Originally published at Blogging Monique Renae. Please leave any comments there.
I have lived in many places across the world… enjoyed living amongst a variety of cultures. I love learning about people and history. Diversity is my friend.
All of that changed when I moved to Texas.
I am not a big fan of Texas. I don’t like living in Texas. I don’t much care for the weather in Texas. I especially hate the drivers in Texas. But more than that, I hate going to restaurants in Texas. Especially fast food places.
You see, in order to work as a waitress, or a cashier, or an order taker, where you deal with English speaking people, you are NOT required to know how to speak English.
Where Am I Going With All This?
Today, I went to Wendy’s to grab some lunch for myself and RoRo. It was a pretty simple order. I wanted a Big Bacon Classic Combo and she wanted something similar. I asked the young lady on the other side of the speaker box if the BBC came with one meat patty, or two. All I got was silence. So I asked again. More silence. She asked me to pull to the window.
When I pulled up she gave me my total, and since I wasn’t really done ordering I asked my very simple question for the third time. She answered me with a blank stare and then she said, “Meat patty? Next window.”
I pulled up to the next window and a different young lady begins to hand me my order. She hands me three drinks1 and when I tell her it’s wrong, she also gives me the dead deer stare. Someone else had to walk up and ask me what was wrong and then translate to the girl handing me the drinks. Next I ask which one is the Dr. Pepper2 and she proceeds to give me the death stare. So I say it again, this time much slower hoping maybe she might grasp it, but that doesn’t even work. She turns and speaks to the translator who comes to the window to help.
I made the mistake of saying to the translator, “Maybe you can stay here and help with my order. I really am getting frustrated with your co-workers just staring at me when I ask something.” I was expecting an “OK!” or even something slightly positive. Instead I get:
“Are you a racist or something?”
So I said, “Why yes!! I am one… and because of it, I like to speak to people who actually speak my language!”3
I guess the death stare is somewhat of an epidemic at this Wendy’s because now the translator was giving it to me. I take a glance in the rear view mirror and see a long line forming so I once again cover the questions I was trying to get solved.
The woman won’t even speak to me now. She proceeds to hand me the drinks again and tells me to have a good day. I was shocked.
How can you possibly work in that field and not even know how to answer a simple patty question??? Or even tell me what drink is which???
My grandmother came to this country from Puerto Rico. She knows how to say two things in English: Nestle Quik and stupid. They came in very handy when I was younger because she would just yell at me “STUPID! Tu queres Nestle Quik????” She is the only family member I have who does not know English, and if she were to try to get a job at anywhere other than some Spanish restaurant or factory, I would tell her the same thing…. LEARN ENGLISH!
And of course, we all know I speak Spanish. No shit. It’s my native tongue… I suppose I could4 speak to others in Spanish but I don’t. To me, it’s a cop out. What about the person behind me who might want to know which drink is their Dr. Pepper and instead get a death stare? Are we now required to know Spanish in order to be able to get our food the way we want? Am I forever doomed to get the death stare??
Maybe tomorrow I will try Burger King. They say I can get things my way, so maybe if I ask nicely to get an English speaking cashier, they will have one stowed away in the back waiting just for me.
A girl can dream can’t she?
- I ordered two [↩]
- which RoRo had ordered and I don’t much care for [↩]
- In truth, Spanish is my language. I speak it all day and night. I am Puerto Rican… it’s what I do. However, when I am ordering food, I speak English. I won’t change this for someone who decides to come to the US and tries to get by not even knowing how to communicate at their own job [↩]
- or should [↩]
