Would you be offended if someone described you by your nationality? If they didn’t know your name and were talking to your boss, would you find it rude if they used your nationality as a way of helping your boss know who they’re talking about?

In this story, a husband and wife disagree about this exact issue. The husband was talking to the owner of a construction company, and he used the nationality of the construction workers as a way of describing them. His wife thinks that was a really bad thing to do. Now, he’s not so sure.

Keep reading for all the details.

AITAH Referred to construction workers by their nationality

I am having my kitchen and dining room redone as part of a home renovation. At the start of the project the contracting company sent two men to do the initial demolition work and get the project started.

After having met both of them, I learned that they did not speak English, but rather Russian and Ukrainian, so they were not easy to communicate with.

After the demo work was completed, the two workers attempted to continue the renovation, drilling multiple holes in beams to rout plumbing, installing tacky board on which tile would be mounted and other items to move the project forward.

Then another crew took over.

A week later a different crew was brought in and I realized the work these two did after the demo stage was now being redone, as whatever they were doing was incorrect.

They also did took down a load-bearing wall and did not install any temporary framing for weeks, until a city inspector came by and let them and me know that they need to put up temporary framing to avoid the second story from collapsing.

It was like they thought they could follow the blueprints like Lego instructions and were not qualified to proceed with the steps they embarked on.

That was just about the last time I saw either of them working on the project.

And everything was fine without the temp framing, but it could have been a disaster.

This does seem like a nice gesture.

Fast forward 2 months and the owner of the company reaches out to set up a call to get my feedback on the overall project, problems we’ve had, what can be improved, etc.

I appreciated the gesture from a customer service standpoint.

During the call I mentioned that I was not happy about “the work the two Russian or Ukrainian guys did that was then redone because it seems like they sent two people to my house that didn’t know what they were doing.”

His wife thinks he messed up.

I relayed the conversation to my wife and she told me it was unprofessional and not appropriate to refer to them that way. And had it been a problem at my own workplace, would I have referred to someone by their nationality (eg the German or the Indian person or wherever they are from. I work at a multinational corporation with employees all over the world).

I agree with her on that point, but I also would have access to everyone’s name through the work email directory, so I would not do that at work.

I think she is concerned with the company thinking we are judgemental white people, but I did not use their nationality as a derogatory label, but as the best way I had to identify them. I could have also said the guy with the ponytail or the guy with the beard, but who I was referring to would not have been as clear.

So AITAH? Is it inappropriate to refer to someone by their nationality?

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a homeowner who responded to an HOA violation letter by investigating the bylaws and having the whole board removed.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This person thinks he didn’t do anything wrong.

Another person shares another way he could’ve described them.

It really could’ve ended badly.

This person thinks his wife overreacted.

Another person thinks it’s a valid way of describing someone.

Nobody thinks he did anything wrong. All he did was describe them.

But enough about that. The real problem here is that the guys clearly didn’t know what they were doing. Let’s just be glad the second floor didn’t cave in! There are much bigger problems here than how he chose to describe the construction workers!

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman who volunteered to help promote a church event for free, then was surprised to find she had to still pay admission to get in.