Today, my boss is on the phone with a Russian customer, who keeps saying, "Speak Russian please!" My boss asks me to translate, as he hired me for my knowledge of Russian. He says something, I translate in Russian, then the customer says, "Speak English please!" FML
Collection
Fall
Dead leaves, the first cold of the season and an umbrella flipped inside out: fall, the season of grace.
Today, my co-worker and I were having a conversation in Russian. Our boss overheard us talking, shouted, "I know you're talking about me! I speak Spanish too!" and threatened to fire us. FML
Today, I was unable to communicate with a customer who only spoke French. As a result, my boss called me a "monolingual idiot." I speak Spanish, German, and Japanese. FML
Today, I was instructed by my boss to welcome the 2 new foreign business partners since I am the only one who could speak their language. When they arrived I greeted them in their language. One of them scratched his head and asked his companion in plain and clear English, "What did he say?" FML
Today, my boss's son is training to take over my job as head translator, after having convinced his dad that he's fluent in Spanish, and that my skills suck. I soon walked in on him using Google Translate on a legal document. My boss refuses to believe me. FML
Today, I noticed I spend most of my day translating French, German, and other languages for my boss, as he talks to people overseas. As his assistant I make crap money. If I were promoted to a Translator I’d make a lot more. He won’t promote me. In fact he threatened to fire me if I asked again. FML
Today, after I recently started working in Korean company, my manager said, "Speak Korean, this is Korea." I started communicating in Korean for a few days, but then my manager says : "Why you talk to me in Korean ?" FML
Today, a customer came in who only spoke Spanish. I speak Spanish rather well so I helped the customer. She ended up buying $2300 worth of stuff. I got written up because not speaking English apparently "has the potential be offensive to other customers if they are not able to understand you." FML
Today, I had the questionable honor of explaining the difference between "your" and "you're" to my boss, and very diplomatically make her see why her poor grasp of language could affect our credibility as a communication agency. I'm Swedish, and English is my third language. She's American. FML
Today, my boss said to me: 'You know, our competitors are also hiring!' FML
Today, a customer asked me if I was English, because I was struggling to understand what he was saying. I said yes. He then called me a liar, and said I must be "one of them Polish immigrants." Oh, and he also had a thick Scottish accent. FML
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Top comments
Airshock22 11
I've heard of a language barrier before, but not a language revolving door.
DFMLharsh 20
You Putin a lot of efforts but they went to waste.
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Comments (50)
MidnaLink 35
The client shouldn't be allowed to say "Speak X-language please." It just makes it sound like we should know every language from the beginning. If only, though…
juturnaamo 29
They're in Europe, so it's reasonable to believe this is an international company which works with people in Russia frequently.
VeganVampyre 27
If the client is asking for a language that is generally accepted in that area then of course they should be allowed... I agree that it would be ridiculous for people to be able to demand any random language they wanted (which is what I really hope your point was supposed to be), but if you're in a bilingual country, or even just one that generally accepts/expects a certain other language to be spoken frequently, then it makes sense and is perfectly acceptable. I'm guessing OP is in a place where Russian is commonly spoken, so in that case it would make perfect sense for someone to request it. Just like here, French is our second language so it is perfectly acceptable to ask for someone who speaks French. If you were asking for someone to speak Japanese or something, then yeah, that would be a little crazy.
SouL_WraitH 12
OP got lost in the translation..
DaRito 25
Probably a prank caller
xcllla_ 27
I wonder what did the customer say.
xluciferx666 21
In soviet russia English speaks you
sbarua219 17
Hahahahahaha
vidala1991 12
Lol
littleking94 14
Lol prank phone call?
Karlsmarx2 9
Some Russians are very stubborn not all though
barlos88 19
Hablas Espanol ?