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The idiocy burns.
This morning, I had to leave the house way too early for a 0545 meeting for my new job. This meeting was at our Hayward warehouse, which I'd been to once before, and that was during daylight. I took a wrong tun off the freeway, and quickly became lost.
When I realized that I had strayed from the streets listed on my GoogleMap, I did what any reasonable adult would do: I found an open gas station, and asked for assistance and a map.
Three times I tried this tactic. In each case I was met with a wall of stupidity and lack of useful English skills as to indicate that all three of these worthies were hired only because of their close relationship by blood to the station owner. I wouldn't trust any of them to lead a platoon of Marines to a chow hall.
Just the basic concept of "Where am I?" was too much for these morons to fathom! The first kept saying "Mission" over and over, while pointing at the sign hanging over the nearby intersection. I can see that, but Mission and what? Mission runs for close to twenty miles, and passes through at least eight municipalities! The second evidently had never learned these words in his ESL class, as he kept shrugging and chatting on his cell phone. I finally got the concept of "map" across to him, and he pulled out the most tattered, faded, example of the cartographers art I've ever seen. Treasure maps in pirate movies are usually in better shape! Needless to say, every attempt to establish my location (even miming "this place" then pointing on the map with a shrug) was met with more blank stares than you find in a George Romero movie.
Eventually at station 2, a newspaper delivery woman was able to point me to Industrial, which would at least get me back to where I went wrong. However, Industrial splits, and unsure of which fork to take, stopped at a third gas station.
You'd think I'd learn.
The sole worker of this establishment was an elderly Sikh. I have nothing against the Sikhs, indeed, their culture is one of the ones I find admirable in this world. But not when I'm perilously close to being late to a meeting at a job I've held for three whole days. We went through the whole "Where am I dance", again, and finally got to the subject of maps.
"No, no maps" says Grandpa Sikh, moving off to sweep and away from a display of.. wait for it..
Maps.
Deciding that there just might be a jury in the world that would convict me, I grabbed a map, threw money on the counter, and bailed. Found out where I was, where i needed to be, and broke the laws of man and physics getting there. (I swear, the only reason the CHP didn't stop was they didn't believe a '93 Ford Taurus could move like that.) I didn't park at the warehouse - I reentered!
Along with screaming barbs and the fact that gas station clerks in Hayward seem to have Greek mythos thing going (they have one brain cell, and they trade it between them as needed.) I have to rant on the subject of language.
I am by no means in favor of English being the official language of the US. Let a thousand flowers bloom, I say. But if you are going to have a job that brings you into daily contact with a large block of people speaking a particular language, you had better be able to speak it! This goes both ways, were I to get a job that require heavy contact with those speaking Spanish as a primary tongue, I would feel an obligation to master at least a basic command, so that I could communicate with my clients and customers! What if I had had a real emergency? "My wife is having a heart attack, please call 911!" "Your building is on fire!" "Tom Cruise is down the block and he knows you're in therapy! Run!" A lack of ability to communicate when you may be the only place in miles with a working land line and a safe address is simply criminal. I don't care who they are related to, if a worker is incapable of assisting with the most basic of requests by a potential customer (i.e: "Where am I?") they need to either get with the program of get a job with little or no customer contact.
OH, I was five minutes late, but we hadn't started yet. Donuts and coffee were still incoming.
When I realized that I had strayed from the streets listed on my GoogleMap, I did what any reasonable adult would do: I found an open gas station, and asked for assistance and a map.
Three times I tried this tactic. In each case I was met with a wall of stupidity and lack of useful English skills as to indicate that all three of these worthies were hired only because of their close relationship by blood to the station owner. I wouldn't trust any of them to lead a platoon of Marines to a chow hall.
Just the basic concept of "Where am I?" was too much for these morons to fathom! The first kept saying "Mission" over and over, while pointing at the sign hanging over the nearby intersection. I can see that, but Mission and what? Mission runs for close to twenty miles, and passes through at least eight municipalities! The second evidently had never learned these words in his ESL class, as he kept shrugging and chatting on his cell phone. I finally got the concept of "map" across to him, and he pulled out the most tattered, faded, example of the cartographers art I've ever seen. Treasure maps in pirate movies are usually in better shape! Needless to say, every attempt to establish my location (even miming "this place" then pointing on the map with a shrug) was met with more blank stares than you find in a George Romero movie.
Eventually at station 2, a newspaper delivery woman was able to point me to Industrial, which would at least get me back to where I went wrong. However, Industrial splits, and unsure of which fork to take, stopped at a third gas station.
You'd think I'd learn.
The sole worker of this establishment was an elderly Sikh. I have nothing against the Sikhs, indeed, their culture is one of the ones I find admirable in this world. But not when I'm perilously close to being late to a meeting at a job I've held for three whole days. We went through the whole "Where am I dance", again, and finally got to the subject of maps.
"No, no maps" says Grandpa Sikh, moving off to sweep and away from a display of.. wait for it..
Maps.
Deciding that there just might be a jury in the world that would convict me, I grabbed a map, threw money on the counter, and bailed. Found out where I was, where i needed to be, and broke the laws of man and physics getting there. (I swear, the only reason the CHP didn't stop was they didn't believe a '93 Ford Taurus could move like that.) I didn't park at the warehouse - I reentered!
Along with screaming barbs and the fact that gas station clerks in Hayward seem to have Greek mythos thing going (they have one brain cell, and they trade it between them as needed.) I have to rant on the subject of language.
I am by no means in favor of English being the official language of the US. Let a thousand flowers bloom, I say. But if you are going to have a job that brings you into daily contact with a large block of people speaking a particular language, you had better be able to speak it! This goes both ways, were I to get a job that require heavy contact with those speaking Spanish as a primary tongue, I would feel an obligation to master at least a basic command, so that I could communicate with my clients and customers! What if I had had a real emergency? "My wife is having a heart attack, please call 911!" "Your building is on fire!" "Tom Cruise is down the block and he knows you're in therapy! Run!" A lack of ability to communicate when you may be the only place in miles with a working land line and a safe address is simply criminal. I don't care who they are related to, if a worker is incapable of assisting with the most basic of requests by a potential customer (i.e: "Where am I?") they need to either get with the program of get a job with little or no customer contact.
OH, I was five minutes late, but we hadn't started yet. Donuts and coffee were still incoming.
no subject
I have a Garmin Street Pilot and its saved me more times than I can count.
Best of all, you'll never need to speak to a gas station employee again.
no subject
no subject
There are two types of people who do not speak English. Those who choose not to engage with you, and those who cannot even if they want to.
About half the time someone plays the "No hablo ingles" card on me at work, my efforts to talk to them in Spanish quickly result in an English comment along the lines of "Damn, man, your Spanish sucks, stop hurting my ears. Hey! Security guard brutality! This gringo DOES NOT SPEAK SPANISH."
The other half of the time, the person is helpful, friendly, if a bit puzzled, and we eventually figure out how to communicate with each other.
As for calling the emergency services, you have now hit on why my company makes no bones about having a language requirement. 911? Sigh.
no subject
the older i get, the more i feel that learning another language is a worthy endeavour.
i agree that employees in direct contact wiht customers should have more than a cursory command of the primary language that their customers will communicate to them in. because that is HOW YOU TAKE CARE OF YOUR CUSTOMERS. but then, i have been in customer service for my entire working life. i have a service ethic fused onto my soul.
I've NEVER been in customer service, and I feel the same way
I met a nice girl once in Watsonville who had the concept perfectly. She didn't speak English either, but she was working the counter of some food place, and knew what "forks" and "spoons" were. With a little bit of miming, SHE communicated the wish to know if we wanted separate checks. No problem.