Well, you have to presume that when you’re doing business on the phone (which nearly everyone has to do at one time or another) that you’d encounter English speaking workers 95% of the time. I realize most ethnic neighborhoods are easy to navigate for the native speaking residents, but you can’t think that there wouldn’t be a need to ever leave the comfort zone.
Yes, but as the OP states at some point you have to venture outside the family, friends & business world where everyone speaks one language into the real world, where in the US of A most people speak English. We are not forcing them to venture into this English-speaking world, yet they get upset and yell and swear at us for not speaking their language.
My SIL is from Sweden and works as a translator of Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch, German and English works. Yet she has been told to learn a “second” language of Spanish. By people who barely speak English.
The ‘press 1 for English’ first makes sense. There is no way to say to someone to press a button if you don’t know the language they will be speaking. Even if you did, then the English speaker might get upset because they first have to listen to a foreign language before the call continues.
So, the ‘press 1 for English’ does not bother me.
To have a rudimentary understanding of Spanish in Texas or California ,I can buy. The op was from Madison ,Wisconsin. They better learn English to get around there.
Which is why the Indian lady who was upset that I didn’t know Hindu or whatever subcontinental language she was speaking confused the hell out of me. How on earth do you survive in South Carolina only knowing Hindi? We have two Spanish radio stations and whole Mexican grocery stores where nobody even speaks English, but to my knowledge there’s nowhere you can go where business is only conducted in Hindi.
Excellent! That means if I’m in California, Texas or Florida, I don’t need to learn English!
For all you know the person on the line could have been calling a cellphone carrier to check on his service before he hied it back to Mexico. Assuming it’s an immigrant that was just too lazy to learn (and maybe not a recent arrival who has just started to get situated to earn enough money for his Inglés Sin Barreras, that shit’s expensive) is, in fact, stereotypical and prejudiced. Sucks to be you, racists. 
Actually there’s a sizable Spanish-speaking population in Madison. Not sure why that is exactly, but there are enough Spanish speakers to support a number of different stores that cater specifically to them. I used to date a guy who was here illegally from Argentina, and he was able to get by on very minimal English. Sadly, I was not enough motivation for him to learn some more English (although I did invest in a course of Spanish lesson CDs which after we broke up I sold at a loss).
Although the OP’s location is Madison, Wisconsin, I believe the customer service he does (am I right in this?) might bring in calls from all over the U.S.
That still doesn’t excuse what he was originally pitting.
Expecting, no, in essence, demanding that any customer service department based in the United States have non-English-speaking CSRs is a wrong on the part of the customer, not **Otto ** and not even necessarily the company he works for.
Being asked if you speak Spanish is one thing, being cussed out when you say you don’t is another.
ETA: I see **Otto ** has responded to gonzomax’s post.
I agree. Even if he was calling 911 because he was on fire, there is no excuse for harassing a phone rep just because your cookie isn’t crumbling in precisely the pattern you prefer.
Invariably, though, this kind of comment brings all the folks who secretly resent and fear the United States as a bilingual nation out of the woodwork.
Just between you and me, if those Americans never make it back from their vacations, we won’t mind too much.
I agree. Even if he was calling 911 because he was on fire, there is no excuse for harassing a phone rep just because your cookie isn’t crumbling in precisely the pattern you prefer.
Invariably, though, this kind of comment brings all the folks who secretly resent and fear the United States as a bilingual nation out of the woodwork.
Overstay their visas?! They should be shot dead!
Go to Florida. In some areas all businesses are run by latinos and it is americans who get pissed at them for not knowing spanish. Uno BigMaco, por favor.
Y’know, that’s an interesting question, and I’d wager that, for some of us, the answer would be “yes”.
During the long-distance part of our relationship, my ex-husband was in his native Switzerland, and I was in the States. I would take a month off from work to spend time in der Schweiz, and before I went, I spent some time teaching myself German, even though I was told that some people there spoke English.
My ex couldn’t be with me all day, as he had to work, so I had to make sure that I could make my around the city–Basel–on my own.
And sure enough, one day I went into a store to buy some velcro (it’s how I keep my kippah attached to my head), and the saleswoman there didn’t speak English. So, yep, I had to buy some velcro using my left-quite-a-bit-to-be-desired German.
Now, whenever people were speaking at their usual speed and using their usual vocabularies (my vocabulary was, of course, very basic)–or when, as might be expected, they were speaking Swiss German–I’d be at a total loss, but I was able to do at least some basic things in German, just as it should have been.
Quite right. This never occurred to me. I live in an officially bilingual country and I never hear “press 1 for English.” I do often hear “press one for French” in French at the beginning of my calls.
Aside from that, I am troubled by the as yet unchallenged assumptions that (a) these people have chosen not to learn English, and (b) that they are mad at the CSR because the CSR doesn’t speak their chosen language.
English is a difficult language to learn, and the English you use on the phone with a CSR is quite different than the everyday English you use to conduct your everyday business. I speak a bit of French but would in no way be able to inquire about my cable bill (for example) in that language, because I rarely have conversations about my cable bill and haven’t had the opportunity to learn that kind of vocabulary. (Note that frequently, intermediate speakers of languages take industry-specific classes for that language, because of the specific vocabulary that is involved. CSR calls are not on the same level as “beer, please” or “where’s the bathroom.”)
Also, I myself am often frustrated while on the phone with CSRs for reasons that have nothing to do with the language being spoken. Sometimes I am frustrated with the CSR but more often I am frustrated with the situation that is causing me to call them in the first place. Further obstacles (such as “through nobody’s fault, I just don’t have the language skills to accomplish what I need to on this call”) exacerbate my frustration. I’m not saying that makes it okay to yell at the CSR - not by a long shot, nothing makes that okay - just that the reason may not be because they are “demanding” that you speak their language.
Some might be doing just that. But I would venture to guess that the vast majority are simply ordinary people with ordinary frustrations - and ordinary people are sometimes assholes who yell at CSRs.
AT&T has a language line service 1-800-874-9426. I use it all the time when my own company’s bank of Spaniards are busy interpreting for other calls or dueling with sabers. Or when I get calls from other sorts of non-'Merkins who’ve had their cars smashed up. Tough nuts, OP. You’re going to get non-English calls, you know only English, you’re providing the service, find yourself a tool to accommodate your customers.
Shit, if I called for service–grocery store, mortgage company, mechanic shop, hooker–and my initial request was met with a simple “No.” and a complete blowing off of an obvious accommodation requirement with no explanation or suggestion I’d get pissed too. That’s just rude and bottom-of-the-barrel service.
If you want the business, find a way to do business or your competetors will. Or for fuck’s sake at least learn how to say something like “No, I don’t speak Vietnamese, do you know someone who can speak to me in English for you?” Some folks are truly unreasonable, but if the OP is any indication of how things went down I’m willing to bet the trigger wasn’t the language barrier as much as the attitutde. As a CSR you’re not allowed to give attitude. Unless you like getting screamed at.
Really? You had people scream at you for not speaking Polish or Chinese. Where precisely do you work? UN translation services?
You do realize, I hope, that Canada has a very large number of unilingual francophones?
If this scenario arises as often as you make it out to, then I submit that the one who really needs to get a clue is not the caller but your employer. If they’re getting a lot of calls from Spanish-speaking customers (or would-be customers), they’re probably losing a lot of business by not catering to them.
I’d be willing to take that bet every day of the week. And as far as finding someone to translate on the caller’s end, well, unfortunately in the financial services industry we’re bound by rather strict company policies and state and federal privacy laws which limit our ability to talk to anyone who’s not a cardholder, as in, name embossed on the card. Once they establish their identity, sure, we’ll talk to anyone they want us to with their permission but until that happens, I have to be extremely careful.
Most of these calls come from people who’ve bought cell phones and get a rebate card. They call me when they don’t get their card or can’t get it activated or whatever.