Proving my point, and other stories from my workplace

[Victoria J]

Don't want to start multiple threads so :

Sucky (and ludicrose) Customers

My coworker was in the next room and must have overheard a fair amount of this, and couldn't stop laughing when she saw me...

Background : I give advice. I work for a charity. Very occassionally when things get desperate we can arrange and pay for an interpreter, but we don't have a budget for it. It's also completely impossible on the open door sessions because we can't plan in advance. We have speakers for 4 of the most widely used "community" languages, and speakers of a couple of others as well, but we can't cover everything. Generally we try and encourage people to come in with friends and family to interpret at the open door sessions.

This person had been seen before. By the time he saw my colleague it was pretty clear that he either hadn't understood us or hadn't listened to us the last 2 times. We were also getting a bit fed up with him showing only half the paperwork and repeatedly making confused references to things his cousin had been told when making phonecalls for the customer. She told him he'd have to come back with all his paperwork, this letter someone had apparently written for him and someone to interpret - preferably the cousin. We wrote this on a piece of paper so he could show it to this cousin.

So he came back. He didn't bring someone with him. He brought some paperwork but it's the stuff he showed last time. And apparently no one ever wrote this letter for him.

And I got to have this conversation :

Me : We really do need you to come in with someone who speaks English, we also need all the paperwork you agreed to bring in.
SC : I brought this ! *shoves paperwork at me*
Me : We've seen this before. We did also want the letter that had been written but really we just need you to come in with your cousin.
SC : There is no letter - they said they'd write it but 3 months later they never did !
Me : OK. Obviously you can't bring it in. But we're still having some problems talking to each other and we have said we can't do anything further unless you come in with someone to help. Someone who speaks English.
SC : I brought everything !
Me : Yes, but you need to bring your cousin.
SC : I can't believe you keep telling me to bring in a letter when there is no letter !
Me : I am not asking for a letter, I am asking for your cousin...
SC : There is no letter !
Me : ...Because we are having trouble talking to each other...
SC : Stop asking for the letter !

... rinse and repeat.

When he suggested for the nine millionth time that I was asking for this bloody non-existent letter I did eventually say something like "Which just shows how much we need someone to help us understand each other!"

Other highlights werehim throwing his papers over the desk at me, and having to tell him if he did that again he'd have to leave. And him eventually storming out shouting (still on about the letter...).



The next couple also spoke only a little English. We do have someone who spoke their language, but she's only working tomorrow. They apparently said they'd be fine because the wife spoke English. She may do - but she sat their silently the whole time. She looked very alert and like everything made sense to her, while I managed to worry her husband so much he had a panic attack and started shaking.



But (and those of you in retail please don't throw things) we get really quiet in the run up to Christmas. We'll be hellishly busy in the New Year, but right now we're all having a fairly easy life. I am meant to advise 9 people in a morning - and normally we turn lots of people away. Today I only saw 5.

CoWorker Insanity

The coworker who got in a cardboard box brought me a cake with a note saying it was from her rabbits. Which was insane but nice.

On the other hand our admin problems get worse. The nightmare volunteer left, and so did 2 fairly indifferent ones. The paid admin returned from holiday and we got rid of the (paid!) temporary worker who couldn't type. At all. Not just couldn't touch type said she couldn't use word. However one of the paid admin is now on long term sick leave following a bereavement and we have someone from the agency. Who blew up at my friend M (paid admin, and our last really excellent volunteer) because apparently she doesn't think M should get to tell her what to do because she's "old enough to be her grandmother"...

The cleaner problems also got worse. Sadly she returned from her extended trip to Kenya. We only found out she was gone because her replacement cleaned the building so much better, and we were all pleased when she couldn't come back to work on schedule. However all good things come to an end. She apparently hadn't been doing the top room at all, and the two people who work up there left her a note (because she works after they have gone home).

She came in early - and saw the note while they were both there. She said nothing. But when M (male) left, and P (female) was left alone she turned banshee and started yelling that P was "not her boss, and not to leave notes" and a whole lot of unpleasantness.

So P comes downstairs to join us as we are getting ready for our Christmas party. It's the first time I've seen her losing her temper. She's loudly telling us all what happened, when (a) the manager walked in, and (b) the cleaner walked in.

The cleaner went for her. Screaming and yelling that she was disrespectful, and that P should come over there and slap her The manager had to drag the cleaner into the other room, and I had to prevent P from going after her.

Morons in Management

Apparently the cleaner may have been misunderstood because she has a stutter.

He also got extremely bitter and competitive with me when someone brought a quiz to the Christmas party. When other people got answers he said well done. When I did he glared at me. He muttered about me and hid his question sheet and was saying "You don't have google now"...

I'd find it amusing but this man makes decisions which affect my job.

General

We went bowling after the Christmas meal. I am a bad bowler - I generally manage left gutter then right. When everyone made a bet that the first person to get a strike got called Sir or Madam for the evening and got lunch bought for them next week no one even told me, because I wasn't considered to be part of the competition. But in the midst of all the bad bowling I got one perfect strike. It was the only strike of anyone currently a staff member. And they still owe me lunch.

I have however been deeply embarrassed because my mother sent a cake into work with a note to the people I work with. Saying thankyou for them being supportive (because they've let me take time off when she's had hospital appointments etc.) and apologising for the time she made me late by locking me in the house. So embarrassing.

Victoria J

[EvilEmpryss]

May I recommend having those interpetors of yours typing up letters that state something like:

"In order to best serve the your needs and prevent wasted time, you are required to bring..." in all your commonly encoutnered languages and create a checklist of all the things that might be required (even if it's only "All forms filled out completely", "Government issued identification", and "An interpretor who can speak Engligh on your behalf").

If necessary, state clearly that no help will be provided if arrangements are not made in advance for translation services. Place the English translation of the items in parentheses so the worker can find them. Have copies in the languages you regularly deal with printed up to hand out. This way you can help them without having to bash your head against the wall so hard.

Okay, it's a little optimistic to think that true SCs will actually read the letter in any language, but there's hope for some of the lesser variety SCs.

[infinitemonkies]

Here's a great comedy sketch about translation difficulties at an office.

[Victoria J]

Have copies in the languages you regularly deal with printed up to hand out.

Unfortunately the problem is mainly with languages we don't regularly deal with.

The common languages we would encourage people to come in with someone where possible but where necessary we can manage most of them. We have people speaking Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, Somali, Arabic, Twi, Spanish, German, French. I've probably missed some. We could really do with someone who speaks Polish and possibly Latvian, and we miss our Turkish speaker (who also spoke Russian) - but the Eastern Europeans are generally very good about bring someone with them. It's occassionally been difficult because we don't have a signer - but that's maybe been an issue twice in the 4+ years I've been working here.

I think it's just a standard EW thing. A Polish speaker might reasonably think we would offer some assistance in their language because it's a pretty large population locally, but the people who actually act when we can't help are people whose language we've never even heard of before.

The guy yesterday was Chinese I think. If he speaks Manadrin Chinese I know he's in very good company as it has more speakers than any other language - but locally there's no significant community. We maybe get a speaker ever few months.

More generally our problem is trying to balance wanting to help people, and wanting to help those who do have difficulty accessing services, with ending up funding services the government should be given. If someone has a genuine problem where something has gone wrong and needs help to sort it out - we'd like them to be able to access our service regardless of language. But where the problem is the language and they can't access a government service or fill in a form etc. we just can't fund the interpreting. We are a small charity, the local departments these people are trying to interact with each have several times our staffing and resources (and can pay for langauge line etc.) and then try and push anyone who had difficulty communicating their problem to us.

On the whole we're sorry that the customers get stuck in the middle sometimes. But if we spent our time doing that we'd spend all our time doing that.

As someone who has zero language skills I'm generally pretty patient too. I know how helpful people have been when I've travelled. And 99% of the time we manage pretty well.

Yesterday made me laugh, and I get a bit annoyed when people either get angry with me about the problems communicating or fail to act with common sense. If you can speak a bit of English that's fine, but instead of trying to explain the long complicated letter you received please bring it in to show me. Most of the really bad missed communication cases aren't purely language - they are people who fail to provide necessary information and paperwork, or people who have mental health issues and speak a different language (that's fun, and it's even more fun when you do get an interpretter and you find they make no more sense in their own language).

Here's a great comedy sketch about translation difficulties at an office.

You should post it to the more general language thread. Anything which includes Swedish Chef as a language needs more exposure, and I am so using interpretive dance to communicate from now on.

Victoria J

[morgana]

Here's a great comedy sketch about translation difficulties at an office.

I'm choking to death trying to keep my boss from hearing me giggle. That was great!

[AccountingDrone]

A useful tool is Freetranslation.com, they have a free online version that is reasonably accurate IF you do a few things ... type in short easy sentences [break up long stuff, try to keep it short like single clauses in a sentence. Do use - "Please bring a translator. Please make an appointment if you need a translator. We do not normally have all translators available." instead of - "Please bring a translator as we do not normally have all translators available." as most translation programs do not handle multiple complex sentences well.] Back translate stuff - enter your phrase in english to romanian, hit translate, then copy and paste into romanian to english to make sure it comes out more or less coherently.

You can do this in real time on a computer and turn the screen to show the person.

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