Demon Possession

[Xieg]

Very simple and short call. This French woman calls, apologizes for her poor English. Asks if there is someone who can speak French. Now comes the fun part, communicating in English to someone who does not speak English. Makes ME want to scream.

I use the simplest English I know, speaking slow and clear. I know this is not a solution to the problem, but its all I got. I tell her we have no French speaker, but to e-mail her order as we have a CSR who can read and write French. The woman lets out a beastly, inhuman, almost demonic scream when I finish. It was as if she opened the maw of hell, and every tortured soul was screaming. She immediatley breaks down into a fit of sobbing, repeating the same sentence from the beginning of the call. She then slams down the reciever and the call ends. Apparently, apologizing for not speaking English and asking for a French speaker is all she knows.

I understand her frustration, but WTF, seriously? Put down the Necronomicon before you call please.

[gunsage]

She's French and she gave up. That I find hard to believe.

[Alpha Strike]

She's French and she gave up. That I find hard to believe.

Shocking, ain't it!

[tropicsgoddess]

I can understand the French woman's frustration at not having a French speaking rep she can talk to, but damn.

[plan9au]

I had something similar.....without the gates of hell opening and spewing forth the four horsemen of course.....

Me - Yes the President of the New Geek Repubic
Her - Weird

Me - welcome to (insert large company here)
Her - Do you speak mandarin?
Me - No i don't
Her - Then i cant talk to you *hangs up*

If thats all she can say in English the im afraid you might have trouble doing just about anything in this country....Not sucky just weird

[cinema guy]

She's French and she gave up. That I find hard to believe.

Just like the French Resistance. Oh, wait...

[Pagan]

She's French and she gave up. That I find hard to believe.

You mean the "cheese eating surrender monkeys"? I read in one of the editorials around the beginning of the 2nd Gulf War, I think, when France was harassing the US about something or other.

Me - Yes the President of the New Geek Repubic

Heh, Repubic. Sometimes the typos do their own things!

[Reyneth]

Ugh. My company uses an interpreter service - I've heard conversations in Creole, Somali, other unusual ones, very cool! - however I had 4 years of Spanish in HS. Years ago, but it is coming back enough so I can leave messages and understand the basic gist of what some people are saying without needing the interpreter line.

Except one call. Ask for X. Lady says he's not home. I ask if I can leave a message. She replies "no English, I speak Spanish, who this?"
*in Spanish* Company name (with insurance translated) My I leave a message for X?
"I no speak English!"
*in Spanish* I know a little Spanish, may I leave a message?
"NO SPEAK ENGLISH!" and hung up.

Um, except for the first part before she established she didn't understand English, not a word was spoken in English. I knew enough to communicate with her, but she refused. I don't think everyone should know English and only English in the USA, but knowing enough to get by when it is the language spoken by the majority of citizens is good. Cooperating with a person when they are attempting to speak in your minority language would be smart, too.

[edible_hat]

Except one call. Ask for X. Lady says he's not home. I ask if I can leave a message. She replies "no English, I speak Spanish, who this?"
*in Spanish* Company name (with insurance translated) My I leave a message for X?
"I no speak English!"
*in Spanish* I know a little Spanish, may I leave a message?
"NO SPEAK ENGLISH!" and hung up.

Sounds like some kind of scammer who uses pretending not to speak English for an excuse to avoid dealing with bills and the like.

[upallnight]

1/4 of my calls are "Someone speeky spany". I do speak a small amount of spanish, but even if I say no, they just start speaking faster than i can keep up with. I don't think my answer means a thing to them.

[PepperElf]

it can be hard when you don't know the local langauge.
i'm still surprised i've gotten along with just a few japanese phrases here.

[Reyneth]

Sounds like some kind of scammer who uses pretending not to speak English for an excuse to avoid dealing with bills and the like.

Except these catch up with them - sometimes in very bad ways.

Many a time we get the "oh, X isn't here" when you hear them talking to that person in the background! Or a phone number that was good a week ago magically is a wrong phone number, they've never heard of them.

But this lady? I think she was just stupid or thought she could pull one over because my verb tenses/agreements aren't always right. Whatever, at least I try to communicate! grrr

I do hate it when my coworkers get all pissy that someone who wanted an interpreter actually spoke/understand decent English. I don't blame them - there's some concepts that just aren't covered in normal learning of a 2nd language that are very important in what these phone calls are about. I'd want to know exactly what was going on, too!

[plan9au]

Heh, Repubic. Sometimes the typos do their own things!

Not a typo....we are just like a republic...only with less below the waist nudity....

[Caveat Emptor]

We have access to an interpreter service. I've had to call for, lessee, Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Thai, Tagalog (Philippines), Korean, Arabic, Armenian, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, French Creole, and perhaps a few others I can't recall right now. We have our own Spanish line, so when someone says "Someone speeka Spaneesh?" I just say "Momentito" and transfer. Although I cannot understand why, if you're going to live in a country where the majority language is English, that you can't make an effort to learn it, but that's a topic for Fratching.

[Slytovhand]

Going the otherway - which should be in Cursing out Co-workers...

We deal with people's money through accounts. Some idiotic workers for some idiotic reason, will open accounts for people who have really bad english skills - or sometimes virtually no english skills. Can you imagine the hassles with that? Particularly when they have perfectly good english speaking children who then try to access the account for them (or are in the background doing a 3-way translation)??? Or - just the basic - it's a legal entity - how are they going to be held responsible if they didn't even understand wtf they just did over the phone with the operator???

/rant