Communication Interview Essay

I interviewed my mom, Allena, and my dad, Billy. My mom teaches computers to sixth, seventh and eighth graders. Communication plays a very important role in teaching. Teaching middle school students requires speaking in front of anywhere between 25-35 kids at a time. She has to be confortable with speaking and has to have the ability to formulate her thoughts into coherent sentences so her students can complete assignments and tasks. She used to teach adults about computers as well. She mentioned that in an adult setting they are much excepting of the information that she is teaching and she enjoyed teaching adults over kids.
When she was about 30 years old she interviewed to be a fight attendant. In the interview they had about fifty to eighty

people in the same room and they went around the room asking questions and asked each person to tell a story. When my mom told hers it was not self-centered because she knew and interviewer was not looking for a story like that, they wanted a fun and entertaining story. At the end of the day it was her and another lady. Ultimately my mother let the other lady have the job due to the fact she was pregnant with me. But she had to speak in front of many people and if she did not have the necessary background of public speaking, she might not have been able to do that.
She mentioned how all through life there will almost never be a day that goes by where you will not have to talk to someone. “Communication plays such a large part in life. Without it everything would be bland.” When she was really young she had huge problems with speaking to people. As shy as she was she managed but it was hard. Whenever she had to make a speech or just to talk to more than a few people at a time she got overwhelmed. “If I knew I had to talk to the class later in the week or even the next month I would dread it and get all worked up about it.” Over time however, “things became easier. The more years that go by them more I don’t care therefore communicating is not as overwhelming.”
My dad, Billy is sales manager for the southwestern region for a laminate and hard surface company called Wilsonart.

He said that “as time goes on there is more and more communication since there are phones that allow us to communicate to virtually anyone at any time in the day. More so now, there is a much higher demand for people…young people in particular to be able to easily speak to others.” I did not think of it that way but back in the 60’s and 70’s when my parents were teenagers, there was not as high of a demand for people who could communicate well. There was not texting like there is now and it was not as easy to call someone then either. Communication is so important; companies could not run properly without it. The tower of babble is a great example. Since they could not communicate effectively and properly and they did not understand each other and nothing got done as a result of that.
Often times I see conflicts between my mom and dad when they text each other. My dad does not fully understand what my mom means when she condenses a lengthy sentence down to three words. Then when he sends back a question mark she gets irritated because he “can’t use the context clues as to what it means… it’s not that hard.” Then later my dad is confused when my mom is talking about said sentence, or lack there of, because he never understood it in the first place and she never elaborated on it when he asked for and

elaboration.
As far as advice about communication my dad said, “Ensure that the one you speak to understands what you are trying to say that way later down the line there is no confusion.” If someone were to interpret what you said completely different, and neither parties knew, there would be so many opportunities for things to go wrong later down the line. All of which could have been prevented if both people were to communicate effectively and efficiently. Small errors that lead to large arguments or even huge problems to a company or a relationship often times are due to miscommunication. As small as people might think talking is, it’s not. It is such a huge part of everyday life. Without communication no one would know anything about another person and no one would be able to get along and work together.