I had to phone our would be new Internet service provider today just to confirm the time they're coming tomorrow as they sent me a text saying they'd be there in the morning whereas I arranged for them to come in the afternoon.
When switchboard answered the phone I was presented with a menu: press 1 for Luxemburgish, press 2 for German, press 3 for French or press 4 for English. Feeling a bit lazy, I opted for #4, English, so when the human operator actually answered the phone I started speaking English. The operator immediately asked me if I spoke French as she didn't feel able to handle the call in English! Is it just me or is it really a bit odd to offer people the option of speaking English and then when they ask for that option, you say to them “no, no, I can't do that!
@Paulos_the_fog I have worked in a multi language call centre. I have basic french but not enough to handle the content of the calls. On rare occasions I was put on the french lines if call volume was unexpectedly high. Instead of a customer not getting through at all I could offer a best effort with supporting english if a customer was ok with that. If not I passed the call back to the french team. This helped filter those edge cases out of the french teams que allowing customers who could only speak french a higher chance of getting support.
There was likely a decent reason (could have also been someone assigned to the wrong incoming que) it should not be a regular occurrence but could be a "best effort" measure.
@Bunkopirate
It used to amaze me in the part of Belgium where I lived which was Dutch/Flemish speaking, that to get a job as a supermarket checkout operator, you were expected to be able to speak Flemish (obviously), French, German and English all to conversational standard. Most were girls and young women not long out of school.
However, the one that really shook me the most was in a BBC radio broadcast about gay couples adopting children. They interviewed a couple from the Amsterdam in the Netherlands which is very broad minded about this sort of thing and this gay couple had adopted two mentally handicapped kids that no other adopters wanted. The BBC first interviewed the the couple then the kids who were 9 and 11 years old. They were interviewed in English and replied to the interviewer's questions in simple but perfect English. The idea that in England foreign-speak is too difficult to learn is astonishing when you realize that in the Netherlands, mentally handicapped kids are expected to learn English - AND THEY DO!
Kids, mentally handicapped or otherwise, achieve what people expect them to be capable of achieving. Low expectations; low achievements!
