May 20, 2005

I hate it when service industry employees, who are customer facing, do not speak the language of the country they are in. Don't label me a racist or a xenophobe or anything like that, I happen to think immigration is what made/makes this country great. America steals the best and brightest from every strata of the population from every other country in the world. That is why America rocks! Ok so I have nothing against someone coming to this country, struggling to learn the language, working 2 or 3 jobs, raising their kids to take jobs from my kids, because if my kids are not willing to work as hard as their kids it's their own damn fault. But if you can not speak English please do not take a human interaction requiring service position. Please. Ok so I am at the car dealership to get my car serviced (please do not give me crud about how expensive they are, I know) and I need to use the shuttle to get to work. Ok so I am waiting for the guy to come out and ask for riders. I am out there maybe ten minutes, when this friendly, clean cut gentleman comes out and asks in very broken English if any one "wants ride". Ok so I "want ride", so I get in his car. I tell him where I work and he nods and drives off. He heads in the general direction of my office, admittedly not the way I would have driven, but he's the one driving and he does this a lot right, so who am I to tell him how to get there. So 3 minutes later he pulls up to Enterprise rental car, and gets out. I try to explain that I do not want a rental, nor do I work there, but he can not talk to me about it because he does not speak English, at all. It turns out that "want ride" is his only English phrase. It turns out he is the Enterprise driver who periodicly goes over to the car dealership to pick people up. So after much pointing and general confusion he drives me back to the dealership. If the driver had just spoken, hell, just understood enough English to communicate a simple set of ideas, he would have understood what I wanted, or more importantly if he had a command of English I would have understood him.