A Receptionist Assumed A Malaysian Engineer Couldn’t Speak English, So He Played Along And Let Her Embarrass Herself
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Where I live, there are so many people from so many different parts of the world, that I pretty much assume everyone is an American and knows how to speak English no matter what they look like. They could be first generation, second generation or so on. It doesn’t really matter.
But in this story, one receptionist took one look at an Asian man and assumed he couldn’t speak English very well if at all.
She was wrong, terribly wrong. He could actually speak English very well.
Keep reading to find out how he reacts to her assumption.
Reception lady thinks my father doesn’t know English? He gives her what she expects.
This interesting encounter happened to my father some time in the mid 90s.
My family is Malaysian and my father worked as a civil engineer (and still is). He led his company’s Hydro department and was responsible for contracting supplies for his turbine project.
Looking for a supplier, a good college friend of his was the Managing Director of a turbine company based in Texas and he personally invited my dad to meet and survey some products at his company there for his upcoming hydro project.
OP’s dad spoke English very well.
Now the thing about my family (and most Malaysians in general) is that we are fluent in English (it’s our second language).
And with my dad studying engineering in Sunderland for 4 years, I could definitely say his English is way above others.
So, my father and some of his employees took the trip from Kuala Lumpur to Houston and the first thing they faced when entering the company’s lobby was this American lady at the reception. She looked at my father’s Asian complexion and condescendingly tried to take on a stereotypical Asian accent to “attempt to communicate” with him.
My dad’s coworkers behind him were all like “oh no she didn’t” and were embracing themselves for the inevitable comeback at this remark.
He decided to mess with her.
Then, my dad smugly decided to play along and conversed with her in “Asian-broken English” for roughly 15 minutes, just to mess with her.
Just as she was reaching her limit with him, the MD (her boss) came down to the lobby and enthusiastically greeted my dad from afar with “Yo ‘OP’s Dad’! You made it!”.
My dad dropped the Asian act and returned his greeting out loud in completely fluent English.
Confused and embarrassed, she became speechless and her face turned bright red in silence at the situation.
It didn’t work out well for the receptionist.
The MD invites my dad upstairs to his office for the meeting while my dad’s workers were holding in their laughter as they followed him to the upstairs for the meeting.
My dad later told his MD friend about the whole situation in the lobby and the MD profusely apologized for her behavior, but my dad was a good sport and had fun messing with her.
Later that month, my dad came back for another meeting and found out that the MD took no excuses from her and fired her that very same week for basically insulting their foreign customers.
Wow! It sounds like he had fun messing with her. I bet she didn’t expect to lose her job. Was that going too far or well deserved?
Let’s see how Reddit responded.
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Someone who speaks Spanish and English weighs in.
Another person loved the story.
This person is impressed with Malaysian people.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a fast food employee who shuts down a customer angry about her change with a single word.
Another person shares the boss’s point of view.
The receptionist really messed up. She was incredibly rude. I’m sure she later regretted her actions. It sounds like she was really embarrassed when she realized he could actually speak English really well.
Don’t judge a book by its cover.
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