The theory of communication

When I was at elementary school, the teacher presented me the Theory of Communication. It says that there are mainly three pieces that allow a communication: the sender (who talks), the receiver (who listens) and the message itself. At that time, the teacher told me that if the receiver cannot understand the message then it is the sender's fault. OK, fair enough, I thought...

Some years later, I quit my job at a Telecom company. The reason: I was trying (for 6 months) to convince my director that there were technical problems (that he created/ignored when he was a project manager) that could only be solved if a new - small - project was made. I wrote a report about the problem (not pointing fingers, of course) and delivered to my manager and to my director. But he refused to accept the solution, since it involved some costs in short term for the department. And probably, the spots would be on him.

So, I was quitting because the problem had no solution and I didn't want to be the scapegoat (and also I was fed up with the general incompetence of the company). When I made my complaints to my manager, she just told me that I should have insisted more; and if nobody listened to me (after 6 months trying to convince people) then it was my own fault, because the fault is always on the sender side, right?

Well, this reminded me the Theory of Communication class from elementary school. And it made me think: if the receiver doesn't want to listen to the sender, then does it mean that the sender is the one to be blamed on? Absolutely NOT! If the receiver is listening to you, but it doesn't want to acknowledge your message, it is not the sender's fault. It is the receiver's fault. The Theory of Communication from elementary school class was wrong!

So, the little things that make me angry here are:

1. People who bulls*its me with the lousy assessments from the Theory of Communication.

2. People who uses the lousy assessments from the Theory of Communication as an excuse.