If you only speak English but your coworkers also speak Spanish, how would you react if your coworkers were speaking Spanish when you were in the room? Would you think it was no big deal and mind your own business, or would you jump to conclusions and assume they’re talking about you?

In today’s story, one hospital employee thinks her coworkers are talking about her in Spanish, and the situation escalates pretty quickly.

Let’s see what happens.

English only workplace? Enjoy culture sensitivity training

I work at a public hospital where a large portion of our patient population speaks Spanish.

A few weeks back, I overhear 4 coworkers complaining that Spanish shouldn’t be allowed at work because it’s “unprofessional.”

Here’s why they were complaining.

Context: this started because some Spanish-speaking employees were speaking Spanish in front of a non-Spanish speaker. The non-Spanish speaker thought they were talking about her (spoiler: they weren’t).

This offended coworker quits because she claims she was being bullied by the 2 who routinely speak in Spanish to each other. She was one of the most dramatic people I’ve ever met, so good riddance.

But the 4 are discussing how they think she was bullied out of her job and that Spanish shouldn’t be allowed to be spoken at our job unless it’s to speak with patients. Otherwise only English should be spoken,“they had to be able to speak English to get this job so that’s what they should speak since it’s the language everyone understands”.

OP stood up for employees who want to speak Spanish at work.

As someone who grew up in a home where 2 languages were spoken, I obviously took issue with this.

I asked, “How do you know they were talking about her? Do you speak Spanish?”

They don’t, they said “you could just tell they were talking about her”

I said “how could you tell if you don’t speak Spanish?”. I told them they need to mind their own business or learn Spanish, you don’t get to dictate whether someone speaks in their native language or not.

They didn’t back down.

That didn’t go over well, and they got very defensive.

They doubled down on their stance and told me I was getting “too heated to talk to” (I had raised my voice slightly because they kept repeating “if they can speak English they should speak English, it’s not that deep”)

Time to take it to HR.

I’d had enough at this point.

Over my lunch break I went to my car and wrote a detailed email to HR and my direct supervisor.

Now they all have to complete cultural sensitivity training in order to keep their jobs.

There’s no way to know what someone is talking about if you don’t speak the language.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

Here’s the perspective of someone who speaks three languages.

It can be very helpful to understand more than one language.

This person appreciates when someone tries to speak English even if they don’t speak it very well.

Maybe this is why the women were so paranoid.

This person doesn’t mind when coworkers speak Spanish.

Those ladies were way too paranoid!

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.