Language Barrier

I should have known that Thursday was going to be a f*cked up day at work, when I jumped up at 5:31am, in a panic, thinking I was late for work.  I'd already gotten one sock on my foot before I realized that I had an entire hour before I had to depart for work.

For the most part, my day was relatively routine.  I got out to my primary work area and was greeted with a horrific mess left by the previous night's crew and the "burn-off" idiot from that morning.

I drive a fork lift for a industrial-type factory here in the city.  At the current time, I am covering for a fella who's off with a nasty back injury that required surgery.  What the job entails is placing steel racks onto carts for the assembly/paint line at the industrial factory in where I am currently employed.  The emptied racks, once depleted of the parts they hold, must go to a fiery furnace to have the paint removed from the racks.  It's an easy process which is complicated in it's explanation.  Suffice it to say, the guy who works the burn off area, is as a fellow worker described as a "dip-shit".  And this dip-shit, causes me grief on an almost daily basis.  However, he is not what made this day stupid.  It was the communication with one or two other people.

The plant in which I work, employs a great deal of people of the Filipino persuasion.  What I find odd about these folks, is the fact that they come from a Sovereign State of South East China, they all have Mexican-type names, but can't speak a lick of Spanish.  It's all that ping-pong wing-wong shit.  That isn't a language!  Those are sounds from a vintage pinball machine.  What's even more f*cked up is, a majority of these folks, can't pronounce the letter 'F'.  The very same sounding consonant that starts the country of their origin.  The afore mentioned dip-shit, can't even pronounce my name.  Always calling me "JEPP".  Who the f*ck is Jepp?

Believe it or not!  I don't have that much of a problem communicating with the Filipino workers.  Granted I don't speak to the masses, but instead a few strategically placed folks.  The people I have a problem speaking to, are the people of the caucasian persuasion.  The older white guys who were born and raised right here in Canada, where English is their primary language, but you'd never know it because the order in which they speak certain words, totally confuses the f*ck out of me.

For example, this grey-haired guy flagged me down yesterday and kindly asked me if I'd pick up a heavy steel instrument from outside and bring it to his stall inside.  I gladly agreed, always eager to help, and asked where he was.  

"I'm right across from where they're building those great big tanks." he said.  I knew exactly the tanks to which he was referring and quickly picked up the tool with my fork lift and traveled down to the stall across from those giant tanks that were being built.  Once there, I asked the grey-haired fellow where he'd like it.  The man just stared at me and told me he didn't know what I was talking about.  

"You just asked me to bring this down to you, like two minutes ago."  As it turned out, it wasn't the same guy.  For some reason, in this general area, there's about three different old f*ckers, all with the same shitty haircut and all with same shitty salt-n-pepper 1970's porn mustaches, thus confusing the hell outta me.  Eventually, I found the guy, who didn't have the stall across from the big tanks being built, but was beside the giant tanks.  I tried to explain his error, "You said across, which would indicate that there was some sort of barrier that divided you from the tanks.  Like a river.  Or shrubbery.  A field or in this case, the roadway..."  My words were futile.  He just stared at me like I was speaking a foreign language.  What a dumb-ass.

Today, the same thing occurred.  There were some carts outside with shiny red painted parts on them.  This guy, who's name I'll change to protect innocent...  Let's call him DICK!  Come's up to me and asks, "When you have a spare moment, can you bring in those painted parts for me?"  I thought it odd, being he is a welder, but what the f*ck?  He apparently knows what he's talking about.  So I bring in the two carts of painted parts and park them in his stall.  About five minutes later, he storms up to me and demands I remove these painted parts.  "You don't put painted parts in a weld stall!" he said forcefully, to which I replied, "You told me..., 'When [I] had a moment, could I bring the painted parts in to you."  

"Well I meant to take them over to R___."  She's located on the far side of the west plant, in which I currently work in.  

"If you'd have said that, I would have, but YOU said 'bring them in to YOU'."  (In my world, when someone requests that something be brought to them, it literally means: Taking that item and bringing it to that person.  It does not mean: Taking [said] item and shuffle it off to whomever.

"Well I meant for you to take them to R___!" he repeated, adding more force to his tone.

"You should've said that then." I answered, unwilling to take any shit.

"You know what I meant."

"I can't read minds.  You should say what you mean." I quickly answered and leaving the matter at that.

My biggest frustration in life, is why it seems those who are to speak English most fluently, seem to f*ck it up the most?  Some days I just want to scream and pull my hair out when dealing with these dumb-ass people...

Perhaps it's my own fault, though.  Over the years, since leaving high school, I've tried to perfect my speech and use of the English language.  I've improved myself so much so, that a few years ago I was tested on my speech, reading comprehension and writing.  The result was scoring in the top twenty-one percentile for my age group.  Which was explained to me as my being "smarter" (that's debatable, I suppose) than 79% of the people in my age group.  I can't help but wonder, where I'd score in comparison to the age group of older grey-haired f*cks with 70's porn-style mustaches...?