Understand English 07.24.17
The title of this soon to be not only informative, but also well written article says it all. I had been sent to the New York center to temporarily fill in for a manager. I don’t remember if the manager had been transferred or if he had resigned.
In the office at that point in time, there was two female employees who normally worked there, and one female who was temporarily assigned to the office. She was temporarily placed in the office due to some type work injury that had occurred in the center. These temporary work assignments kept the center (aka warehouse) from having a lost time injury recorded against the center.
The front office also had sales staff in it. They had there cubicles which kept them separated from the Centers office staff. I always knew they did not like it when I would occasionally look into their cubicles and make comments about fire extinguishers, electric space heaters and clutter that they had under or near their desks.
One of the regular office workers and the temporary office worker spoke both English and Spanish. I had noticed that these to ladies would communicate in Spanish often during the day. I suspected that they might be saying things that they did not want others to understand.
One day I had walked into the front office to ask a question about something, these two ladies were standing at a table sorting some paper work, when one said in Spanish, “I don’t understand this”. Now I don’t speak or understand much Spanish, but I knew what she had said, and without thinking I said, “Come on, you know how to do that”. Both of these ladies appeared shocked! They looked at me very surprised that I understood what had been said!
From that time on, there was very little Spanish, if any, spoken in the front office. I believe they thought I could understand what they were saying.
Don Ford
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