When you work for someone whose first language is not the same as yours, there can be a language barrier that can cause some issues.

What would you do if you went to a customer to return some money and they were so happy that they called your boss to compliment you, but your boss misunderstood the call and got upset with you because they thought it was a complaint?

That is what happened to the worker in this story, so he tried to argue what really happened, but teh boss fired him anyway.

How a cultural misunderstanding/language barrier got me fired for doing a good deed.

So, before I worked at my current Chinese restaurant, I worked at a different one close by but only for a month or two.

Some customers make things harder than they need to be.

So, I got this delivery where it was like a 9-and-something-change dollar order, and the guy gave me a 50 for whatever reason, and he kept changing his mind as to how much change he wanted back.

Basically it was a mess and I came away with an 8 dollar tip without noticing until I got back to the store.

I can see how this could happen.

Because I was mixing up my change money with the delivery money it just went by me, until I gave the money back to my boss and realized I ripped this guy off for like 5 bucks.

I felt really bad, and it was the last delivery of the night before I got off, so I figured I’d do the right thing and go back and right ship. His house was right around the corner from our store so I figured, why not?

Well, this worked out well.

So, I get there and his wife/GF opens the door, and I explain that I did the math wrong and tried to give her the 5 back.

She declined and insisted I kept it for being honest and going out of my way to come back.

She really appreciated the effort.

She kept saying how nice that was and that I shouldn’t have done that, and that she was going to call my place and tell them what a great driver I was for doing something like that. So, I go home feeling pretty good, ya know?

Well, I come in the next day and my bosses call me over and I can tell they’re mad about something.

Wait, what?

They told me that a customer called and “complained” about me. Now a little background, my bosses were Chinese immigrants, full accents and everything.

It was really hard explaining things to them because of the language barrier.

No, they got it all wrong.

They were somehow under the impression that I went back to the house, demanded a tip and left.

When the woman said “oh he shouldn’t have come back!” you know, just social protocol for a nice deed, they took it literally as “why the heck did he come back here?!?”

This is just the worst luck.

I tried explaining that I messed up the order but they weren’t having it, and that there’s no way the woman complained.

We got into a bit of an argument and I got fired because of it.

Honestly, I’d be pretty mad about this.

So, I got fired for admitting I was wrong and doing a good deed.

This is really funny, but if it happened to me, I’d be very mad.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a customer complaint that led to them losing their VIP status.

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about this odd story.

Yes, this is ideal.

It must be a difficult working environment.

This person has worked for people like this before.

I would report them to the proper agencies.

This might help.

This is a very frustrating situation.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an IT worker who logged on early to fix something simple, and discovered a system-wide cyber attack instead.