Language barrier
It's this time of year that I get horribly perturbed with a language barrier.
It's this time of year when all the servicemen come in to buy supplies for the hotel pools. Unfortunately most of them speak only spanish.
I tried spanish for several years, and not a bit of it stuck. I finally ended up taking German as a language in high school, and even though I haven't spoken it in years I still feel more confident in that than I ever did when trying to learn spanish.
But these guys sometimes get upset that I don't understand them, and then they start treating me like an idiot because they think it's because I'm a girl that I don't get what they are trying to say.
No, it's because you don't speak english.
Granted... I do have a few very good servicemen who come in, and despite the language barrier it all gets cleared up fairly easily. Of course these guys come in prepared. They bring in the information from the nameplates of the equipment if they need parts, and they know (roughly) how to pronounce the chemical that they need. If all else fails for the good ones diagrams and pointing to similar parts to the ones they need usually solve the problem.
But my gripe isn't with the prepared servicemen. No it's with the ones that expect me to be able to get parts ordered for them with no information. Yes, some parts can be used for several pieces of equipment, but it just doesn't work when the only english these guys speak is 'you order?' and they don't understand when I say I need more information.
For those of you wondering... no I'm not against immigrants. They are needed in many areas of the workforce. But they need to at least learn how to speak the language.
It's this time of year when all the servicemen come in to buy supplies for the hotel pools. Unfortunately most of them speak only spanish.
I tried spanish for several years, and not a bit of it stuck. I finally ended up taking German as a language in high school, and even though I haven't spoken it in years I still feel more confident in that than I ever did when trying to learn spanish.
But these guys sometimes get upset that I don't understand them, and then they start treating me like an idiot because they think it's because I'm a girl that I don't get what they are trying to say.
No, it's because you don't speak english.
Granted... I do have a few very good servicemen who come in, and despite the language barrier it all gets cleared up fairly easily. Of course these guys come in prepared. They bring in the information from the nameplates of the equipment if they need parts, and they know (roughly) how to pronounce the chemical that they need. If all else fails for the good ones diagrams and pointing to similar parts to the ones they need usually solve the problem.
But my gripe isn't with the prepared servicemen. No it's with the ones that expect me to be able to get parts ordered for them with no information. Yes, some parts can be used for several pieces of equipment, but it just doesn't work when the only english these guys speak is 'you order?' and they don't understand when I say I need more information.
For those of you wondering... no I'm not against immigrants. They are needed in many areas of the workforce. But they need to at least learn how to speak the language.
posted by Phoenixwaller | 2:52 PM
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