Per the article if your hairdresser was having a conversation in Spanish with another employee while working on your hair, would it make you vaguely uncomfortable if you didn’t speak Spanish? I’m not interested as much in the EEOC aspects of the case addressed in the article. I’m imore interested in how you would feel. Would it influence your decision about going there again?
My old hairdresser chattered in Russian with her comrades (they were nearly all Russian at that salon). I enjoy the sound of it, and I’m not very chatty with my stylist myself so I don’t mind listening. I wouldn’t feel any differently about Spanish.
I get a little annoyed by things like that. I can’t really speak about hair salons, since nobody else has cut my hair in 3 1/2 years, but it bothers me. It’s nobody else’s fault, I just like to know what’s going on around me and I don’t if I’m unable to understand the language.
At one time I was told by an old-timer that it’s rude to converse in a language unintelligible to unaddressed parties who happen to be within earshot. The justification for this addition to the code of etiquette was that those uncomprehending eavesdroppers might fear they were being discussed, in their very presence but as if they weren’t even there, which would make the poor monoglot feel awkward.
This seems perfectly understandable. I’d much rather, for instance, that swarthy foreigners discussing whether or not the wish to kill me and steal all my money have the goddamn common courtesy to wait until I’ve left the room before plotting my demise. The nerve of some people.
Most nail salons in this area are run by Koreans or Vietnamese, and they very often speak to each other in their native languages. I occasionally have a vague suspicion that they’re talking about me (you know, like when they gesture to me and laugh), but I figure that as long as my nails are getting done well, they can say whatever they want.
Of course, if they were saying it in English, we’d have a problem.
I used to think that people talking to each other in a foreign language right in front of me were most likely talking about me, and even making unkind remarks about me. Then I learned Spanish and found out that nobody ever talks about me in these situations. They’re talking about what to pick up at the grocery store after work, what funny thing their kid said this morning, etc.
Any time I hear people chittering in another non-English language, it just pisses me off.
::This one have vely small figers!::
::Ahh, my mother say it mean he have vely small plick!::
::HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!::
My hairdresser carries on conversations with fellow employees in French. I don’t mind. In fact, it’s unusual for me to go anywhere and get any service without the employees talking in French, bilingual province and all. If I pay attention, I may get a few key points, but usually, I just think about my own stuff and enjoy not having any forced conversation.
Exactly what s/he said.
I assume it is idle chit-chat, not about me, and all that…but I still don’t like it. It makes me uncomfortable, and like Marley23, I like to know what is going on. Plus, I like to chat with strangers (you never know who you will meet or what they will say) and when they are talking with each other, I can’t chat with them.
I imagine that’s more or less what they would be saying if I were male, but yes, you get my drift. 
Even if they are speaking English, what anyone else says in a conversation that doesn’t include you is none of your business.
There was a Seinfeld episode about this.
I don’t see why I’d particularly care.
I assume that the conversation has nothing to do with me - and if I’m going to be out of the conversation anyway (as it has nothing to do with me), what does it matter if it’s in English or Spanish?
Nope. I live around non-English speakers. I speak English in front of them, they speak Bengali in front of me. It sort of works out.
For an amusing time, break out a Spanish newspaper and begin to read it. Hilarity may ensue.
This is why I never get too nit-picky with whoever is doing my nails. I’m afraid that if there were subtitles floating around in front of the other techs, they would be saying things like:
“Can you believe this snotty bitch wants her nails more squared?”
It’s pretty much rude for the hairdresser to have a conversation with someone else in any language while they cut your hair. You’re paying them to cut your hair, not converse with others. I don’t mind the occasional comment to others in any language the stylist wants but carrying on an entire conversation is not acceptable. At my nail salon, the nail techs (all Vietnamese) generally talk to the customers in English but well convey information to each other in Vietnamese and I don’t have any problem with it.
But there is the “you get what you pay for” factor: you’re gonna get much less attentive service in a SuperCuts than you would in a nicer salon.
Yeah, I’d be annoyed. I’m not a slab of meat sitting in that chair, I’m a customer. Don’t talk over my head in a language I can’t understand. I’d feel the same if they carried on a conversation in whispers or murmurs. You want a private conversation, go to a private place.
Where I grew up, it was fairly common for Spanish speaking people to gather around non-Spanish speakers and carry on a conversation that we couldn’t comprehend. Waiting rooms seemed to be the most common place for this to happen. Once, my mom and sister were in a waiting room–they’d been there before and knew the people, and that their English was fine. BUT, they kept turning the conversation to Spanish (with enough glances toward the gringas to make them feel deliberately excluded). So Mom and Sis began communicating in sign language. This annoyed the hell out of the others. Mom was asked, “Is your daughter deaf?” “No.” “Then why are you using sign language?” Mom asked him," Why do you speak Spanish when you speak English so well?" He replied that he had Mexican friends–“Well, we have deaf friends.” (This was the truth.) But they clearly didn’t like being beaten at their own game.
I’m not saying that Spanish or French or Esperanto should NEVER be spoken ANYWHERE but in the home. But when you’re dealing with the public, you shouldn’t have conversations that make others feel shut out. If I go to Mexico, I need to learn at least the basics of the language before I take a job that means I’ll be working mostly with people who only know Spanish. And if I constantly chattered in English to a coworker (thereby, in essence, ignoring my customer), they’d have every right to be annoyed, too.
Agreed. I would be totally pissed off if my hairdresser started chatting with his coworkers while working on my hair.
That said, I think Supercuts is in the wrong. Apparently the supervisor told the hairdressers in question to speak English even while on break. That’s fucked up. When I’m on break, I’ll speak whatever language I want.