# Black vs. White Service Providers **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 28, 2018, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-vs-white-service-providers/816880 "2018-06-28T00:17:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-vs-white-service-providers/816880/21 "2018-06-28T13:44:17Z")
> [@Corry\_El](#): > > Not sure what’s a ‘service provider’. That’s the great majority of jobs in the US if the alternatives are manufacturing, mining, agriculture etc. Some posts seemed to interpret it as ‘low level service job’. I assume $1,000/hr lawyer isn’t what was meant, but I’m not sure it’s excluding for example a ‘tech’ that comes to your house to repair something. > > And the thread seems, like most here, to very heavily emphasize blacks v whites in ‘race’ issues but nationally in the US non-black, non-white people outnumber blacks and very heavily in some areas. Here in the NY area the ‘original’ (ie from immigration waves prior to the current one) culture is well known as ‘direct’, sometimes known as impolite or nasty to NY haters in the rest of the US, though I don’t agree with that. But in any case recent immigrants from Latin countries are often from places where the norm is to act more warmly to people you just met than is standard in the native born NY culture. And many basic service jobs in this area are done by newcomers from those countries. Right where I live that’s far more common than native born African Americans filling those jobs. > > I do see some correlation between people’s cultural background and how they deal with strangers. I don’t think it’s the particular job so much. And no, my experience has not been that whites are particularly bad at (again relatively low level personal, I assume OP means) service jobs. Although in places where eg. the maids at a motel are likely to be white, true in a lot of the US geographically speaking, it’s a different local culture to begin with than NY where people in those jobs are highly unlikely to be white. This gets back to the questions to the OP - How do you define “Service Providers”, and where are you observing this? Similar to New York, in Los Angeles, there is a large population of Non-White & Non-Black groups. It is quite a melting pot, and changes dramatically depending on if you are in Pasadena vs. East Hollywood vs. Downey vs. Calabasas, etc. etc. etc. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-vs-white-service-providers/816880/22 "2018-06-28T15:37:51Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > If he’s getting connected faster, that would seem to indicate that the Spanish-speaking service reps aren’t in short supply. ISTM he’s doing the English-only customers a favor by freeing up the English only service reps. Beyond that, it’s not “Press 2 if you CAN’T speak English”. Where’s the divide supposed to be? And I haven’t noticed much of a divide based on race or ethnicity, but I can say that the lower on the socioeconomic ladder someone seems to be, the worse the service tends to be, regardless of anything else. Of course in some parts of the country that tends to translate into a race/ethnic divide because race and socioeconomic status are very tightly coupled. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-vs-white-service-providers/816880/23 "2018-06-28T16:17:25Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > If he’s getting connected faster, that would seem to indicate that the Spanish-speaking service reps aren’t in short supply. ISTM he’s doing the English-only customers a favor by freeing up the English only service reps. My wife always presses “2” as well and also finds that she gets connected quicker and gets better service. She’s a native Spanish speaker (so she’s not wasting anyone’s time looking up “My cable is out” in a translation guidebook) although she’s fluent in English as well. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-vs-white-service-providers/816880/24 "2018-06-28T17:27:33Z")
I’m fairly sure it’s _mi cabo es otro_, in case anyone’s wondering. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-vs-white-service-providers/816880/25 "2018-06-28T17:39:56Z")
> [@molten](#): > > I’ve lived in the states for 2 years so far Where, specifically? If your experiences reflect a real trend (and not just, say, confirmation bias or treating anecdotes as data), I still wouldn’t expect it to apply equally to every region and type of municipality in the whole damn country. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-vs-white-service-providers/816880/26 "2018-06-28T17:51:53Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > _mi cabo es otro_ But, this is a tobacconist’s! ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2018, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-vs-white-service-providers/816880/27 "2018-06-29T01:52:06Z")
> [@BeeGee](#): > > When you say service, I’m not sure exactly what you mean. Customer service in general? Wait staff in restaurants? Cleaners or personal staff who be classified as servants? I was basing mine on in-person, lower status service - 7-11s, counter service food, lower priced clothing chains - to filter out the expectations based on cost alone. (Hell, yes, I will get excellent service in Nordstroms’ independent of anyone’s ethnic heritage). ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2018, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-vs-white-service-providers/816880/28 "2018-06-29T02:33:57Z")
I thought this was about TV repairmen. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2018, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-vs-white-service-providers/816880/29 "2018-06-29T04:02:19Z")
The people on the phone are all shitty at it. Of course I have no idea what color they are. Some of them speak good English, others not so much, but they are all terrible. In person? I have not noticed a difference. Wait, I have. There are three levels of pedicures. The cheapest are I think Vietnamese. They are young, if they have licenses you don’t see them, the chairs vibrate, there is a strong scent of fake nail in the air, and they use a cheapo rose scented lotion on your feet and legs. But they provide good customer service. Best if they don’t try to talk to you because they’re hard to understand. The next level, the providers are mostly white, speak good English and probably only English, the chairs are slightly higher grade and there aren’t so many of them in the room, but they’re still the type that have a well with jets in it for your feet to soak in. Slightly better materials. Slightly longer foot massage. You pay for it by hearing all about their latest problem although in fairness they invite you to share yours. At the highest level, it will be a lounge chair that doesn’t vibrate, the provider will haul in a bucket of water, possibly even one bucket for each foot, she will be Russian and she will tell you everything you are doing wrong with your feet, and your eyebrows, and oh my god, you are still shaving your legs, instead of waxing, in 2018! These shoes are not good for your feet, and hope you got purse at TJ Maxx and not Nordstrom where you pay five times too much. While giving you an excellent foot massage and another woman behind you who is silent massages your shoulders. (And probably nods in agreement with the one doing your feet.) Interestingly enough in this, the thing that I am most likely to think of as a service, there are almost no blaCk people providing the service, although they seem to be getting it in numbers completely in proportion to their incidence in population. For those of you who think you’re getting faster service on the phone when you select Spanish, how do you know? The only way to clock this would be to have someone else on a phone right across from you opting for the English speaking person. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2018, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-vs-white-service-providers/816880/30 "2018-07-01T01:01:29Z")
I have been to Russia. Young Russian women wear even more dangerous and damaging shoes than New Yorkers. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2018, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-vs-white-service-providers/816880/31 "2018-07-01T01:10:15Z")
> [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](#): > > For those of you who think you’re getting faster service on the phone when you select Spanish, how do you know? The only way to clock this would be to have someone else on a phone right across from you opting for the English speaking person. I assume it’s more of a perception over time. “When I’m on the English line, I usually wait 20min, when I’m on the Spanish I usually wait 10min”. Hardly scientific but then there’s no cost to selecting Spanish anyway so why not. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-vs-white-service-providers/816880.md?page=1)