By Monica Miller
When my husband Rick invited me to guest blog on his website, I immediately knew what I’d write about—reverse selective hearing. Yes, you heard me right. Pun intended.
Living with and working remotely from our home in our respective fields, he as a mechanical and aeronautical gear and gear box design engineer, me in marketing and communications, when his industry-specific jargon fills the air, it’s all Greek to me.
It’s often said that a husband has selective hearing to his wife, especially while watching the big game on TV. And when my husband gets deep into his craft with his peers dissecting technical intricacies, it’s me that has selective hearing, or rather selective interpretations in most cases.
Every profession has its share of acronyms and work-speak. My marketing and communications industry does too. But when my engineer is in his zone, here’s what I hear.
He: Asymmetrical gear teeth
Me: Braces in middle school could have helped.
He: Extruded tooth
Me: Is this a dental emergency?
He: Articulation
Me: Do gears really speak and speak well?
He: Parallel axis gear
Me: How can a stool have only two legs?
He: Foreign object damage
Me: Give me your thumb and I’ll get that splinter out.
He: Poke-a-yoke
Me: You cracked an egg while unpacking groceries?
He: Friction
Me: The WD-40 is in the garage.
He: Pressure angle
Me: Gotta be a yoga class move, right?
He: Stress and life calculation
Me: Never aspired to be an actuary, but can you really calculate how long I’ll live?
He: Duty cycle
Me: Laundry. Laundry. Laundry. It never ends.
He: Hypoid gears
Me: Is that a cousin to hyper gears?
He: Speed increaser / speed reducer
Me: But honey, my little legs can only go so fast.
He: Face width
Me: Do these pants make my face look fat?
He: Involute profile
Me: Sounds like a shady character to me.
He: Cumulative damage
Me: Busted. The Christmas shopping spree did get out of hand.
He: Addendum
Me: P.S. my engineer, I love you.
