Working in remote places requires a certain degree of patience, flexibility, ingenuity, and planning. Working closely with team-mates in remote locations makes all these qualities even more important. This is Groote Eylandt field work in a nut shell.
There's no doubt remote field work can be difficult. The idiosyncratic behaviours of others can quickly turn from a source of amusement to total frustration and bemusement. I mean - I really don't understand how the hell he can eat the same god damn breakfast everyday. What the f*** is wrong with him? But, we do our best to push aside any intolerances and work together for the common goal.
Chopper eating breakfast
But it's not all bad. There can be amazing benefits to the long, exhausting hours working closely with others. Communication can evolve.......into something almost telepathic. It's like you're on another plane of consciousness - you understand what your team-mate is thinking before they even think it!! The nuance of their lip curl or subtle lift of their eyebrow are all that's needed to communicate a complex idea or emotion.
The latest trip to Groote Eylandt should be no exception to the telepathic communication of remote field work in a group. After all, Chopper (a.k.a. Andrew Hunter) is a key man in the team. He's a man of eloquence, temperance, empathy, humour and good ol' fashioned manliness. He's a provider, a homemaker, a nappy changer. He has it all. So it was a real surprise then that I received an email from Gwendolyn suggesting otherwise........
Gwendolyn sent me a figure that she feels best describes the relationship between the time taken to understand an explanation by Chop versus the effort required by Chop to explain. See figure below......... It seems to show that those two working closest together (Chop and Gwen) are having the most difficulty with the communication of complex ideas and concepts.
The relationship between the time until people understand a concept versus Chopper's explanation effort this is required. Robbie, Skye and Gwendolyn's data points are provided.
It's not easy to speculate as to the root cause of this pattern. After all, Chopper's legendary explanation about the dangers of bike paths in St Lucia have changed policy and bike-path design. Is Gwendolyn unusual in her ability to not understand Chopper or is it that Robbie and Chop just share a special telepathic communication that defies explanation. Let's explore the possible explanations together......
Chopper explaining the complexities of bike path design
Possible explanations for the pattern observed above (not mutually exclusive) - feel free to suggest others I can add in:
1. Gwendolyn represents the norm of society and Chopper is just an incomprehensible blood-nut.
2. Robbie just understands the muffled garbles of a lunatic.
3. Every analogy used by Chopper somehow relates to the bike paths of St Lucia.
4. Skye represents the norm and the tails of the distribution are given by Robbie and Gwen.
5. Gwendolyn is too busy dreaming about tigers to listen to Chopper.
6. Gwendolyn believes (incorrectly) that if she stops moving and listening that he will move away and talk to someone else.
7. ?