Yes, it’s time for the semi-annual “you live in a country that conducts its business in English” rant, brought to you today by what seems to be incident one billion of someone who hasn’t bothered to learn to speak enough English to make a telephone call getting pissed off at me because I don’t speak their language.
Sorry, Mister or Ms Speaker of Spanish or Chinese or Polish or Kalihari Bushman Tongueclick language, I don’t speak that language. I speak English. The vast majority of business in this country is conducted in English. We may or may not happen to have someone staffing the phones who speaks Spanish or Chinese or Polish or Kalihari Bushman Tongueclick language, but I don’t. And it’s really not my fault that you decided to live in a country that conducts its business in English yet failed to learn any of the language. If you wanted to conduct your daily business in Kalihari Bushman Tongueclick language then you should have stayed in the fucking Kalihari. I understand that it’s frustrating for you, but you still made the decision to come here while having no level of fluency in the language and then not learning any of it. Unless you were brought here as a child, you have no one to blame but yourself, and if you were brought here as a child and you still haven’t bothered to learn any English, then you have no one to blame but yourself and fuck you.
And double-strength cluster-fuck you if, having made the decision to live in your insular community and refusing to learn the dominant language, you dare to get angry at me for not knowing your language. It’s not like activating a gift card requires native speaking ability. It requires you to be able to understand “what is your name,” “what is your address” and “what is your phone number.” This is shit that tourists with phrase books can figure out in a day, and you live here.
Before I was allowed to get my work visa and move here, I had to prove that I spoke English. And I’m from Canada.
How are the Spanish/Polish/Toungueclickers getting in without a 4-hour, $300 English-as-a-second-language reading/writing/speaking exam? Do you just hate Canadians that much?
Following the lead of the Customer Service industry, the Customer Complaint industry has begun outsourcing to cheaper foreign firms to handle our support calls.
This is what really gets me. I’m an immigrant and a child of immigrants and as such I can get behind KNOWING the language of the country you emigrate to. However I can be flexible on this.
But DON’T get angry with me for not knowing your language. Don’t call me and yell at me in Spanish*. I understand barely enough Spanish to understand you’re cursing me out for not knowing it enough to communicate! I am absolutely willing to go slow and try to talk to you but I just. can’t. accomodate everyone of you of you assholes.
*Mostly it’s angry Spanis-speakers I get around here.
The inchoate angry shrieking is often a clue. It usually goes something like this:
Me: “Thank you for calling (company name), My name is (real name), how may I help you?”
Caller: “Si, habla Espanol?”
Me: “No, I’m sorry. May I help you?”
Caller: “Speak Spanish?”
Me: “No, I don’t. May I help you?”
Caller: “NO SPEAK SPANISH?!”
Me: “No.”
Caller: “WHYYEEEEEEE!” - followed by angry yelling in Spanish.
And yeah, I have to say I’m not seeing how expecting people who live in the US to learn English is xenophobic. I don’t hate or fear immigrants or foreigners. I just expect them to learn the language and not get pissed off at people who don’t speak theirs, just like if I went to live in some other country where English wasn’t spoken I would learn the language.
Antigen why did you take the TOEFL in the first place? The Sheckstress didn’t, her russian, polish, chinese and indian friends didn’t. Of course, none of them teach, so maybe that’s it.
Aside from that, the formas are available in many languages to get a visa to come here. Overstaying is the option of the perpetrator. As for business conducted in English, you can always tell who’s here to make a better life for themselves and their family and who’s just here to work as a revenue source for family back home. Those looking to do better learn the English they’ll need to assimilate better. The money mules only know word related to money.
Because the Bushmen are black! :eek: Didn’t you know? Any time you say anything negative even in the general about people, it’s a racial attack-- even if you were talking about a cultural thing and didn’t even refer to their race. :rolleyes:
Actually, “bushman” is a term that the bushmen don’t mind using to describe themselves. Some prefer it to terms like San or !Kung since those refer to specific tribes rather than to the ethnic group as a whole.
To be more precise, he was talking about Khoisan languages.
