I think I gave you guys an excellent opportunity to gang up on an American:-) It's all good -- we deserve much of the scorn heaped upon us.
I appreciate many, though not all, of the comments and criticisms.
I do speak slowly. Very slowly. I try to enunciate every syllable and use very basic English. I also have varying speaking skills in Arabic and Urdu/Hindi, and I use them. But I guess that means little for Southeast Asianers. I do try the Socratic method to get through the BS answers, because language isn't a factor often. Sometimes people just quite simply BS their way through the day.
It's not only these people's faults. I think it's a structural problem. This country is just a mish-mash of people and for most of them Arabic and English are not their mother tongues. When I have to speak another language, sometimes I avoid expressing complex ideas and settle for brief and possibility not so accurate statements.
But people who work with certain services should be prepared to provide accurate answers. It's not simply with shoes and stuff in department stores. It happens with business calls as well, when I have to deal with service providers. Instead of speaking to someone once and getting the right info, I have to speak to several people multiple times. It's utterly uneconomical. I guess employers tend to look simply for cheap labor that can do the job minimally, rather than either putting some money toward better training, making intelligent management structures, and hiring better workers.
With that said, I do sympathize with the underpaid workers at some of these stores. As an American, I am in a privileged position in this country's caste system. There is **some** logical merit to the system--depending on the field and type of work--but its exploitative elements do not encourage diligence in labor.
I guess I should be resigned toward how things work. Maybe I'll pull a Flannery O'Conner and write a story, "A Correct Answer is Hard to Find."
I think I gave you guys an excellent opportunity to gang up on an American:-) It's all good -- we deserve much of the scorn heaped upon us.
I appreciate many, though not all, of the comments and criticisms.
I do speak slowly. Very slowly. I try to enunciate every syllable and use very basic English. I also have varying speaking skills in Arabic and Urdu/Hindi, and I use them. But I guess that means little for Southeast Asianers. I do try the Socratic method to get through the BS answers, because language isn't a factor often. Sometimes people just quite simply BS their way through the day.
It's not only these people's faults. I think it's a structural problem. This country is just a mish-mash of people and for most of them Arabic and English are not their mother tongues. When I have to speak another language, sometimes I avoid expressing complex ideas and settle for brief and possibility not so accurate statements.
But people who work with certain services should be prepared to provide accurate answers. It's not simply with shoes and stuff in department stores. It happens with business calls as well, when I have to deal with service providers. Instead of speaking to someone once and getting the right info, I have to speak to several people multiple times. It's utterly uneconomical. I guess employers tend to look simply for cheap labor that can do the job minimally, rather than either putting some money toward better training, making intelligent management structures, and hiring better workers.
With that said, I do sympathize with the underpaid workers at some of these stores. As an American, I am in a privileged position in this country's caste system. There is **some** logical merit to the system--depending on the field and type of work--but its exploitative elements do not encourage diligence in labor.
I guess I should be resigned toward how things work. Maybe I'll pull a Flannery O'Conner and write a story, "A Correct Answer is Hard to Find."