???
Did you see Mr. Roboto’s second post, the one that i quoted? It said “…but i don’t know how to say toothpick in Spanish.”
If i’m being whooshed, and the server was indeed simply a bit thick, rather than a Spanish speaker who has trouble with English, then i apologize. But it seemed reasonably clear to me that the communication problem was one not just of intelligence, but of language.
I hope the OP was at least planning to use his toothpicks in the men’s room. It’s so disgusting to watch someone pick at their teeth in public.
Yes. Did you see the post of mine that you quoted? It said “I didn’t even take from the OP that the server was foreign.” 
In any event, whatever the cause of the misunderstanding, it is not unreasonable for a person to expect to be able to ask for a toothpick in a restaurant.
In a restaurant, sure.
But a McDonald’s? 
Seriously, i have not set foot inside a McDonald’s for over a decade, but i don’t remember them ever having toothpicks or many of the other small amenities that regular restaurants are likely to have.
While I don’t expect McDonald’s to have toothpicks, surely it is not unreasonable for servers at an American restaurant to understand food-related terms? “Toothpick” is a food/restaurant term. I understand if, say, I would ask for directions to someplace at some distance from the restaurant and the English-as-a-second-language counter person might not understand me. Okay. If I had some question about obscure additives in the food that aren’t a part of common vocabulary, I’d understand if they didn’t get it. But “toothpick”, I think it’s reasonable to expect somebody at the counter (not at the Fry-O-Later) to comprehend. It’s part of the job.
I can just imagine Liberal in a crowded McDonalds raising his hand and calling “Check, please”
It’s not unreasonable after all, McDonalds is a “restaurant”. :rolleyes:
But if the restaurant doesn’t have toothpicks, then why is it the worker’s responsibility to know how to say that? For the one in a million chance that someone unfamiliar with McDonald’s would ask for one? If they don’t have toothpicks available, then it’s not part of the job for the counter person.
I agree with AwSnappity. Things like toothpicks just don’t come into the training equation. The staff appear to learn stuff off by rote, the questions to ask, how to identify customer orders etc. If someone asking for toothpicks isn’t expected, because virtually no McD’s stock toothpicks – how is the worker responsible to knowing an English word that, 999 times out of 1000 won’t ever come up?
I bet they have to cope a lot with jokers doing a bit of a smart-arse routine, tho’, asking for weird stuff (the author of the OP is excluded from that category).
Indeed. If it’s necessary to pick your teeth in a public area, it can be done discreetly by covering your hand with your mouth as you pick, much in the same way that if you bit into a bite of something disgusting in a restaurant, you would carefully spit it into your napkin instead of plopping it back on the plate.
Well now that you’re spelling out the OP’s intention… Maybe I can guess his intention. Why can’t it be a “Why don’t predominantly english speaking area companys hire people who speak predominant english” rant?
I guess they should install online spanish-to-english dictionarys in every McDonalds in the U.S. so I can ask, “¿Puede usted dirigirme por favor a las servilletas?” :rolleyes:
I just remembered that I know of at least one that does provide papers. They have a stand on the wall and all the papers have a sticker on them saying ‘courtesy of McDonalds, please leave for other customers’ or something like that.
We have one like this in my area as well.
There’s yer problem, having an entirely reasonable expectation
You couldn’t guess, unless you’ve tried to do it, how hard it is to ask if a restaurant which serves tea and coffee specifically has half and half, milk, or cream. You know, genuine dairy-based products. If I ask if they have “dairy based creamers” they have no idea what I’m talking about. If I ask if they have “half and half” they say “yes”, and proceed to give me an artificial whitening product :smack: I won’t buy tea unless I get some dairy-based product to put in it (I’m not picky: milk, cream or half and half will do,) so it’s quite a problem.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable that servers should usually, with the occasional exception, know the contents of the items they serve, but it rarely turns out that way.
You should have dropped to the floor wailing "Per quale ragione!"
Hopefully one of them would know Italian.
That would come in handy at Quizno’s, where the people who put on the toppings don’t speak English at all. I only go there every 2 or 3 months, and it’s been the same every time. The first time, I asked for tomatoes. I think they were out, and the woman who was working had no clue what tomatoes were. She just randomly started pointing at things (including green peppers, which are just nasty. 
Don’t want those on my sub!). The next time I went, I asked for tomatoes again, there was a little bit of confusion. I didn’t see them put the toppings on, but I asked if they put on the tomatoes, they said yes, and I was happy. But of course, when I ate my sub, no tomatoes. I’m calm and I don’t care much if my sandwich gets messed up, but I’m sure a lot of people have flipped out and screamed at the poor women who work there because they got unexpected toppings on their subs.
I may never go to that Quizno’s again, but in case I do, could someone tell me the Spanish word for tomatoes?
ME
While your knee was jerking, you apparently failed to notice that i made no comment either way about the desirability of hiring workers who speak English; nor did i suggest that customers should be required to speak Spanish.
I was merely pointing out that the actual subject of the rant appeared to be quite different from the subject suggested by the thread title. If you want to rant about companies who hire non-English speaking workers, by all means go ahead, but at least have the honesty to admit what you’re doing.
See, now this one i truly don’t understand.
The Spanish word for “tomato” is “tomate.” They are similar enough that i would expect almost anyone—even someone who didn’t speak English—to understand what you were talking about.
Yes I had a knee jerk reaction to it when I read it, and glazed over “It’s a poorly disguised…” So yeah, sorry about that.
I feel the following is not a hijack because the OP obviously takes issue with it. And it’s not really directed at you mhendo… just using your sentence as the example.
Here’s my reasoning… I took the phrase “Why don’t them foreigners learn English” to mean, “how dare the OP question the language of which the servers speak”, when it’s a reasonable expectation that in the U.S. the predominant language is English. Shouldn’t those that interact with the customers also speak it? I am in no way saying that those that don’t speak English shouldn’t have jobs, but those that are heavy in communication with a primarily English speaking society should be fluent in the English language. I wouldn’t expect it to be any different in any other country in which English was not the primary language.
Well. Now, that’s just strange. Maybe next time I’ll wear a T-shirt with a picture of a tomato, with “Tomato” and “Tomate” written under the tomato. Then I can just point at my shirt. That should work. Or maybe I just won’t go to Quizno’s anymore, because their food is really not that good.
ME
They’re similar in writing, but they sound very different, especially when you factor in the American tendency to pronounce initial Ts softer than Ts after sibilants and to pronounce middle Ts in vowel clusters as Ds. The Spanish “ah” sound is very different from the English diphthong long A. And the Spanish “eh” is much different from the English Schwa that ends the word. And if the article is added (Spanish almost never uses a noun without its article), then it gets worse. Even if the words were spelled exactly the same way, they would be pronounced differently.