My Rant About Communication.

[wanna-b-ballin']

well i am upset and starting to get frustrated with the lack of communication in places that really really need it.

alright, a few weeks ago i went to the airport because i was leaving for spain, and i needed to get my boarding passes. luckily i had just completed two years of spanish, because the lady at the counter could hardly speak english. and what english she could say, was in a very strong accent, which made it hard to understand what she was saying. it also didn't help that she was standing 4 feet away and whispering in a noisy airport. so i used some basic spanish and some english to get my boarding passes.

recently, i worked out a trade with another AO member, and i took my stuff to the post office to send it out. the guy working there is vietnamese or something, and i swear to god he cannot speak english. what english he thought he knew, was pronounced is such a horrably strong accent that it made it almost impossible for me to understand him.

well today, 24 hours after my package should have gotten here, i went down to the post office to see what was up. same guy working there all the time. and also a lady working there that has the same accent. i tried to explain to him that a package shipped by 2-3 day priority should take 2-3 days to get here. well i write down my address on a piece of paper along with the tracking number and give it to him. he goes to the back of the place looking for my package. not there. he comes back and tells me its not there. i show him the date the package was shipped and todays date. the package has been in the mail for 4 days now. so then he tells me that it should take 2-3 days for my package to get here. what the hell is happening. where is my package? is he telling me that the package should take a week to get here? i was having such a hard time telling what he was aying, i had him repeat everything he said multiple times. i eventually asked if there was someone who could speak english that i could talk to. but there was nobody else there that knew how to look up a package. they did something else for the mail system. so thats just great.
then i left because my package was not there.
to make it worse, i am leaving tomorrow to kauai, and i wont get the package for another two weeks.

you would think that places that require communication would be able to supply it. especially for the people that speak english because this is the united states and the united states speaks english.

I just find it very frustrating that i cannot communicate with people that work in places that are primarily run on communication.
you cannot just walk up to the ticket counter and get your tickets. communication is involved.
you cannot just take a package to the post office and drop it off. you have to say what kind of shipping you want and they have to tell you how much you owe them. you have to be able to understand what they are saying when they ask you what the contents of the box are.

I am an american, the language i speak is english, and i would like to be able to live my life in my country without having to learn other languages to perform very simple tasks.
its just plain frustrating.

i have nothing against other races, cultures, peoples, languages, dialects, immigration, etc.
heck, i have friends from all kinds of races, cultures, people etc.

but I do believe that foreigners that want to live in the United States and hold a job where any communication with the public is needed, need to learn how to speak the language in a way such that the average american can understand them.

this has been going on for a long time. not just these 3 instances. i cant even think of all the times this sort of stuff has happened.

sorry for the long rant
:cuss:

/end rant


sooo, does this happen in your towns and stuff? are you getting tired of it? how can this easily be solved? discuss.

[ojhspyro89]

I agree with you a 100 percent. On packages it has spanish on most of them. I think a requirement to get into the US is you have to be able to speak and read fluent english.

I hate going somewhere and having to ask 2 times for something that should almost be a 1 time question. Like some resturaunts have people who like cant talk, and you cant understand a dang thing they say.


The only way to get around it is to screw with them, it makes me feel better sometimes...

[Army]

Yup.

[Jaan]

For someone who's frustrated with "The Others", you seem to travel a whole lot lol.

I never seem to have as much trouble communicating with people as you do, and I live in an area with many people from many cultures. English isn't my first language either by the way. Perhaps you just notice it more with certain peoples because of xenophobic tendencies instilled seemingly at birth. Personally, I've noticed a hard time trying to communicate with "Real Americans®" because many of them are ignorant or just have lazy minds. I've noticed it especially in e-mails with RA's® who must only scan e-mails quickly and miss half of what I ask. I know people are busy and I try to make my e-mails short and to the point, but when I'm trying to place an order and I have to ask 3 times "do you have it in black?" and still don't get a response it wastes my time.

Have you ever wondered if all your troubles stem simply from people being in crappy jobs and just don't give a frak?

[wanna-b-ballin']

i dont think its because of crappy jobs and they dont care, probably more the employer that doesn't care about whether or not his customers are able to do what they are trying to do easily or not.
maybe you dont seem to experience it as much, but where i live, i just seem to notice it in places where communication with people of all different backgrounds is highly important.

to sum up my rant, I dont understand why employers for companys that rely on communication, hire people with poor communication skills, or people who just arent able to communicate with the majority of the public.

since we are in the united states, people with communication dependant jobs should be able to speak english clearly.

in china, they should be able to speak chinese clearly.

in spain, they should be able to speak spanish clearly. etc.

i'm trying to say that communication dependant workers should be able to speak the national language of the country they are working in clearly.


i'm not trying to say that people who cant speak clearly cant and shouldn't get a job, because its not true,they can. there are plenty of jobs that dont require talking to large amounts of the public. yeah, some are pretty bad, but there are decent ones out there.

I encourage employers to hire partial english speaking people too, because there are non english speaking people in the united states that go to the same shops. but there should always be an english speaker on hand, because after all, we are in the united states and the majority of us speak english.

i dont feel as though i am getting my point across, its kinda hard to put into words.

[TheDuelist]

How much of the population of China is composed of people of Latino descent? How much of the popualtion of Spain is composed of, lets say Korean descent? Now lets try Japan? Your analogy is flawed for the simple reason that we have such a diverse population. Yes its annoying at times but its the price we pay for being the nation we are. Did you ever think about the other side of the counter? How do you think the clerk at the post office hears you? He's trying to understand you the same way you are trying to understand him. The hardest thing we can do is have a little patience. Dealing with the public is not the easiest thing in the world and only gets worse the more frustrated the person gets. If there is now one else available to help you that you can understand better then try a little harder to work with what you have.

Don't get all defensive about this i'm just pointing some things out and am not directing anything specifically at you. I have gotten upset before when I coouldn't understand somebody, it happens to everyone. All i'm saying is we have a such a diversity of cultures that sometimes we think since we live in America we all speak American. While I agree that if you live here you should speak English, I understand that its not going to happen in my lifetime.

A quick question if you don't mind. What information did you get when you tracked your package? Did you track it prior to going to pick it up?

[Jaan]

How much of the population of China is composed of people of Latino descent? How much of the popualtion of Spain is composed of, lets say Korean descent? Now lets try Japan?You bring up an interesting point, perhaps inadvertently ... how many Europeans still speak Latin? How many modern Japanese speak Ainu? How many Americans living on the Great Plains speak Lakota? Language is an elastic thing and is constantly changing either by influence from travelers or lack there of. I can speak one Latin derived language fluently and I can get by in the others but it's still difficult to understand the original tongue. It fascinates me how quickly language can evolve too. If you listen closely you'll start realizing that we don't speak English in America, but a language that's been peppered with influences from dozens of different languages into something very unique and alive. Besides, have you ever tried to read Old English, like in the Beowulf story? Try it sometime, even with the modern translation right next to it it's difficult to figure out what's what. The Seamus Heaney translation is great btw.

With that being said, communication is very important and is a cornerstone to our modern existence. Did you know humans are the only animals who can choke on their food? It's because of where our voice boxes are located in out throats. Watch a newborn baby breastfeed ... they can swallow and breath at the same time. We can't do that after a few months because our voice boxes move. Think about that for a minute ... it was so important in our evolution to be able to speak, we traded off being killed by the food we swallow.

I propose we start a new political action group ... Mesopotamia first! Let's get back to the original language and we can start by changing the default language of these boards from "English" to Cuneiform (c:

[AcemanPB]

I don't think people moving into America should learn 'our' language. From my under standing the freedom of speech we enjoy in this country applied to all languages. Although if I were an employer and I was hiring people that mostly interacted with customers all day (waiters and stuff) I would make damn sure they could speak fluent English considering the majority of my customers will more thank likely speak english as well.

[SCpoloRicker]

Dey dun take-ed our jorbs!