We used to go to a nearby Jack-In-the-Box in L.A. just to hear the window guy repeat our order: “A Yumbo Yak.” (We ALWAYS ordered Yumbo Yaks. )
I will also add that he was such a terrific, super, outstanding window person – once you learned his pronunciation – that we went out of our way to compliment the store management on his customer service, and within a few months he was being promoted to management. So sometimes speaking good English isn’t the most important skill for doing a good job.
Although there have been times where I found it was worth the trouble to learn an important phrase in whatever the service language was (like “no cheese” would be for lezlers) just to make sure there was better comprehension.
It all depends on what your expectations are. If I go into a little hole in the wall chinese restaurant, I can expect to either order by number or point at what I want from the menu. Usually even if they don’t speak any english they still know the numbers or the food names. And sometimes you get to try something new that you didn’t expect. In an ethnic restaurant I’m completely comfortable with the staff not knowing much more than “Thank you!” Sure, usually the staff knows a bit more, but if you didn’t want chinese why’d you go to a chinese restaurant?
That said, if you have health problems that require precise food orders, you just have to avoid restaurants where they don’t speak english. If it really is dangerous, you have to take charge and walk out.
>> That said, if you have health problems that require precise food orders, you just have to avoid restaurants where they don’t speak english. If it really is dangerous, you have to take charge and walk out.
If your life depends on it you should avoid all cheap restaurants or maybe just all restaurants. I often have difficulty communicating with Americans selling burgers who speak their own brand of ebonics and, even if they speak decent English sometimes cannot figure out the simplest things. There’s a reason they’re selling burgers rather than designing computers or airplanes. Getting your order right is an iffy proposition so I would not trust my life on their responses. The Chinese guy might not speak good english but he is probably twice as intelligent as the American kid. Take the American kid from McDonalds and send him to China and see how well he does.
even from english speakers i’ve gotten plenty of hamburgars with more than “just ketchup” on it. You can’t sit lazily back and expect everything will be okay, however rightly justified you are in thinking you should be able to.
I never said I’d sit lazily back, Tars. Read my post again. I said the order taker would repeat back what I had asked. What more could I possibly do? Walk back in the kitchen and make sure they’re doing it right?
Of course. I do that anyway, after the first few times I’d get home from the drive thru and realize I couldn’t eat what I had gotten. In resteraunts I’ll send it back. I mean, honestly. No cheese. How hard is that?
Anyways, my point is, if the order taker had enough of a grasp of english to understand “no cheese” especially when I reconfirmed it, it wouldn’t have been an issue.
So the amount of responsibility you take for yourself increases commensurate with the potential impact of your order being wrong. What’s so mystifying about that concept? If getting the wrong order will kill you, you’d better make damn well sure that they get it right. If you can’t be 100% sure of that, don’t order there. Or do, if you want to, but don’t blame anyone else if they fuck up and you die.
And that said, the place loses customers. If someone can’t understand me, they’ll lose my business. I’m as leftist as all get out, but even I know that!
It’s my responsibility if I have an allergy to make it known-and it’s THEIR responsibility to get my order correct. Mistakes are one thing-but if a person can’t understand basic English, then they shouldn’t be in that position. It’s not fair to me, and it’s not fair to the person working there, either.
And storming out in a huff isn’t being condescending, too much, or causing a scene?
That’s ridiculous! They have a picture of the kebab you want and you decline to point at it? Sounds like you just aren’t a good communicator.
Try it the other way round. What if you didn’t speak English, how would you order a kebab? People do it all the time, it’s not that difficult. I’ve had to express far more complicated concepts than “I’d like a kebab” in a situation where nobody around me spoke English.
I sincerely hope that if you travel abroad you will be subjected to the same level of impatience with your inability to speak fluent Bulgarian, for example. Having said that, I have a pretty strong feeling that the first thing you’d do upon arrival would be to head for the nearest McDonald’s, and scream at the guy there for not understanding when you tell him that you don’t want thousand-island dressing in your BigMac.:wally
Um… maybe it’s just me, but it seems like if one were to travel abroad, one wouldn’t be held responsible for taking or filling orders from people whose language one couldn’t understand. If one were to accept a job abroad, it would be that person’s responsibility to make sure he or she could fulfill the duties of that job, and that includes understanding the language.
But isn’t it a little ridiculous, too, to assume that because a person expects to be understood when making an order in his own country (not at McDonalds, I might add), that he’d go to McDonald’s and scream at people if he were in another country? I didn’t see in the OP where he screamed at anyone here, I guess I don’t see why his behavior would suddenly change abroad.
You’d be amazed at the number of people from certain English-speaking countries who get incredibly uppity if the local inhabitants of countries that they deign to visit don’t serve them in perfect English.
Whatever, looking back over my post it was probably a bit over the top :).
Well, that’s wrong too. If a person lives in Iran, and only speaks Farsi, would it it not be perfectly reasonable to expect the food sellers there to speak Farsi as well? And if this person speaking Farsi came across and American working, and the American didn’t understand Farsi-would the customer not have the right to be upset?
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