Immigration is the big topic these days, and I suspect it has to do more with the dilution of the culture than it has to do with any particular individuals. In every country, other than America, when you go there, you’re expected to learn the language. But what about smaller localizations… say a burger place?
I got to observe something amazing first hand today in Fuddrucker’s of Herndon, VA.
A customer (not me) ordered a salad, and in Fuddrucker style, it came in a small trough. Problem was, the customer wasn’t given a fork to eat it with.
Now if you’ve been to any Fuddrucker’s, you’d know that by the self-serve condiments are the eating utensils. You simply help yourself.
This customer didn’t know where the location was and politely asked, “excuse me, where are the forks?”
The person behind the counter looked at him like he was speaking a foreign language.
He tried again. “Where are the forks?”
The person was confused, and went to enlist the linguistic skills of someone working the grill.
The guy pointed at his salad, and was clearly getting frustrated, “The forks?”
The new guy shrugged and had to get the manager.
She came over and he said, “All I’m trying to do is get a fork.”
She looks down at the take out bin and asks, “You want a plastic one? Cause we have metal ones.”
To which he replies, “Metal, thank you.”
And she looks down and says, “You’ll have to get them yourself, I only have plastic here” and she walks away!
He screams out “WHERE!?!? That’s what I’m trying to find out!!!” He storms off and I never did get to see if he found his eating utensils.
The point of the story, however, is that there is a very limited set of common vocabulary used in the restaurant business. Simple works like: Coke, Napkin, Fork, Bathroom should be so common in repeated daily usage that one of even low intelligence would picks up the sound and associate a meaning. There seems to be deliberate effort to not learn even the fundamentals.
Even more localized, I can’t count anymore the number of times I’ve walked into a McDonald’s, ordered a Big Mac, and the person working the register had no clue what I was talking about. Literally. However, order an “Numero Uno” and they have no problem. I don’t understand how the mandatory training required by these places allows people to slip through to dealing directly with customers without being able to understand the primary product names when heard.