i MUST preface this email...and it's not one of those prefaces likened to: i'm not racist, a friend of mine is black. this is legit.

Preface: (many of you who read this blog know this is true) i attended a university that was REALLY serious about raising cultural sensitivity and awareness in their students. i cannot tell you how many hours i've spent in a classroom and in the "real world" (as a professional) being and learning about being "culturally aware and sensitive".

this is why it pains me to be SOOO irritated when i call airline reservations and credit card companies and banks only to be connected to someone who is clearly in another country (more on this in a second) and clearly speaks semi-okay English. when i was rearranging my crazy flights a few weeks ago, the (kind, but not so good at speaking the English language) person on the other end kept naming off flight times for times that had already passed (clearly in another time zone). this was ultra irritating, but no one's fault.

the thing that gets me is that these are just people doing a job, trying to pay the bills; i feel empathetic towards the personal situations of these people and that's why i try to be patient. but i get so pissed at these multi-billion dollar companies for shipping jobs overseas and thus all of this language difficulty resulting. i will say that comparatively speaking, i feel like a pretty kind person, and i sometimes cannot imagine what it would be like to be fielding these calls from big jerks who probably yell and curse to "put someone on the phone who speaks better English!!!!" - i can only imagine; i guess people have a right to feel like they have been understood and helped, no? it's just really frustrating to spend time on a phone to settle something with a company, and when you hang up you think "did the RIGHT thing just happen....or not - i'm NOT sure". it's just one of those situations (sort of like gas prices) that makes me feel helpless.