reds
Friday 13th April 2012 7:47am
2,652 posts
Quote: sootyj @ April 4 2012, 8:48 PM BST
I was in a branch of Boots where I was trying to buy a beard trimmer.
All 3 of the shop assistants I asked lacked the English to be able to help with this most basic request.
Am I racist for being sligtly miffed and having to find said device myself.
I would have mimed trimming my beard, but thought it might be offensive to Jews or Muslims
As some others have said I don't think it makes you racist for expecting them to understand English.
A few years ago in central London I tried to order a burger in a famous burger chain. As I am allergic to the bread bit I asked for it without the bun. Now the guy who served me obviously didn't have English as his first language. The first time I had asked for the burger without the bun, he said he didn't understand. I then tried several ways to say this including "no bread" and I want everything in the burger but no bread. He then asked another staff member, again someone who's first language wasn't English. I thought they'd understood but when it came it had the bread.
When I'm been served somewhere and especially in well known place I expect the staff to have at least a basic knowledge of the main language in that country.
At the same time if you are going to live somewhere you should try to learn the language of that country. I used to work in retail and would sometimes get abused by people because they couldn't understand me. Sometimes it was something simple like trying to explain I didn't have a particular item, like when I tried to ask for the burger there is sometimes a limited number of ways to explain something.