Understand coded language

From time to time, we encounter coded communication. If you do not understand coded language, you may find yourself in trouble. The difference between understanding coded language and not understanding it could be what determines whether you keep your job or not, or indeed whether you get your deserved promotion at work.

I will share a personal experience I had nearly 15 years ago which best illustrates this. At the time, I was president of The Polytechnic Students Union (PSU). At the time, the government was going through serious financial challenges. Many government institutions were greatly underfunded including The Polytechnic, a constituent college of the University of Malawi (Unima) to which I was affiliated as a student and acting as its student leader.

We reached a stage when the college had accumulated so many big unpaid bills with all major utility companies including Blantyre Water Board (BWB), Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom), MTL and many others.

At that stage, the college could not even afford to purchase paper or ink cartridge for printing. Around the whole campus, only one printer was working, and supplied with both paper and toner—and that was a printer in the civil engineering department because they had a project that was specially funded.

It was no surprise to me that during the next holidays, The Polytechnic management placed an announcement in the newspapers to the effect that the opening of the new semester was postponed indefinitely. This was of great concern to many of us students. Everyone wanted to complete his or her degree, look for a job, get employed so that they can practise what they learnt and in the process earn some money to become independent.

As a union, we worked with the print media and got the story about The Polytechnic on the front page of The Nation newspaper. This was to trigger intervention of senior government officials and powerful politicians so that the opening of the college could be expedited. This was after we had exhausted all the escalations internally at the college as well as at the University Office in Zomba.

When the newspaper article came out, the college principal called for an emergency meeting the same day— to review what was needed to open the college at the next weekend. The day was Wednesday and the Principal wanted the college to open on the Sunday—four days later! Clearly our strategy of using the media had worked the wonders we expected.

The principal invited to the meeting the vice-principal, the registrar, the college finance officer and the PSU president. At the meeting, I could not believe it when the principal announced to the meeting that the college needed to open in the next three to four days.

As the meeting progressed, the then college finance officer— the Late Stanley Namandwa informed the principal that there was no way the college could open because he had no money to pay for anything including the bills, food at the cafeteria and so on.

The principal insisted that opening the college was not up for discussion at this stage because he had received a phone call from someone very senior in government, who advised him to consider opening the college as soon as possible. The Principal, who had once worked in the civil service, observed that the rest of us did not understand the exact meaning of the statement.

He then decoded the statement by informing us that when a senior government official tells you that he is advising you, he means that he is directing or commanding you. And “to consider” means ‘to do it’. He continued saying that ‘as soon as possible’ means ‘immediately.” At that point, the finance officer understood the principal’s directive to proceed with the opening of the college at the weekend.

As a representative of the student body, I was happy that the college was opening within days of our initiating the media strategy. I do not know up to now what the college did to resolve the cash-flow issue because the only important matter for me at the time was to see the college open.

But the lesson I learnt from the principal regarding understanding coded language stuck with me up to this very day. Good luck as you learn to understand coded communication. n

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