teams take in information and how they you know kind of studying their thought process and learning from these things that happen it's like okay now I know how to communicate better with each person and Bill too like we've worked together I've known him for like half my life but only worked together for 4 years and even though I knew him so well like working with him felt like I don't know you like I don't know what you're talking about like how come and it it kind of surprised me at first that we weren't like syned yeah because we knew each other for so long and I'm like I feel like I should be better at this well he he's a special person to communicate with like I again like and Courtney and I are probably the most well-versed in that because being here for this long and it's like there's still times where I am like I have been I have been working with you every day for eight years and I'm like I cannot believe that sometimes we're still like I still like getting better at I know when he's not going to understand me with if I don't phrase something a certain way or a question a certain way or like I know and this is again I'm not trying to generalize men but I know I can only send him one question at a time I can only send him one question at a time and that is most men I can't send him two I'll only get one answer back so I just don't even bother with two questions at once I'll only get one answer but going back to something that you started to talk about about like sending like him just being like make me an ad it's I have I have joked about this and I've talked about this in the past like it's it's like going to a painter and being like paint my house right right what paint what part of the house out outside what color do you want what what do you want the trim to be like when do you want me to start when does it need to be done by like there so many so many more details that I need you can't just say paint house right and go off you go like I like the creative process and the details that we need are so involved there's so many details you can't just be like make video go I can't do that I cannot do that I I need so many more details and I I think it's a mistake for an account manager to come to the creative team and be like well that's part of being creative is to come up with the answer to all those things and it's like no no no no no it's not it's not it's not it's not and it's not a sign that you're not creative if if you come back and you're like you need to give me some parameters you need to give me more information about this client you need to tell me a little bit about what you want and not just be like go crazy yeah be creative well and I'll tell you and I'll be as vague about this example as I can be but I years ago had an had an experience with a client where they had a vision for a certain video they wanted me to make and they were just like make video and I kept drawing them out and being like but what do you want it to look like and do you want me to follow your style guide and do you do you want me to use stock footage into you and they they they kept just kind of coming back frustrated at me being like just do it just do it and so I I I mimicked something that I believed that they wanted and I worked on it for weeks because they I just they would not give me anymore they were just like just do it and so without having more information I made it and I sent it back to them and they were just like what is this crap this is not even close to what's in my brain and I had to be like I know this is a shock I cannot see inside your brain like and and then and at that point did they send me an example video of what they wanted replicated picturing more like this and I'm like if I had had that in the beginning right because it was nothing like what I made not even a little bit and I wasted literally 3 weeks on what was really a great video that I made but it was nothing even close to what they had visualized because they were just in their mind just like make it do it so do you feel like with clients like that because I think this is important because it's not just communication within teams once we get something you know a task or a project from a client um but it's with the client themselves that communication has to happen first thing so when you have someone like that and that that was a long time ago since then what has helped you to get more from a client to keep that from happening yeah that that was a learning experience and that's why and that was years ago and that's why we did learn from that and kind of set in in place processes of you need to fill out these forums with these answers before I'm even going to touch this what is the theme are we using voice over what is the script what are what are the creative licenses that I have are we following a style guide are there any kind of compliance issues that we're following like there's so many questions you want a male or female voice over if they doing that corre yep there's so many things that they have to answer before I will even begin because it wastes everyone's time everyone gets frustrated and it is it is it's actually impossible for me to start for any creative to start on a project by being like just do it it doesn't work because what you are visualizing in your brain versus what I may be visualizing in my brain is not the same even if even if to you you're thinking I don't even really know what I want so I don't know just make something and maybe I'll like it even that's a waste of our time because I may create something that you're like well that actually doesn't even go along with our companies beliefs and policies and regulations and compliance and it actually you're not following the our our company font and colors and our logo can't be used like that there's so many things that I may waste time and in in the process weeks may go by and your campaign may be close and I have other projects that I'm working on and so that's why the communication has to be so refined so that and and that's where account managers kind of come into play asking those questions and I just stay way out of it right um and that's why they're a little bit the middleman they yeah account managers are really good at speaking to clients in that way they get to know their clients really well and how to communicate in that way so that us creative brains don't don't have to learn how but um that's another way that communication is really important and it can't and having stuff like forms from you because you did initiate those like you give the account manager a list of here are the things that you need to find out from them because the account manager may not always think of that and most clients they might think that they don't know what they want but they do they do they really do and they just um don't always know how to express it correct and how to translate that into the language you need to hear and that's our job to do right so you do have to be a linguist in way and figure that out and give them like a starter pack of okay here are the things that you need to answer for me yeah and then we can tap into what's in their brain and what they do want because they all there's preferences there and they do deep down have a vision for what they want so yeah and so my recommendation whether you're on the um the client side or uh you're on the creative side just like you would going to a hairdresser with a picture of hair being like this is kind of what I want or you go to your wedding photographer being like these are the pictures that I like you go go to um you know a meeting and be like this is kind of the vibe I'm feeling or I liked this video or this blog that I read let's do something like this I definitely don't like this bring yeah bring examples forward to be like this is where my brain's going even if you're not sure and you don't have to duplicate something you can still bring examples forward to be like how can we make something like this whether it's a voice over or an image or an ad or anything that helps get the creative sauce to stirring like to help get things going yeah yeah I think that's great and I think another way we have to communicate like internally with teams like it's almost like a game of telephone sometimes like some things can get lost from the client to the account manager to the team that needs the creative team like some things can be lost so a lot of times there's I apologize all the time and I'm like I'm sorry if it feels like I'm having you explain yourself again yeah but sometimes you have to communicate several times about a project just to make sure you're clear like this is what the client wants this is what you're asking for and sometimes the account manager has had to go back to the client oh I didn't really think of it that way let me go make sure yeah and then it's changed what how we worked on something yeah so it's like even if you think the communication is good double check it yeah make sure it's right it's saved us so many times doing that MH and just being cognizant of that that you know it it's not a done deal always the first time around when you receive that information or the instructions or something like really sit with it and think about it and um and yeah I just think it's important because so much can get lost in translation from the client to the team that's working on it if people aren't careful yeah and it's the same internally like yeah if we're not all communicating effectively how much frustration yeah happens I think that's the biggest thing that we find that we are constantly working on I think yeah not just because it's something I personally have to keep working on but I feel like it's something that all of us are like man we really you know have to up our game on that or we have to do better at this aspect of communicating um because we do have a lot of remote workers which I think makes it even more challenging or it can be or even the high it's the hybrid situation that I think complicates things because there will be a lot of weeks where it's like is so and so coming in today and unless every individual is on top of being like I'm not I am here's my schedule um it creates a lot of confusion or it's hard to plan like if you and I are not super in sync with being like what days are we both in this week so that we can plan to record so that we can plan to collab on stuff like that that would get crazy and frustrating like we're not like all jokes aside us getting dressed up for the podcast like we don't I'm not dressing up every day I'm coming in in leggings and a sweatshirt like I love that we do that like even that communication it's it's silly but it's fun like I'll send you a fit check text message in the morning be like here's what I'm thinking how about you yeah yeah yeah right but it it helps like if we were not on top of that yeah like like this is this is just true what happened like last night last night she texted me to check like if like I'm also bringing my kid in today cuz she's bringing hers and I was like in bed like oh my God I forgot to text you because I was just like distracted with other stuff so I was so glad that you texted me first um because I had just totally forgotten I had meant to cuz I needed to know if I like needed to let elely know that she could come with me so I was just like ah like that was a great example of like wow I'm glad analyn was on top of this communication cuz I dropped the ball so like we take one of us needs to be on it so that I can plan which piece of fur to wear so yeah yeah but with Bill being gone I'm like I do have like stress and concerns and like I messaged him Monday morning it was really funny so for anyone that does I I've I think I've talked about this on the podcast before but we have this daily um uh cute little thing every single day that he comes in he come so our office is two tiered he and I work downstairs his office is upstairs he comes to the top of the stairs and when he gets here I'm always here before him always um he comes to the top of the stairs and he yells down the stairs Good Morning Starshine and I yell back up at him the Earth says hello I don't know I don't understand why it started we've been doing it for over a year maybe two years and I it it means a lot to me that we still have this cute little thing it's from the Willy Wonka movie I don't even know why it started but every single morning that he comes in good morning start to the point where sometimes I'm on the phone and like there's been a couple times and he'll scream down Good Morning Starshine I'm on the phone with a client and if I don't respond he'll just double down he keeps screaming and I'm just like eventually he'll come down like something's wrong and I'm like scre your face the phone like the Earth says hello on the phone um but on Monday on Monday I'm here and I hear foot steps above my head and it just immediately triggers in my brain like oh Bill's here he's about to come to the stairs and yell down I'm prepping myself to say the Earth says hello and then I realized it's Tim and I'm like a and I thought I'm not going to hear Bill say good morning star Shine for the next two months and I was so sad and I messaged him and was like hey um I just realized I'm not going to hear you say good morning star sign for 2 months and I really didn't need another thing to feel sad about so I'm a little angry at you and he was like oh man I should have recorded myself and I could have had Tim come downstairs and play it every day and I'm like do you really think Tim has it in him to commit to that bit for two months every day was never going to happen like be so for real but anyway I'm like that level of communication he and I have had on loock like that little bit and I love it it means so much to me and now it's dead for 2 months so yeah but he like him being gone is just going to like mess up my day Le schedule like it's going to it's just it's already it's only been a few days and I'm like I'm weirded out that he's not here and it's going to make communication like I mean fortunately we are used to working with remote yeah co-workers because we have people all over the world um but it's still still a challenge to make sure you're on the same page and to make sure things aren't getting lost yeah because when you're in person there's just it's so much easier to connect on things um it's not impossible when it's remote clearly because we do it yeah every day and every week yeah uh it just means you have to up your game when it comes to communication and you really have to make that uh a priority and work hard to be good at it yeah you can't you can't let it slide yeah and he's a dry texture yes and we've talked about that throughout the years years ago we had this ongoing joke that I'm like I need you to throw a unicorn Emoji into the chat every now and then so I know you're not mad at me and so actually when he and I just podcasted together I'm like we need to bring back you putting emojis in the chat because I'm going to start thinking you're mad at me all the time I need to know that there's spice happening behind your dming because you lose tone you lose he has no tone no tone he's very much an okay period kind of man I'm like don't you dare put a period at the end of your sentence with me sir throw a unicorn emojis so I know if everything's okay that you're not mad at me men in texting I just want to yeah I've i' that's one of the things that I've learned um with Bill too because I'm very much like a stream of Consciousness kind of explainer and it drives me crazy but I always I know now that I have to kind of organize my thoughts a little bit before I like go up to his office and be like hey can I talk to you about something a lot of I can't just be like and here's everything he will zone out vomit out I can see it happen like his eyes just glaze glaze over and he's just like checked out and I'm like okay get to the point Inn get to the point this is what I really wanted to talk to you about and then I finally get right I'm like don't don't leave this is important it's just taking me a minute to get to it but I yeah that's that's where like learning how people take in information what they need you have to have like a short hand with Bill like direct to the point okay this is the meat of it and I'm like I'm gonna set this up for you and like give you some backstory so you understand where I'm coming from it and it's I think and it's like I know I do that because I am constantly misunderstood yeah constantly and it drives me insane and so I'm always like overe explaining and I'll do it when I'm I know I drive our writers crazy sometimes because I'm like when I'm you know translating a task for them and telling them about what's needed so you know I'm sending these big long things and then I'm like that could have been a sentence I'm really sorry I'm taking so much of your time but I just want to make sure that this is making sense to you and trying to explain the context and so I tend to be on the over over communicating yeah side of the spectrum instead of yeah to the point blunt we need to start messaging more like men yeah I'm trying I'm trying so hard and it's working it I I feel like Bill and I are communicating a lot better this year um which is great not that it was ever bad but it's you know what I mean like we're we're more in sync now and understanding what what you know each other needs to communicate well but we're getting there we see the importance of it is the whole point of this and we're trying and we're trying we're constantly trying so trophies for effort yeah you Tred trophy can we get participation trophies Tim oh yeah yeah Tim he'll never give us a participation trophy no never that's fine he doesn't get one either yeah he didn't even try so it's fine

well I feel like we're out of time I feel like we didn't tease Tim enough um next

episode It's called goals hash goals yeah I feel like he gets it so much anyway my my episode with Bill I did a lot of that so okay we're just kind of like giving him a break for now yeah I mean he did a good job with his podcast episode with Bill he did was very impressed good job Tim I okay on that note I was a little bit annoyed that his Tik Tok did better than I saw that like it's all these women that just think he's cute like stop okay Tik Tok women don't like it just cuz he's cute like are we not cute too yeah it's all our audience on Tik Tok is a lot of women and like thanks women we love you we're girls girls but like it's not our fault that we're not like attracted do I need to have a scruffy beard like my takeaway from this is not good again sounds like I'm hitting on Tim again just like I was with Adrian I have to okay HR buzzer I hit on the men in this office a lot by accident their wives you're misunderstood too their wives know like it's HR knows it's jokes it's not on purpose that's what I say it's lighthearted teasing and I told I told Adrian I'm like I'm complimenting you I'm not hitting on you it's just to be clear it's different it's different yeah I got cat called in a parking lot recently by Bill so in front of his wife communication and it was a joke communication not sure what he was communicating he was trying to get my attention okay cuz I didn't I didn't see him so I was like this is how you're choosing to get my

attention oh boy we're Crossing Lines like we usually do we are still working on communication here from the top down we don't all works know how to say so we're just cat calling each other pretty much collectively going to the basis form of communicating it feels good it's a confidence boost can we not do that workplace I will cat call you any can we not sexually harass each other in the workplace if it makes each other feel better what are the we have nothing in writing and our HR department is literally just a buzzer a 12-year-old child with a buzzer that's boy so this is probably going to be the intro to the episode signing off is sex baby and monster on the hill 

thank you T oh um she gets us yeah our new viewers did we bring it back I hope we did I'm crying Tik Tok please like these ones okay yeah we'll bring Tim back eventually maybe maybe if he earns it weing everyone keeps liking his more we might have to like keep pushing episodes Pro prove it that you want him right in the comments give him a cat call oh Simone would love that she actually would she actually would okay that's enough for now yeah don't actually do that cuz yeah I don't know maybe I don't know let's see what happens we try new things so yeah this is the year of new things the relaunch is all new things what have we got to lose except maybe getting banned on T talk that's fine still feels like a milestone I think I would be proud defining moment you know yeah it's the company account not mine what do I care I'm all about the moments this year yeah I love this for us okay we're stopping before we actually go too far okay love you all see you next week bye bye