Jan 16, 2009

LEARN THE LANGUAGE!

Okay, so I had an interesting morning...One, got a call...NO SCHOOL TODAY! I guess -30 is a little too cold for the little darlings. YEY! I got to sleep in and plus now I get a 4 day weekend, we don't have to work on Monday for MLK, Jr. Day!

So, I get up at 8 and putz around a little and the phone rings. It's not a number I recognize, but we keep getting messages for a little old lady whose phone number must be a digit off from us. We get calls for her from her little old lady friends, and her relatives from Ohio who leave 10 minute messages. Anyway, I thought it may have been one of those calls and I could FINALLY tell them they have the wrong number (they always call when we're not home...convenient!) But no, here's a little how the conversation went.

Me-hello?
Indian man-heldo?
Me- hello?
Indian man- Heldo?
Me- hello? what do you want?
Indian Man- I'm lookding for Mikel.
Me- Sorry there is no one there by that name..Still not realizing he could be TRYING to say MICHELLE.
Indian Man- I'm lookding for the ownder of the house, wood you like to remortgage your house.
(Now, I'm thinking...Really, a guy in India is asking me if I want to remortgage with his company, you've GOT to be kidding me.)
Me- No thanks, we're not interested, please remove us from your call list!

Okay so that was pretty fun. Then I go to the bank. Since it's -30 outside and I was a little sweaty from coming home from the gym, I opted for the drive thru...After all, I only wanted to cash a $10 check (thanks Laura!) and take out $50 for a fun outing tonight. So I drive up to the thingamabob and say, I would like to cash this check and take out $50 from 01. The lady repeats, "Savings 01" I respond with a yes, thank you. A few minutes pass and I see the slip of paper, no biggie, I thought. I was withdrawing money so I knew I would have to sign for it... I look at the slip of paper and see DEPOSIT $10 into SAVINGS 01. Now, I'm not a rocket scientist, but I never said to deposit the money, but to Isabel, the Russian teller, that's what it means in Russia. SO I send it ALL back and Isabel says, "what do you want?" Now, I'm trying to think how I'm going to do this..."I want to WITHDRAW $60 from my savings 01 please." "But you just deposited your check into it..." NO YOU DEPOSITED MY CHECK THERE, I'm screaming in my mind, but instead I said, "I wanted to cash that check but you accidentally deposited it into my savings. I want $60 back please." So she takes some more time, wishes me a great day and then proceeds to "mean mug" me as I drive away. Hello? what did I do wrong? Except get the teller who obviously doesn't speak English that well and doubly doesn't understand it!

UGH! My biggest pet peeve is when people who live here, don't learn the language. If I wanted to live in Italy, do you think I'd get by speaking my English there...Probably not, if I want to survive, I'd need to learn the language. And what was the bank manager thinking?? Okay I'm done! Au revoir!

1 comment:

Christina said...

Oh boy. LOL! We (really Jason) just went through this with customer service from Adobe out of India. He loved how all of the people he talked to (from India) had such easy to say names like "Jim", "Sam", "Tom". OK, we're not STUPID. We know that's not your name. And we get angry when you think that this "trick" will make us feel better about talking to someone who can't understand what we're saying much less communicate back to us.