subtitled subtext

say what you mean; mean what you say; act like you mean it...

yes, i'm guilty of not following any of these statements. a weakness of mine (among many) include my ability (or non-ability) of assuming that folks possess the intuition to be able to read my body language (and/or my mind for that matter.) i'm progressing (slightly) with my direct verbal communication skills but i'm noticing that the next skill i need to work on is my "tone" within my verbal communication.

i.e. sarcasm spits out of me unexpectedly. most of the time, i can't control; it's as if this is an innate quality within me.

a couple weeks ago, i was in a meeting where the bullshit chit chat exceeded the time that i anticipated (oh, the joys of working with a majority of women[sometimes].) i was a newbie to this particular team, when the meeting leader said, "mia, welcome to our kinds of meetings, where we like to gossip/chisme/tsismis before every meeting."
my immediate response, "well, welcome to my kind of meeting where i like to get to the point."
"are you telling us to shut up?" replied the team leader.
"what do you think?" i said.

unfortunately, that just came out of my mouth without thinking. luckily, everyone present started laughing assuming that i was being sarcastic.

this happens pretty often. where i have a smart ass/sarcastic response and 50% of the time i'm being serious; but the present audience takes it as a joke. obviously, this can work to my advantage and disadvantage.

ahhh, just another weakness that i need to work on...
at least i recognize it.