Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 156; Flight Crew Type 11000
Communication Breakdown; Confusion; Time Pressure; Situational Awareness
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Ground Incursion Taxiway
Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance
Human Factors
Confusion on taxi clearance with Ground Control led to wrong execution of desired taxi instructions.  F/O contributed by confusing Taxiway F and E with each other on readback to Ground Control. Ground Control exacerbated the confusion by non-standard terminology. Ground was referring to F5 as Ramp 5 Taxiway and F4 as Ramp 4. This may be clear to aircrews who are very familiar with Atlanta. Ground Control was very quick in reading taxi instruction; and very quick in passive aggressive comments to several aircrews taxing out. This set a very hostile atmosphere between Ground Control and taxiing aircrews. Not good for CRM. Sometimes slow is fast on giving taxi instructions to aircrews and giving them time to respond and clarify. I should have refused to taxi until Ground could take a deep breath and verify what he wanted us to do. Ground Control needs to keep comments professional and concise. Lecturing aircrews during congested radio communications does no good for anyone.
While holding short of Taxiway F; I called ATC just as another aircraft finished their readback. The frequency was very congested; and the Captain and I had already noticed the Controller was being condescending; and kind of rude; to the other people on the frequency. After I finished my taxi request; he responded by saying; 'how about if aircraft wait for other aircraft to quit talking before they call ATC.' I waited until there was a break in calls and called again. This time the Controller said 'standby.' After a minute or two; the Controller called us back and said 'taxi to Runway 8R; right turn on Foxtrot; left at Ramp 5; Left on E follow [aircraft] at Ramp 4.' I read back the instructions. I started by saying '(call sign) taxi to Runway 8R' but apparently swapped Taxiway E and F and instead of Ramp 5; said Foxtrot 5; as clarification to what Ramp 5 meant; since Ramp 5 is to the right; and the taxiway to the left is named F5. The Ground Controller responded by saying 'It helps if the aircraft responding uses their call sign in the readback and that was all wrong.' He repeated his instructions again several times and I read them back several times and was trying to figure out what he wanted as he was being very short and using a lot of non-standard phraseology; such as Ramp 4 and Ramp 5 for the Taxiways F4 and F5. After my final readback; the Controller said what we thought was 'just taxi via Ramp 4.' In retrospect I believe he was saying hold short of Ramp 4 and wanted us to turn right on Foxtrot; left on F5 (which he continued to call Ramp 5) left on E and hold short of F4. The Captain started to taxi on F4 to join E to Runway 8R. The Controller was talking to other aircraft complaining more about their readbacks as well. After we were almost at F2 he came back again and said that our taxi was all wrong and that we needed to turn left at F2; join F and taxi behind the MD80 (that had apparently come out of the same ramp spot we did) and 'follow that aircraft you almost cut off.' After that we followed the other aircraft to the runway uneventfully and the rest of the flight was without incident.
Air Carrier Flight crew reported a breakdown in communication during taxi out at ATL.