The participants were asked to describe how they spoke in their own words.
How do you describe your accent: "Atlantic/neutral."
Have there been other influences on the way you speak: "Three years west coast USA, six months Mexico, two years Czech Republic, two years Poland, three and a half years Munich, Germany and 18 months Reading."
Do you have skills in languages other than English?: Yes
Other languages: Italian, Spanish, Polish, German
There are hundreds of acronyms, and probably the biggest cultural shock of joining Microsoft is ah the sheer volume of acronyms - you can almost have an entire meeting where nothing's spoken but acronyms and if you have a Powerpoint slide there will be abbreviations and acronyms up there. And when I first joined Microsoft I tried to find on the intranet a list of what all these things meant and it was just hopelessly out of date. Umm so it really is just a painful process of not being embarrassed and just saying to people sorry I don't understand or what does that mean. Umm I think after about six or eight months you're in with it. Unfortunately at that point you then become locked into your own acronyms and having been now here for five years you can really place someone urrr where, when they joined the company depending on what acronyms they default to because you may learn the current acronym but you'll go back to what you first learnt.
'Twirlies' is the name given to pensioners by Liverpool bus crews. Their free bus passes become effective at 9am but if they arrive before this, they enquire 'Are we too early?'
