Press 1 for English.....

[Star*]

So I go into the Dollar Tree. I'm looking for a few snacks and to see what little dollar novelties they have newly arrived.

I pick out a few things and I"m just basically killing time at lunch. I get to the register, and there is no one around. I stand there, I stand there....I stand there looking and finally I hear a woman literally screech over the PA - CASHIER TO YOUR REGISTER. (Nazi like ya know?)

A man literally rushes past me while I AM IN LINE and gives me that laughing "sorry". I, in kind gave him the "You are a jerk and after you princess look." It stopped ANY further communication.

SO I'm in line and swipe my debit card. The ENTIRE directions are in spanish. Okay - no biggy - I know the routine....but I answered this nazi cashier in Spanish and I guess she thought she was on a roll after screeching to the cashier who finally said "MY NAME IS CANDICE I HAVE A NAME, PLEASE USE MY NAME." so she decided it was MY turn for a bit of her ugliness.

She looked at me and said "We speak ENG>>>>>LISH in here." I stood there blinking and said in Spanish "Fine but the machine she says everything in Spanish." and again she said "SPEAK ENGLISH." and I said "Oh okay - but your stupit machine here (turned it around) is in Spanish and my receipt? Is in Spanish. But IF I WERE SPANISH after YOUR attitude? I'd never shop in here again. YOU are not a very nice person."

She looked at the machine, looked at my receipt and then said - OMG I am so sorry.....thank you for pointing that out to me.

And as I left I said DeNADA - and then the spanish word for yellow - which I am sure she still thinks was a cuss word.....lol

What a jerk....Abbers if you read this - come here - you will NOT be bored.

 

[AnnieO]

ROFL!

What a witch!

I can't remember what the Spanish word is for yellow. I keep coming up with anaranjado, or naranja, which is orange... Close but no banana? Azul... Rojo... Verde... Blanca... Negro... ARGH! I can't remember purple either!

 

[Abbey]

I would start speaking pig Latin feinging ignorance.

Abber

 

[mrscatinthehat]

I think I might be tempted to turn her in to a higher up in the company. I don't care how frustrated you are you don't treat a customer like that.

beth

 

[Wiped Out]

I'm with Beth, I would report her because she shouldn't treat anyone like that!!

 

[witzend]

You called her "Amarillo"? LOL!

 

[Star*]

I called her worse than that under my breath.

 

[witzend]

Well, that goes without saying!

 

[ML]

Amerillo by morning...

 

[Hound dog]

Who knew yellow was a dirty word. *snort*

Ya know I rarely wanna slap someone, but I think I'd been hard pressed not to this person. ugh!

 

[KTMom91]

That would tee me off as well. On several levels...lousy customer service and directions in Spanish only.

 

[Star*]

I'm just happy it wasn't a machine with Latin - mines kinda rusty -


Si Hoc Legere Scis Nimium Eruditionis Habes

~If you can read this you are over educated.

 

[Marguerite]

OK, in Australia we don't have the same cultural thing with Spanish (as in some areas where it's almost a second language for most people) but we do have a lot of situations where we need to help someone who doesn't speak English well. We have a wide range of languages and cultures here, especially Asian. Increasingly, a lot of Aussies speak a smattering of other languages, especially Asian.

But if ANY person in a shop treats a CUSTOMER the way that woman treated you, on the assumption that you couldn't speak English - tell me, Ms Manager, can you pronounce the word "discrimination" in Spanish as well as in English?

Unacceptable. I think you handled it well. Especially given that the instructions for the machine were only in Spanish.

Marg

 

[therese005us]

Well, that latin means:

If you wish This Legere Scis Too much Instruction Government

but it doesn't make sense... what did you really want to say?

 

[Star*]

WEll it wouldn't have been so bad but she stretched it out like ENGGGGGGGggggggggggggggggggggggglish.

I have days where I'm not culturally tolerant and would just love to be the only Martian in the office - but it rarely happens.

I get her frustration - we've had a huge, HUGE influx of illegals here due to laws being enforced in the upper states - it happened pretty quick - (less than 4 weeks) and it's hard to adjust to. I try to stay open minded about things but there are a lot of culturally based tolerances we're expected to just deal with and most people don't want to. I don't care - I hope in my life I'm never so vein as to think I own ANYTHING more than what I came into the world with.

But yeah - her comments were out of line.

ML - OMG Amarillo by morning - I snorted coffee - thanks.....

Margurite - I guess I never considered that Aussies would have to know Asian or Tai or anything else - but I've met some Aussies with such thick accents that I had to say excuse me several times.

 

[Marguerite]

Margurite - I guess I never considered that Aussies would have to know Asian or Tai or anything else - but I've met some Aussies with such thick accents that I had to say excuse me several times.

I get the giggles when watching Oprah interviewing various Aussies and they SUBTITLE them! She had Dr Catheine Hamlin on her show talking about te Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia, and although Dr Hamlin's accent is very cultured English, the show subtitled everything Dr Hamlin said. It made me realise - Oprah would need to subtitle the Queen, or Sarah Ferguson - any of the British aristocracy, in fact.

As for this supervisor, if you ever walk past tat store just start singing, "Show me the way to Amarillo..." (Bobby Goldsboro, wasn't it?)

We don't get busloads of Spanich-speaking illegals, instead we get boatloads arriving from Indonesia, usually on leaky boats. Most of them get intercepted well before landfall, which frankly is a lot better for them, than succeeding in getting to the Aussie coast. Making landfall on the north of Australia away from any major cities (ie away from Darwin - nothing else there) would be very dangerous indeed. Our most venomous snakes are in the north along with a lot of other venomous nasties, plus saltwater crocs. They're like alligators with ADHD and more teeth.

Hmm... maybe there is a reason why our salties in the north are getting so very big and fat...

Seriously though, a lot of the asylum seekers are really desperate. They would have to be. I wish the governments of the world would pool resources to help them and not simply try to ignore the problem, or prosecute. We can't have too many coming here because we haven't got the infrastructure to handle the numbers; but surely around the world we could help? Especially given with a lot of countries, we're part of the problem because we've allowed the unrest in their country to continue.

The most commonly-needed language in Australia (other than English) is Japanese. We're on the same meridian (more or less) as Japan, which is one reason we get so many tourists here. We've housed a number of exchange students in our home also. We increasingly have ghettoes (thnaks to uncontrolled immigration and lack of infrastructure) and in those suburbs, shop signs are NOT in English. But despite all this, I have NEVER experienced what you did. The worst I've experienced was in an Asian food shop and the shop clerk was totally ignoring me and only serving Chinese-appearing customers. I had a friend with me who is Chinese-Australian; she doesn't speak Cantonese but a more obscure dialect and is rusty with it. Her English is faultless but they still served her and ignored me. When the shop clerk realised my friend was not responding in Cantonese, the rudness was directed at her also, as if she was a traitor to her race by not speaking the language.

This happened ONCE. I shop in these areas all the time. Even shopping in Middle-Eastern shops, I have never had any problems. Only friendliness and politeness.

Your shopkeeper supervisor needs to have a trip Down Under and be accommodated in Merrylands or Lakemba, where we have two ghetto cultures clashing, neither of them English-speaking. Again, I've had no problems there, we bought easy child 2/difficult child 2's wedding fabric there and the staff of all the shops were helpful and friendly. But to a xenophobe, it's a scary place.

At least there was no Spanish!

by the way, along with a wide range of other languages easy child learned Spanish in primary school (and therefore so did I, at least a little).

Marg

 

[Marg's Man]

Margurite - I guess I never considered that Aussies would have to know Asian or Tai or anything else - but I've met some Aussies with such thick accents that I had to say excuse me several times.

G'day Star,
By the sounds of it you've met some Strine speakers, probably just off the plane.

When you consider that China has two mutually exclusive languages plus we have about sixty countries each with it's own language, we have to get pretty multicultural here. Personally I speak a few words at least of about 12 languages, Asian and European but I work with a lot more international people than most Australians.

My own accent (and Marg's) is what is often called "Educated Australian"; this is a description not a class thing. The general Australian accent is much broader and is called "Strine". It SOUNDS like English but is almost unintelligible if your ear is not accustomed to it. The only Australian I know of who used it overseas much was Paul Hogan in his "Crocodile Dundee" character and even that was toned down for foreign ears. We can both drop into Strine without effort.

Marg's Man

 

[lizanne2]

Thank you Star. I am always looking for appropriate swear word replacements for difficult child. I.e. oh fudge, oh pickles, you butter head you!

So now, What an amarillo!

This will yet confirm my staus as the town's resident 'weird one'.


And trish, how quickly did you tanslate that Latin?

 

[1905]

Star you are so funny! Whenever I'm in store with a easy child, and some rude person is waiting on us (we live in nj, there are plenty!), I always remind them, these people only make 7 bucks an hour- they didn't go to college or anything. They're miserable or they wouldn't be so rude. People who are happy aren't rude like that.

 

[Momslittleangels]

Ever since VH1 or MTV (whichever) came out with that reality show "Tool Academy", I call all idiots or rude people "Tools". I really like it.....