In the spirit of helpfulness, here's hoping Wal-Mart will REALLY listen......

Reading is such a lost art.

I agree with you. I have walked out of stores, disappointed and ticked
off, because of a language barrier. It's not that I received poor
service, but it's frustrating when I can't communicate with the person
who is supposed to help me.

However, I don't think it is Wal Mart's responsibility to educate this
man in the English language. I believe English should be the declared
language of this country, and if someone wants to live here they
should know how to speak English clearly. Not fluently, but good
enough so that a decent conversation can be held without one person
continually trying to decipher what the other is saying.

Pinky out!

I'm sorry I fell asleep at the point where you were bragging about how
many languages you spoke, are you complaining to Wal-Mart or trying to
impress a date? Either way, I'm not impressed.

oodgay riefgay, idday ouyay otnay rytay igpay atinlay?

First of all how do you know that this employee wants to be tracked
down and be taught English. Second of all just write the letter,
don't give them your whole life story, they don't care that you can
speak 14 langauages, and not only you mentioned that but you mentioned
each of your 14 languages. I am sure walmart gets lots of letters so
if you are going to write to them stick to the point.

I was just thoroughly entertained by reading all the comments, but
here's the one that sums it up perfectly.

"Maybe if this idiot had kept talking in English it would have gone
fine."

Thanks, Cubjunkie!

It took you 789 words to say:

I was recently in your store in Walpole, Mass.
I have had problems with the cleanliness of this store in the past,
and have previously written to you about it, but that day, things
seemed to be reasonably tidy. Since you obviously listened to my
feedback regarding that matter, I would like to express my concern
regarding a different matter.

The clerk who was working the Verizon wireless kiosk did not speak
English very well.
As I do speak a number of languages, I experimented until we were able
to find a common language in order to transact our business.

This clerk is to be commended in that he was able to assist me quite
well, despite the language barrier, but I think it's important for
your business to hire employees who have a strong grasp of the English
language if they are going to be working in a predominately English
speaking area.

As a gesture because of the inconvenience of having to find a way to
communicate in order to upgrade our phones, I am asking that you now
do this upgrade for free to any model we choose- if extending the
service contract with Verizon makes this easier on you, we'll be happy
to do this, with WalMart listed as our liason up to two additional
years from now.

Thank you.

That was 289 words and I think I pretty much said what you did,
without the bragging and condescension.

Your long-winded post is full of bragging of your alleged education
and intellect, and yet you seem unable to concisely make your point.

Also, I find it strange that among the supposed 14 languages you
speak, you've chosen to not learn Spanish--among the most commonly
spoken languages in the world, and increasingly important as the
number of Spanish-speaking people increase in this country.

Your English isn't so perfect, Professor Emeritus in Linguistics, so I
hardly think you have room to criticize the English of an immigrant.

A comma inside brackets? [and were planning to upgrade one or more of
our phones,]

"am not your judge, nor am I your purveyor." This generally would be
written as: "I am neither your judge nor your purveyor." However,
"purveyor" doesn't even make sense in this instance.

My boyfriend is on his way to his PhD, having earned a bachelor's
degree and master's degree already (from the world-renowned MIT), and
when I read this post to him, he laughed his butt off. If he knew
that we called "shenanigans," I assure you, he'd be calling them.

Put down your thesaurus. It's a dangerous weapon in your hands.

take out all the bragging, honestly, no one cares if you speak a lot
of languages, but i got your point and it is actually a good one. If
you are going to work in the this country, you need a decent grasp of
the language. If i moved to another country, it wouldn't even occur
to me not to learn the language before i went. Whatever country you
live in you need to play by their rules.

When the OP said he started speaking Creole, for some reason, I
started thinking about that scene in Airplane when June Cleaver had to
translate jive.

sarcasm. Is this for real? I thought your criticism of Walmart was
very positive and constructive. However, I think you need to direct
your observations to both Walmart and Verizon Wireless. A letter to
Walmart commending them for improving the "cleanliness" of their store
and Verizon Wireless to suggest that they may want to incorporate
English lessons when training non-english speaking employees.

Why on earth didn't you get his name? Do you really think they'll try
to track him down?

"Most people don't speak 14 languages, and might wonder if Melinke is
a disease, much less know that it's a language people use to
communicate."

I would think that someone so well-versed in speaking the "Melinke"
dialect would know that it's actually spelled Malink.

Quick, how do you say "Oh, snap!" in Guru-Muki?

This is the most assininely pointless letter I have ever encountered.

I am the QUEEN of longwinded around here and you even managed to lose
me.

Somehow in all your flowery prose and excessively descriptive
narrative, you have failed to conclusively illustrate whether you
truly believe the employee in question to be an asset or a hindrance
to the company.

One moment you are praising this unfortunate fellow's tenacity and the
next you are condemning Wal-Mart for not teaching him proper English
(pity that we can't all have your stunning grasp of the language,
WAIT, make that 14 languages, that you have!)

And all this in between bestowing many pompous and shallow accolades
on yourself for your myriad of skills and accomplishments.

Pardon me for being so colloquial, but WTF??

Furthermore, it is neither Wal-Mart's responsibility nor obligation to
accomodate your request to upgrade your cell phones. If you require
that type of assistance, may I suggest www.verizonwireless.com?

Next time you feel like writing a Shakesperean-like monologue, try
another website.

Apparently you are smart enough to pretend to know all of these
languages, but not smart enough to know that Verizon employees to not
work for Walmart.

Would you write to Walmart for a problem with service at a McDonald's
or SuperCuts that happened to be in your local Walmart?

And for proving yourself so worthy in the world of multiple language
knowledge, you wish for a free upgrade to any of the Verizon phones
offered?? I do say, it is mighty nice of you to offer to extend your
contract for such a deal. Wow, you really know how to put a deal
together.

I won't even touch in detail on the many other ego centric views of
the world you have. I hope that you take this reply to improve
yourself. However, I am not your judge, nor am I your purveyor. So,
it will be up to you on how to act.

It is Wal-mart.....people go there for the cheap prices, not customer
service.

P.S. Nobody cares how many languages you speak, or what else you know
about language.

Why not just post your Resume'? I'm being totally serious in a spirit
of helpfulness and hoping YOU really listen. You had a pleasasnt
encounter with a darker skinned individual who spoke to you because
you had a language in common. Swell and dandy. If you feel he needs
further education... here's a nifty thing of someone of your great
social stature to do:

Pay for HIS EDUCATION yourself.It's a wonderful humanitarian gesture
that will make his life much easier, and give you a substantial warm
and fuzzy feeling AND a HUGE tax write off. This "do not emmenate from
a hostile or confrontational standpoint"

This is exactly why education is wasted on people like you. You got
some degree and it's your sworn right and duty to butt in in everyone
elses life because YOU have some framed papers on your wall.

What the heck (non offensive term) is a person of YOUR stature doing
setting foot in Wally world (a euphemismistically used piece of
verbiage from the common (American English in etimology) vernacular
term "WALMART" (a trade marked name for a corporation that is in the
department store business...but then you congingated and absobed that
into your cerbral gray matter I assume) taken from the movie "National
Lampoons something or other Vacation" You do the googling ( a verb of
the common (American English in etimology) vernacular meaning to use
the search engine site called "Google" , a trade marked brand name, on
the internet, or world wide web as we peons call it.

So i have two words. The first begins with a bilabial fricative "F"-
the rest i'm convinced you're well equipped to extrapolate, analyse,
label, file appropriately for archival and historcal purposes. The
second is simply the word "Off".

No Offense meant... purely my opinion... in a spirt of helpfulness to
all, here's hopeing you'll REALLY listen.

"I do hope you agree-- in any case, feedback and comments are always
welcome, so long as they do not emmenate from a hostile or
confrontational standpoint."

Nice. I guess I'm only allowed to comment if I agree with you?

Baloney. I'm going to comment anyway!

You want a free cell phone because you feel Wal-Mart didn't do enough
to help the Verizon clerk learn English? In that case your complaint
is with Verizon.

Your request for the free upgrade is completely unreasonable. If I
call Dell for help with my computer, and the person in India taking
the call doesn't understand English to my liking, does that mean I get
a free notebook because Dell didn't do enough to help their tech
support people learn English?

You're a linguistics expert, yet can't spell "emanate"?

OK so I reall yam done afetr i say this...

This gentleman does not need the rudeness of some people's comments.
His letter was written extremely well. He request for upgrading his
cell phone, well, I don't agree with it, I am going to give him credit
for a well written letter.

I do have to admit it should have been directed at Walmart and the
entire first portion of the letter (Concerning walmart) could have
been left out.

I half way agree that Verizon should help this guy with English if
they Hired him, AND communication is BIG part of retail. If they
didn't plan to help him, why did they hire him?


My person idea on this letter in general, it's very long-winded, and I
think it should have been written as a suggestion and the actual cell
phone upgrade issue should have been mentioned as an event, not so
much a complaint in and of itself.

Does that make sense to anyone but me?

Maybe if this idiot had kept talking in English it would have gone
fine.

Or this idiot had no idea what he was talking about and thought he
did.

He also from how I read it got the service he wanted. Maybe it took a
few extra minutes but he still got it.

I think your letter should have been written to Verizon as the subject
gentleman is most likely an employee of Verizon - - not Walmart.

In your last paragraph you state that "comments are always welcome, so
long as they do not emmenate from a hostile or confrontational
standpoint". You have posted your letter to be shared on a public
website and I, for one, will post any comment I please.

No matter how many languages you speak, English is the official
language of the USA and it's not up to this guy's employer to provide
him language lessons.

Your request for a "gesture of accomodation" in the form of upgraded
cell phones to "any model we choose" is greedy, unreasonable and
unwarranted.

The tone of your letter is extremely arrogant and makes you sound like
you think you are better than everyone else. In other words, you are
a real jerk who somehow got his hands on a dictionary. You're not
trying to be helpful - - you're just in the mood to try and impress
people it's not working on me.

Oh.

My.

Goodness.

First, there's the "I don't want you to fire anyone" ego comment (as
if the store would fire someone simply on your request).

Then that bit about being emeritus. I don't necessarily believe that
(that word indicates a retired position and your overall letter is far
too childish, in my opinion, to have been written by anything other
than a snarky linguistics major with a seriously large chip on his
shoulder and a larger dose of egotism than is recommended), but I do
think it was (if indeed it did happen) INCREDIBLY presumptuous of you
to try various languages on the clerk (who must have spoke English if
he was able to understand your questions), not to mention somewhat
condescending. Well, the fact that you are arrogant and condescending
simply oozes from this letter and, frankly, I am disgusted by your
tone, snide attitude and sense of entitlement.

As for the free phone gimme grab? That just isn't going to happen, so
I certainly hope you're not holding your breath.

I have to admit, I started skimming when you began bragging about your
linguistic abilities (that doesn't belong in a business letter) so I
may have missed something, but... WHY should WalMart give you a cell
phone upgrade because their employee doesn't speak English?

It sounds to me like this employee's job may have been to greet
customers and give out carts (since he was the one who greeted you at
the door), which wouldn't require stellar English. Perhaps they have
him do this while he works at improving his English skills. I'm sure
there are plenty of other employees in the store who could have had
the cell phone discussion with you. But the greeter made an effort
with you since you were so determined that he be the one to help you.


Your suggestion that WalMart arrange for English lessons (maybe help
them pay for ESL classes) for their employees who are new to the
language is not a bad idea. However, you lose credibility by turning
your suggestion into a gimmee grab.

Ok, help me out here. I understand you are attempting to offer
suggestions in order to improve Wal-Mart's customer service. But I'm
failing to see the correlation between Wal-Mart and Verizon Wireless.
I believe the employee you were dealing with is an employee of Verizon
not Wal-Mart yet you've addressed your concerns to Wal-Mart. Perhaps
there is a link between the two that I don't know about but I believe
they are two different entities even though one resides inside the
other. For example, if I'm given a raw burger from the McDonalds that
resides inside a Wal-Mart my complaint would be with McDonalds not
Wal-Mart as they are two separate entities, right? Wouldn't it work
the same way with Verizon?