Thank you for self-identifying as a racist...

[earl colby pottinger]

Elevator

With me it's Scots. I'm partially deaf and was raised slightly north of London. As such I partially lip-read and am used to southern accents, which tend to be spoken right at the front of the mouth with large lip movements. Really broad Scottish accents tend to be spoken right at the back of the mouth with very small lip movements; watch someone with a really broad Scottish accent and you'll notice their mouth barely moves. So, as much as I love the sound of the accent, I really can't understand a flipping word they say unless I put the subtitles on the telly.

I once worked with a nice Scottish chap who started where I worked about a week after he moved down south. The poor man had to repeat everything about 3 times before I got what he was saying. It got to the point that he'd just e-mail me any questions, even though I sat at the next desk!

Oh dear, he is trapped.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Avp9aUkM5g0&t=37s

[Sparklyturtle]

OK here's some Black Country...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McxSS3zEL2E

And that's nice and clear. Now imagine speaking that very quickly...
I'll be going to visit the family for Christmas near Dudley.... or Dood-lie as it ....

I often transcribed dictations by providers who were speaking English as a second or third or maybe fourth or fifth language, and in cases like this I'd just have to get used to the way they'd speak. If I was attempting to transcribe dictation with the Black Country speech style, I'd just have to get used to it, but the first few would be full of blanks and I'd hope I'd get feedback. One of the worst dictators I ever heard was a native English speaking nurse practitioner with a Virginia accent. I can understand Virginia accents just fine, as Turtleguy hails from Virginia, but this woman had no concept of grammar, word order, or sentence structure. Then there was the psychiatrist in Philadelphia who would dictate over 2 hours on an appointment that was 75 minutes long. By the time I finished with him my brain was on shut-down. And since I was the one in the latest time zone, I got all the dictations no one else wanted. I'd see that nurse practitioner's code come up in my box, and let out a wail, which prompted a "Her again?" from Turtleguy.

[JarethsPet]

UGh... I have to call several hotlines a day to clear out motor club calls and sometimes I put it on speakerphone so I can do my other duties and we have this one tow truck driver who can't keep his opinions to himself who will constantly bitch about the press so and so for such a language (mostly Spanish). He could have the nicest Spanish customer in the world when he's on shift and he'll come back complaining about them. Drives me absolutely batty

[Mental_Mouse]

I have heard from one (native) Southerner whose daughter definitely got into the spirit of the thing:

"Bless their heart and the horse it rode in on".

[Nunavut Pants]

...hearts,not arse....

In the southern US, which pride themselves on being polite and genteel, the phrase "bless their heart" is often meant as a two-finger salute to the person being talked about.

[greek_jester]

Tayside. My god, Tayside. I understand it, but I've had to translate for friends who were convinced they weren't speaking English lol.

With me it's Scots. I'm partially deaf and was raised slightly north of London. As such I partially lip-read and am used to southern accents, which tend to be spoken right at the front of the mouth with large lip movements. Really broad Scottish accents tend to be spoken right at the back of the mouth with very small lip movements; watch someone with a really broad Scottish accent and you'll notice their mouth barely moves. So, as much as I love the sound of the accent, I really can't understand a flipping word they say unless I put the subtitles on the telly.

I once worked with a nice Scottish chap who started where I worked about a week after he moved down south. The poor man had to repeat everything about 3 times before I got what he was saying. It got to the point that he'd just e-mail me any questions, even though I sat at the next desk!

[Kit-Ginevra]

...hearts,not arse....

[dalesys]

... Bless their hearts.

There's a gesture in Italian for that...

[Slave to the Phone]

QFT. I really don't think it's racist to expect that a company serving speakers of a given language will hire customer service workers who speak that language well enough to communicate clearly with the customer, or offer some means to facilitate that communication. Where I work, we have a contract with an interpreter service to handle a rather diverse caller base.

We also have a "translation" line for our non-English speaking clients, most of who are Spanish speakers. I understand spoken Latin, and can read it. I cannot speak it. This means that I can understand a lot of Spanish. I can't tell you how many interpreter's I've "accidently" lost the call with because they weren't understanding me.

Tayside. My god, Tayside. I understand it, but I've had to translate for friends who were convinced they weren't speaking English lol.

https://youtu.be/bLxLmFhROqY

I have had to translate West By God Virginian, Hawaiian and Bronx accents for people in the past. Nowadays, I mostly translate Old Deaf Guy Who Doesn't Wear Hearing Aids.

I cannot even begin to tell ya'll how much fun it is to translate for my sweetie and his even deafer father (who only speaks West by God Virginian) for the wait staff when we go out. Bless their hearts.

[VComps]

I don't object to my call being transferred overseas(although I do like it when they keep their call centres in this country),but wherever you, if your English is that bad or your accent so strong that you cannot have a conversation where we can both understand each other,then there's going to be a problem along the way.
And that's not just overseas.I mean you too-Glaswegians,Geordies and most of all Black Country folk-compared to you guys,a Martian would be a model of clear and accurate diction....!!

Tayside. My god, Tayside. I understand it, but I've had to translate for friends who were convinced they weren't speaking English lol.

https://youtu.be/bLxLmFhROqY

[protege]

QFT. I really don't think it's racist to expect that a company serving speakers of a given language will hire customer service workers who speak that language well enough to communicate clearly with the customer, or offer some means to facilitate that communication.

I don't think that's racist either. If you're in a call center, you should be able to speak a given language well enough that you can be understood. If your accent is so thick that you're constantly having to repeat things so I can understand you...you lose the right to scream at me for "wasting your time."

[Kit-Ginevra]

OK here's some Black Country...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McxSS3zEL2E

And that's nice and clear. Now imagine speaking that very quickly...
I'll be going to visit the family for Christmas near Dudley.... or Dood-lie as it ....

[Argus]

Wouldn't the default come last? It would be something like "press one for Spanish, press two for Chinese, for English, wait, and you will be transferred."

Except that the foreign-language prompts need to be in the respective language. If you expect that people needing non-English language might call, that would have to start with something like "presione uno para español" and proceed from there. By the time you get through all of those, a native English speaker will have assumed they called the wrong number and hung up.

[Seanette]

I don't object to my call being transferred overseas(although I do like it when they keep their call centres in this country),but wherever you, if your English is that bad or your accent so strong that you cannot have a conversation where we can both understand each other,then there's going to be a problem along the way.

QFT. I really don't think it's racist to expect that a company serving speakers of a given language will hire customer service workers who speak that language well enough to communicate clearly with the customer, or offer some means to facilitate that communication. Where I work, we have a contract with an interpreter service to handle a rather diverse caller base.

And that's not just overseas.I mean you too-Glaswegians,Geordies and most of all Black Country folk-compared to you guys,a Martian would be a model of clear and accurate diction....!!

Not familiar with those dialects, being a Colonial.

My biggest gripe about US accents would be those who are just too lazy to make an effort to speak clearly. If I'm aware you have trouble speaking for medical reasons, such as one call I took today, that's one thing and you have every bit of patience from me you need. If you're just mumbling into your phone because you're feeling lazy or think it's somehow uncool to speak clearly, please go step on some Legos.

[Kit-Ginevra]

I don't object to my call being transferred overseas(although I do like it when they keep their call centres in this country),but wherever you, if your English is that bad or your accent so strong that you cannot have a conversation where we can both understand each other,then there's going to be a problem along the way.
And that's not just overseas.I mean you too-Glaswegians,Geordies and most of all Black Country folk-compared to you guys,a Martian would be a model of clear and accurate diction....!!