I only speak the language when it's convenient

[Teefies2]

This is a story about a continuing saga with a customer. She owns a gas station and comes in when our 12 packs of soda are on sale. Even though our sales flyer sets a limit, we usually let her get 30 or so 12 packs, WHEN we have them.

When she is getting what she wants, she speaks perfect English.

This past weekend, we did not have enough 12 packs to let her have 30 or so ... we only had 30 in the entire store, this was one day before the sale ended. We tried to explain this to her, but OMG now she doesn't speak English!

She has two shopping carts loaded with probably 15 12 packs and wants us to give her 30 more 12 packs. We explain that we don't HAVE any more!

Her: "Manager usually help me. Manager usually help me."
Me: "Yes, ma'am, I AM the manager that usually helps you, but I am telling you that we don't have any more."
Her: "No speak English. Manager usually help me."

Rinse, lather, repeat. She finally gave up.


Please don't turn this into a debate about whether or not a person in a particular country should speak the language, that's for Fratching. The point here is "I only speak your language when you give me what I want."

[Seanette]

I've had sucktomers like that. (sigh)

Also had the occasional co-irker whose command of English tended to be conveniently variable.

[EricKei]

"Look Lady, everybody working here already knows damn well you speak perfect English. I've got a phrase for you to translate: 'GET OUT!'"

[Mr Hero]

I had to tell off a noisy guest who was like this. Seemed to speak English fine until I told him his group was being too loud. Lucky for me, unlucky for him, I speak Spanish and told him what needed to happen.

[Aria]

I think you should start enforcing the limit on her if she's going to be like that. :P

[Crai]

Many Many moons ago in ID I was working between seasons as a grounds keep at a Resort, (All but two of the restaurants were closed) I was given a crew of 5 Hispanics to supervise. For weeks they played the No Hablo Ingles game with me and would half ass everything.

I knew they spoke English, I spoke broken Spanish but didn't let them know that.

One day I had had enough and set them Up, I had a buddy that was an armature stand up comic. I told him where we would be and asked he stop by and crack a bunch of jokes. So he stops by and starts with the funny's after about 5, 10 min of this I turn and all the Hispanics are rolling with laughter.

I Point at them and exclaimed "HA Got you!!!, You understand jokes you under stand English. To a man they all said "Shit!!"

After that we no longer had a Language problem. They turned into a good crew and I took care of them on more than one occasion when shit went south.

[Slave to the Phone]

I get that a LOT at work. The interview is going fine in English and suddenly I need verification of something questionable. Suddenly my customer doesn't understand English. Sadly for them, we have translators available. I just put my phone on speaker, dial the number, get a translator and have them ask the question. Its kind of funny to watch their faces fall when they realize that they are going to have to answer the question anyhow.

[Rosco the Iroc]

I liked when a customer was walking out turn and give me this look and said something in Spanish to his gf and they giggled,
I say out loud " thanks and the same to you and your family"
Cue cat but face and they leave.
Co worker who speaks it but did have it marked on his name tag yet comes up shocked, you know what he said?! Then offers to tell me shocked I didn't say more back.
No- but I have been around the the world in the Navy I know inflection.

[notalwaysright]

It's such a bummer when people do this. It was a hard lesson for me when I started in retail.

For a while there was a lot of people of a certain ethnicity who would try various things. Like, they'd have a bunch of bolts but when I measured a bolt they wouldn't tell me if they wanted that fabric. They'd ignore me asking if they wanted the bolt and just want me to measure a different bolt, but they wouldn't tell me if they wanted that bolt either. So there would be a giant pile of "undecided" bolts. Then they'd decide on some bolts, but there were always remnants. Then they'd change their mind about one and say they don't want it, and go over to the pile of "undecided" bolts and pick out a few and say they wanted them. But by then I wouldn't remember how much fabric was there so I'd have to re-measure it. Then one of the group would come up with some additional bolts, and the whole process would be repeated. This whole thing could take up to an hour. Finally, after the cutting slip had been printed, they'd ask for separate cutting slips, and it would be a huge production of deciding which fabrics went on which cutting slips.

Sometimes they'd speak English just fine, sometimes not, sometimes they'd speak to each other in their language and I swear it was tactics on how to scam me. Maybe I was paranoid, maybe not. But there was a clear deliberate trend of making things difficult. It stopped because Old Manager said that we were no longer allowed to split up cutting slips. This is not an official policy, but we pretty much had to do it. I also started digging my heels in and utterly refusing to move on to a different bolt if they hadn't made a decision. I HATED doing it because I felt like a giant racist, but it worked. They realized I wasn't a push over, and suddenly made up their minds quickly and I could get them their slip within 15 minutes. Arg.



TL;DR: Regardless of country, scammers gonna scam.

[MoonCat]

notalwaysright, in that case you weren't being racist. They were.

[WishfulSpirit]

Two semi-related stories.

My AGM at work understands Spanish but doesn't speak it. That's not a contradiction. His grandparents apparently only spoke Spanish, he stayed with them a lot when his parents were working, and he picked it up. However, he is out of practice and stumbles when trying to form phrases correctly. If a housekeeper at work asks him a question in Spanish, he'll answer in English (most of the housekeepers have enough fluency to understand basic answers). Our bilingual head housekeeper likes to mess with him and see if she can get him to say something in Spanish.

Another story I heard was a young guy of Irish / Scottish descent in an airport in a major hub city (forget where). A family nearby was having a loud conversation in Mandarin about how slow the stupid Western ticket agents were (this was either in the United States, Canada, or English-speaking Europe), how home was better, and how someone around them smelled bad. Said Irish / Scottish man looked at them and in perfect Mandarin said "you're right, something does smell funny." Apparently they turned white and literally ran away.

[Gilhelmi]

I knew a kid (literally 13 or 14). Not born here but came here as an infant.

Background
His family were Catholic refugees from an Asian country. His mother (one of my hero's in life) learned English while working in a nursing home kitchen well enough to get her CNA (certified nurses aid) certificate, and raised two boys BY HERSELF working full-time through all of it.

This kid he only knew English and had only picked up a couple words of his mother's native language. But when he got into trouble, suddenly he got a strong accent and forgot the only language he ever knew. LOL

(PS: He actually did mature into a young adult.)

[manybellsdown]

Sometimes they'd speak English just fine, sometimes not, sometimes they'd speak to each other in their language and I swear it was tactics on how to scam me.

I'd swear you work near me, because I'd go into my local fabric store and there's this pair of women, a mother and daughter, that pull this. They let their kids run amok through the store destroying displays, and they speak perfect English right until they get to the cutting counter. Then they suddenly only know 3 words and one of them is "discount". And they have a dozen bolts and keep changing their minds about what they want.

The fabric store is closing, sadly, but I will NOT miss running into those women 4/5 times I go there.

[taeraresh]

And there's even a song about this behavior...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L174xUWK6bg

[Mr Hero]

My dad pulled this off at least 20 years ago. We were on a family ski trip and we stopped to have lunch. We brought our own food, but we found out we could only eat it in the outdoor seating area. So he spoke only in Spanish when he was told we couldn't bring outside food for the indoor seating area. And Spanish is his second language.