William Donald Schaefer, Comptroller of Maryland, did a politically incorrect thing and publicly expressed frustration over “English-challenged” employees in the customer service industry. My favorite conservative columnist, Michelle Malkin, writes:
It all started a few weeks ago when former Gov. William Donald Schaefer walked into a McDonald’s restaurant he had frequented regularly for years. Schaefer, a Democrat who now works as comptroller under Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich, ordered the same thing every morning: hot tea and a biscuit. After encountering difficulty with a newly hired worker with poor English skills, he quit going to the restaurant out of frustration. “I don’t want to adjust to another language,” he declared publicly. “This is the United States. I think they should adjust to us.”
Who hasn’t had an exasperating experience like Schaefer’s?….At my local Wal-Mart, nationwide employer of workers of dubious immigration status, I listened as a checkout lady from Africa blabbed endlessly in her native language to two visitors hanging out by her station. She didn’t bother greeting me or looking at me. When I asked for a bag of items that she had forgotten to put in my cart, she ignored me. “Pardon me, can I have my bag?” I asked. “WAH?!” she finally said with a snarl, offended that I had interrupted her conversation.
Whatever happened to “Thank you, please come again”?
My “Schaefer experience”: My apartment building’s former maintenance man spoke very little English. It never bothered me until I began to have “rodent issues.” When he showed up, I asked him to please cover the hole behind the stove (that’s how Mr. Squeaky came in to visit me). He mumbled something in Spanish. I repeated myself. He mumbled something in Spanish. I repeated myself.
I spent the next few minutes gesturing like a cavewoman. Here we were, two people living in the 21st century, pointing and grunting. In retrospect, it’s funny.
What’s your funniest or worst “Schaefer experience”?
