Sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure I’m not living in a foreign country. I came to this country when I was 8 ½ yrs. old and within weeks I was speaking fluent English even though my mother continued to speak Italian at home. I knew from early on that since America was my new home I had to make English my primary language, that’s the least I could do in thanks to have been given the opportunity to live in this great country.
I understand how hard it is for some older people to learn English but at least they should make an attempt and not expect the natives to learn their language. But that is what is happening slowly but surely over time. Today once again I was reminded of this when I tried to contact a customer service representative from a major department store to try to rectify a billing problem.
People of Hispanic descent don’t even have to try as long as we provide them with “press 2 for Spanish.” All they have to learn is to press 2 and they’re all set. How accommodating! Some companies are even more accommodating in that they tell them to press 2 in Spanish just in case they don’t understand the meaning of the word press. Did you ever notice how everyone manages to learn the currency, yet they can’t seem to put a few words together to form a sentence in English? Don’t try to shortchange them or you’ll never see manana.
Most of the time I’m able to shrug off these encounters but today was different. After numerous attempts to get in touch with a real live person at the other end of the line, I finally struck gold only to be told that I couldn’t proceed with the call because I wasn’t allowed to speak for my mother. I had a hard time understanding the man at the other end because he spoke with a very heavy accent that was influenced by him living south of the Mason Dixon line.
I tried to make him understand that it was going to be difficult for my mother to get her message across since she spoke broken English. When I told him that her primary language was Italian he told me to call another 1 800 number and they would try to find someone to translate for her. It sounded like I was going to be connected to some International office.
Surprisingly at first crack, I was speaking to a real live person but was troubled by the fact that he said he was from the check cashing department. Well immediately I thought the previous customer service rep. had pulled a fast one on me. I thought he passed me along to someone else just to get rid of me. I proceeded to explain my problem and he seemed to be more receptive. He explained that although he didn’t speak Italian he understood it. All I had to do was to pass the phone to my mother and have her tell him in Italian that it was okay for me to speak on her behalf.
As I passed the phone to her I instructed her to tell the man at the other end in Italian that it was okay for me to handle her affairs. I knew my message wasn’t clear when I heard her say with a heavy Italian accent, “Do you want to talk to my son?”
We went to all the trouble of getting someone who understood her language and she tried her best to converse in English. Each time I tried to get her to speak in Italian she seemed to botch it up. Finally I snatched the phone away from her and found that the man at the other end seemed to understand my predicament. Bottom line is that he eventually rectified the billing problem and I thanked him for his professionalism.
I wasted almost an hour trying to straighten out a simple matter which could have been taken care of in minutes if only they had additional items on their phone message menu. It would have been nice to hear, “Press 3 for Italian,” or “Press 4 for Japanese,” etc. etc.
Who knows soon we might hear, “Por favor marca uno por Ingles.”
I blame it all on Senor Bush for not paying attention to El Nino.
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