Between all the doublespeak, newspeak and PC speech bein swung around these days you couldn find a lotta honesty with a gaggle of dead cats in assistance.

Was runnin a rebuild facilty one time and was given a choice by the companys owner between 2 former longtime Heidelberg mechs to come in for a few months and help train our crew. My choice was almost instantaneous and my boss said "Are you sure you want Todd? He's cantankerous, opinionated, hard to get along with and very direct."

My response was "Absolutely! He's everything you say, balanced with extremely knowledgeable, patient and a great teacher, and ..... no matter what, you never hafta wonder where you stand with him."

Todd and I wound up bein great friends for 10 years until his death a lil over 5yrs ago and I count that old man as one of the best friends/mentors I ever had. If you ever wondered what he thought about anything, all you had to do was ask, 'cause he'd damned well shoot ya the straight skinny without battin an eye, even when he knew it might be hard to swallow.

What a shame that so much of our communication is spent doin that silly verbal dance where we speak all around what needs to be said instead of just bein forthright about it and sayin what's really in our thoughts.

The simple concept of "say what you mean and mean what you say" would lead to much simpler and productive communications