jkakar ([info]jkakar) wrote,
@ 2008-11-17 12:24:00
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Entry tags:culture manners

Secret languages
I often go to the Subway up the street to eat lunch. Most of the
employees there are Indian women that appear to be native Urdu
speakers. They all speak pretty good English, but most of the time
they talk to each other in Urdu, even while they're serving
customers.

I have a rudimentary understanding of Urdu--not good enough to
speak, but good enough to get the basic gist of a conversation going
on around me. Most of the time they chat about mundane things, but
every now and then they talk about the customers they're serving,
and typically in unfriendly ways. I get that it's more comfortable
for them to communicate with each other in their mother tongue, but
I find this behaviour, even without the unfriendly comments, to be
very rude. It probably doesn't help that they don't do any of the
social things I associate with being friendly, like smile or make
eye contact.

Am I being too harsh? Should people working with the public speak
whatever language they want with their colleagues? Does it matter
what the content of the conversations are?




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[info]frandroid
2008-11-17 09:11 pm UTC (link)
I have this issue at my office... I speak French with my coworker and I know that some people (including at least one of our two immediate neighbours) ressent it. We work together and we're both francophones so it would be quite awkward to speak English to each other all the time; English is our second language for both of us. And yes, we sometimes use the cover to say out loud things that I would use Messenger or email to discuss if I was speaking in English in order not to attract our coworkers' opprobrium. But I must say that we have ressorted to nicknames for many people in order that people don't recognize their names in our conversations in order not to feel like we're talking behind their backs, even if we're not saying anything wrong. The fact is, our speech can be obfuscating and people certainly expection some obfuscation.

When this happens with people working with the public, I find it kinda rude as well, I must say, but I think it's just part of the price of living in a multicultural society, esp. when the bulk of this work (Subway, food industry, cleaning, etc) is incredibly dominated by people who don't have the language skills to do other work they might be qualified for. Maybe if I paid $15 for a sandwich I'd expect all service to be in my language. :)

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(Anonymous)
2008-11-22 10:39 pm UTC (link)
But I must say that we have ressorted to nicknames for many people in order that people don't recognize their names in our conversations in order not to feel like we're talking behind their backs, even if we're not saying anything wrong.

You mean not to *know* it, right? You *are* talking behind their backs, and in a very awkward manner. What you're doing is orders of magnitude worse than the situation with people working with the public, which you felt was kinda rude.

In our team we have precisely the same situation: we speak English as the common language, and I and another coworker speak Portuguese as the native language. Whenever there's someone else *potentially listening* to it, I always try to speak English, even if the subject is not obviously relevant to them. I want everyone to feel free to join our conversation, and also to know what we're talking about, since it might be useful to them somehow, or to us when they join in (they might know more about what we're talking about than ourselves).

Communcation is good. Don't build more barriers between you and the people you share your time with than the ones that naturally exist.

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[info]gniemeyer
2008-11-22 10:40 pm UTC (link)
That was my post. It wasn't intended to be anonymous.

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[info]frandroid
2008-11-26 09:20 am UTC (link)
"talking behind someone's back" to me implies badmouthing them. If I'm just discussing operations, and I'm mentioning someone, I'm not talking behind their back, I just happen to be talking about what's happening, in a different language.

Most of what we talk about doesn't concern my immediate neighbours (they manage a different product) so going out of my way to speak English to include them is kinda stretching it.

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[info]frandroid
2008-11-26 09:21 am UTC (link)
"talking behind someone's back" to me implies badmouthing them. If I'm just discussing operations, and I'm mentioning someone, I'm not talking behind their back, I just happen to be talking about what's happening, in a different language.

Most of what we talk about doesn't concern my immediate neighbours (they manage a different product) so going out of my way to speak English to include them is kinda stretching it.

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[info]jokrack
2008-11-17 10:14 pm UTC (link)
I wouldn't expect them to speak English to each other if they share the same native language; I never spoke Japanese to other native English speakers in Japan unless the conversation included Japanese speakers who didn't speak English.

The fact that they're doing this at work rather than just out in public, on the other hand, is a bit rude, no argument there. Especially when combined with a lack of smiling/eye contact -- I hate being served by surly people, though I don't really expect them to fake happiness for minimum wage. Anyway, I think as long as the customers don't get that they're being bitched about, it's fine -- lets the service workers enjoy their jobs a little more, or at least hate their jobs a little less. But it's obviously distracting for someone like you who *can* understand their bitchiness.

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[info]jkakar
2008-11-17 10:27 pm UTC (link)
I think the part that bothers me is the nasty comments about
customers. I feel like I should say something to indicate that it's
not cool to trash talk people in front of their faces, in a way that
they can't understand. But then, François makes a good point about
using MSN to talk behind peoples backs, which I think is a very
prevalent behaviour. Is there any difference between using MSN
instead of a secret language to obfuscate what you're saying? I
guess not, in practice. The same thing is still happening, just in
a different form.

So far I've never directly let on that I get the gist of their
conversations, though occasionally I chuckle to myself or smile
openly when they say something smile or chuckle-worthy. Maybe I'm
the rude one for eavesdropping on their conversations and not
minding my own business?

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[info]frandroid
2008-11-17 11:15 pm UTC (link)
I think the solution to this is to find some piece of classical urdu poetry that talks about being mean to others, and to recite it to these women. :D

If only to increase your comfort, letting these women know that you understand what they say might make them tone it down a bit in front of you, if anything. Plus, you'll be all cute with your rudimentary Urdu and they'll start teaching you stuff. You will on all sides!

As for minding your own business, that's their problem, they should have some expectation that some brown people coming to their store speak Urdu. I've spoken French before expecting no one around me to understand me, and I had only myself to blame when it turned out the other way. :]

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[info]jkakar
2008-11-17 10:34 pm UTC (link)
There's an interesting comment in your response, which is that "I
don't really expect them to fake happiness for minimum wage". I've
never really understood why being paid poorly is an excuse for being
surly. Okay, everyone has their bad days and for sure I'm in a
quite a nice position in terms of my job so I'm naturally happy;
however, I've had crappy minimum wage jobs in the past and I was
polite to the people around me not because of my wage, but because
it was the right thing to do. We choose how to behave in our
environment, not the other way around. I also think it's important
to take a minimum amount of pride in your work, even if it is crappy
work, because it's the right thing to do.

Sometimes it feels like we live in a society where no one cares
about basic respectful ways of interacting with each other. I find
that kind of sad.

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[info]icecreamemperor
2008-11-17 10:43 pm UTC (link)

I'm not sure I'm on board with the idea that taking pride in your work is the right thing to do, if there is nothing about the work you find worthy of pride -- if you are only doing it for the money, as it were -- but I'm on board with the idea that one should be no more or less polite at any given job. With the exception I suppose that if someone was paying you thousands of dollars just to be polite, you should be even more polite than usual. But the minimum remains the same regardless of (non-horrible) circumstances.

That said Subway is a travesty and their sandwiches are awful.

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no one cares
[info]frandroid
2008-11-17 11:17 pm UTC (link)
That's what you get for living in Vancouver. :P

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[info]jlunder
2008-11-18 01:53 am UTC (link)
Meh. It's crass behaviour, and I certainly think less of the people doing it, but it's not like it's behaviour limited to people who speak another language already: that just makes it easier. English speakers develop shorthands, secret gestures, inside references to do the same thing. It's crass but if it helps them get through the day... well, I just hope I don't notice when they're doing it to me. Or if I do that I have a good zinger ready.

As to the general question of people speaking other languages in front of me: I don't think it's inherently disrespectful. Usually I don't even notice it. The guy that yells "speak English!" to old Chinese ladies chatting on the bus is far ruder and more annoying to me -- at least these Urdu-speaking ladies feel some shame if they're hiding the insults.

But yeah, agree about wishing people cared more about being polite and generally decent to each other. I tend to be optimistic: we've got a pretty kind and accepting society here, but by no means are we perfect...

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[info]jkakar
2008-11-18 05:28 am UTC (link)
I too agree that we live in a very nice society. One thing all the
travelling I've done in the past few years has taught me is that
Vancouver is a really awesome city to live in. We're very fortunate
to be here. Anyway, my intention wasn't actually to complain. I
was more curious to see if the feeling I get in the situation I
described is reasonable. Like most people, I think I'm reasonable
all the time, but I know that's not actually the case. :)

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[info]jokrack
2008-11-18 04:13 am UTC (link)
It's not that being paid poorly should equal surliness, but that working in the service industry is stressful and underpaid and it's not where most people would like to be employed for more than a few years... so I can see how asking someone to pretend they love their job when they don't would just add to the stress. That said, I vastly prefer good customer service, and I try my best to be a model customer, too.

And I agree that if we could all remember that we're not just customers and staff, we're all people who deserve basic respect, the world would be a kinder place.

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[info]jkakar
2008-11-18 05:40 am UTC (link)
It feels good when being a model customer results in a stressed out
person smiling and having a moment of relief. One thing that I now
realize is that whenever I've worked in jobs I didn't enjoy I knew
it was temporary and so it was relatively easy to keep positive. I
doubt I'd have so much confidence about that if I was living in a
foreign country, with different customs, where my qualifications
were not honoured, where I didn't really speak the local language
particularly fluently, and where I didn't have a social network
built up from almost-birth.

Now I feel much more compassion for the ladies at the Subway than
when I first posted. Thanks everyone. :)

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[info]icecreamemperor
2008-11-18 11:29 am UTC (link)

If I had a secret language I would use it all the time. There's something about being private in public that is appealing.

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[info]gniemeyer
2008-11-22 10:16 pm UTC (link)
Hey dude!

It's a very interesting cultural "introspection", and it actually got me thinking about it for a good while trying to understand what I feel about it and why.

I got into a few curious aspects to it:

First, I think rudeness is very associated to the way that things are said, in the sense that it is possible to tell someone the same idea in two different ways, being rude on one and not on the other. So, taking as the basis that rudeness is about way of communication, I'd say that if they are sure that the customer doesn't understand what they say, it couldn't be qualified as rude *to the customer* (it could be taken as rude even to the coworker listening), and in the case where the customer can understand (which was your case), it would really depend on what is being said.

One other aspect of the same situation is about speaking behind people's back, and that's more about ethic than rudeness. The fact is that, strictly speaking, everyone speaks behind others' back all the time and, being part of a society, that's not necessarily a bad thing. As an example, if I say that "Jamu is a fantastic guy.", I'm pretty sure you wouldn't mind that I'm not saying that on your presence. As usual, the devil is in the details: the nature and the intention of what is being said secretly is what qualifies it as ethic or not, and that's very subjective on itself, depending on culture and education.

There are more interesting aspects about it, but I'll leave that for a moment when we have a beer at hand. :-)

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