Language and words can be a funny thing. We can have words that mean totally different things depending on the context in which they are used. We can have words that sound similar but really are not. Sometimes we get lessons in the contextual use of words when we maybe least expect them. Accents and geographical location can also play a role in all of this. During my life I have traveled to different parts of the world and country have experienced this on numerous occasions. sometimes the results of not understanding words or language can have some pretty humorous moments.
Between my senior year in high school and my freshman year of college I worked at Buttrey’s grocery store in the Butte Plaza Mall. I was a stocker and checker.
One day I was working on stocking and straighten up shelves and this foreign lady came up to me and she asked where the Pâté was. Now to add some context to all this, I knew the lady was foreign because of her accent. English was obviously her second language (Which she probably spoke better than I did as my only language).
If I had to guess her nationality now, I would probably say she was from a Scandinavian country. Anyway, what I thought she asked was where was the Potty. Now we would get this question regularly as the store did really not have the restrooms labeled as they were mainly for employee use. but when we got asked that we would direct them to the location. So, I enthusiastically tell her is to go to the end of the isle and turn left go down the back side of the store until she got to the silver doors. Go thru those doors and turn left and the restrooms would be on her left. The lady gave me kind of a funny look but off she goes. A few minutes later she comes back, and she again asks me where the Pâté was. I said I will show you and started taking her back and she stops me and says not the restroom the Pâté. Ok so now I am stumped, so I ask her what is Pâté? She said it was goose liver, so then I am thinking who the hell wants to eat goose liver, but I went and found one of the full-time stocker/checkers and we got her to the Pâté. Now if she would have just said where is the Foie gras this humorous little incident would have been prevented. By the way, I would not have known what Foie gras was either, but I would have not sent her to the restroom to look for it and would have found one of the full-time checkers to find it straight off.
Another funny incident that I had while working that job was when I had a lady with a heavy accent come ask me where the breast pads were. Now I thought she said breast pans. So, I said I would try and help her find it. I take her to the household section where we had a limited selection of pots and pans. I am thinking to myself as we are going there, lady we probably don't have any breast pans as our selection of pots and pans were pretty limited. I was pretty sure we did not carry a pan especially for cooking breasts. She had a pretty funny look on her face when we got to the pots and pans, and I asked her if she saw what she was looking for. She then told me that she was looking for breast pads not pans. Again, I went to one of the full-time checkers and he told me where they were located (Femine hygiene section) and we got the lady her breast pads.
That job was pretty educational in many ways. I learned a lot, number one that I did not want to work in a customer service job, way too many assholes out there. Of course, this was well before the Trump era when being an asshole is viewed as being acceptable.
I had a pretty busy week this past week. Did a lot of driving between Mesquite and Las Vegas. However, had some fun as well. I played golf three times last week. One day of it was excellent golf weather. Two days was far from perfect it was blowing like hell. Sadly, I also played like crap those two days, it was brutal to the ego. I don't think I have played that bad since I took up the game of golf. Oh well that is golf, some days you get the bear and somedays the bear gets you. The bear definitely got my fat ass two days in a row.
I went to Vegas yesterday to pick up my friends Margot and Allen at the airport. I went over early and made a WInco and Costco run and then went and visited with JIm and Elaine for a bit and then we all went over to Ryan and Caron's house to watch the Superbowl. It was nice seeing everyone and I was able to watch the first half, and we had dinner during the halftime show and then I hit the road to the airport and got there just in time. Then we hit the road back to Mesquite. It was nice for several reasons to see the Eagles win the game.
I have another busy week this week with various activities and Rotary commitments, plus I need to get to work on gathering my tax information and getting that off to my accountant.
I better get a move on and get doing something productive.
Comments