I had fallen asleep in front of the TV when the sound of the doorbell awakened me. Fuzzy headed and a bit dizzy, I made my way to the front door where the person who was delivering my groceries stood waiting.
He had a rather pained look on his face. I thought, “How long has he been waiting?”
After all, I was asleep and the doorbell isn’t that loud. He could have been there for a bit. Or was it my wild hair which was greatly in need of professional care? Had he stumbled into a house of horrors?
I smiled as I opened the door. Smiles are often remedies for frightening appearances. At least I hoped that to be true.
The delivery man had one of those electronic devices to capture a signature. But he moved away as I reached out to grab the pen to sign.
The first thing I thought was, “Wow, I really should have checked the mirror before answering the door.”
Clutching the device close to his chest, he then said what I thought was something about “hiding.” I repeated what I thought he said, and he moved even further away and asked another question.
I thought he said, “You need eyeliner.” That made no sense .. or did it?
Obviously that was not what he was saying. What is going on here?
Ah, I thought. He is speaking another language. I tried Spanish. That had worked before with another driver.
“Que deseas?”
His response was, well, I guess, annoyed would be a good choice or maybe frustrated would be more appropriate. How else to communicate? Well, I don’t think he is speaking French or Latin and besides I couldn’t remember how you ask what do you want in those languages anyway.
At this point my ability to understand what was going on had diminished to desperation.
Finally, I gave up and confessed that I didn’t understand him. A light seemed to go off on his face. He reached into his pocket, took out his wallet opened it to his license and, taking a deep breath, asked me for my ID”
“You want my driver’s license?” Smiles all around then.
As I fished for my license, I asked him where he was from originally. I think he said Andorra or Albuquerque I wasn’t sure which. I didn’t want to press my luck any further, so, after verifying myself and signing, I thanked the gentleman and began to bring the groceries in.
Gosh, how brave that guy is to take this kind of job where you have to speak in what is a foreign language. It would be like asking me to teach physics. While I might know the moving parts, I certainly would not be competent in putting them together.
Barriers to communication lie in poor preparation, duplicity, hidden agendas and the misunderstandings of language. Just waking up doesn’t make you understand clearly either. Whether it’s the delivery guy or the heavily accented customer service representative trying to tell me how to return an item to a subcontractor for Amazon, it is probably a better strategy to hire personnel whose accents don’t require closed captioning.
