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Ordering tacos in America
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10,000 ways to build indigestion!
America is a melting pot. I get it. Everyone should appreciate the culture of others. I get that too. So does everyone else. I live in Scottsdale, Arizona, which is a longitudinally-sprawling suburb east of Phoenix. It doesn't matter where I live, so scratch that. I live in America, and to work in America in the service industry, you should be required to at least understand your job and interacting with customers in their native tongue. The native tongue being English. You might see where I'm going with this.
This is an increasingly multi-cultural society that we all take part in, and I don't care how many 'illegal immigrants' or 'undocumented workers' live here. I just don't. Life is too short to worry about things you personally can't control. Unless you're Sheriff Joe, that is. Folks, he’s the subject of another rant for another time. I don't care how many people live here that speak Spanish. Let me make that more clear. I DO NOT CARE. All angry-looking caps, how about that? Good. That point is clear, so the three of you who may mistake what I'm saying can't call me a "hater" or some name-calling cleverness like that. Speak Spanish, speak Ukrainian, speak Aramaic or perfect Latin for all anyone cares.
But when I walk into a restaurant or check into a hotel in this country, I want to converse in my native tongue with the employees who work there. It's English by the way, if I haven't made my point clearly. Truth be told, it's not really "English" English. It's a post-millennial American southwestern dialect of English. It's close enough. A king-sized bed is still a king-sized bed and a steak is juicy, succulent steak. Has been, always will be. Until they convert everything over to the metric system and turn us all into vegans, that is.
Here is a case in point. I walk into a Chipotle the other day. In America. Chipotle specializes in being a odd mish-mash of Tex-Mex, Subway, and McDonald's. I like it. They have good food, and saying this is far from my point. Multiple digressions aside, I’m there and I get to the front of the line. I clearly ask the nice lady who would probably rather be at home with her kids on a Sunday night than take orders from a Scottsdale denizen in a Dunder-Mifflin T-shirt and sandals for three soft tacos with extra steak. The extra steak does it for me, it does. I'm a red-blooded Scottsdale denizen, if that fact hasn't been made abundantly clear.
She takes three soft tortillas and warms them up, and she asks me something that sounds like, "for here or to go". I say, "Oh yes, it's to go". I'm not going to sit in a Chipotle by myself and munch down on the tasty deliciousness that I have ordered. I never really dug doing that. Just like how going to a movie theater by yourself is weird. It makes you feel like an even bigger weirdo. I mean, hell, I've done it, sure. Back when I was a movie critic in college, I did it a few times. It made me feel like a loser. So I always make it a habit to correctly entice the person or people that come with me to go see a movie, especially if it’s a movie I know that only someone like me would love.
The lady who's about to create my steak tacos has them ready. She confirms I want steak, and I say "yes, ma'am." She paused and stared at me like I just broke wind in the worst way. Much like how people do about 45 minutes after eating Chipotle. I didn't, so I gawked back at her. "Yes, I would like steak. Extra steak with that." More staring from her. "You would like steak with that?" she asks. I say, "Yes, that is correct." Then she proceeds to reach a large service spoon into the chicken tray, ready to add it to my original first serving of steak. This is not correct, so I blurt out something that sounds like, "Oh no, hold on a waiting minute," or some such expert marbles-in-my-mouth word salad, and she freezes in her taco-making tracks. Hands, arms, facial expression...all frozen. It was very close to art, and may well have been if certain logistics had worked out.
Nowhere since I walked in the door was there any mention of chicken. It wasn’t a chicken kind of night. For all I could have cared at the time, chicken as an entree could not exist and happiness would still reign. I wanted steak and only steak, and extra steak at that, and that's what it was going to walk out of Chipotle with. I took a ten-second pause after what I said to her, and then I said, "All I want is to have double the steak." She understood that. Most likely because "double" in Spanish is "doble", which are pretty darn close in speech and spelling. The next thing I would have said to her is, "Quiero carnes dobles, pronto!"...but luckily, it didn't have to come to that. She then passed off the three tacos with extra steak to her associate. Her associate understood what lettuce and cheese was just fine, fantastic. The tacos were completed! I sighed mildly at what I shouldn't be sighing at whatsoever.
I roll up to the cashier. The cashier tonight is actually the manager of the Chipotle franchise. The stereotypical mid-20s almost-done-with-college manager, good for him. I imagine that he and his staff have many good relationship-building conversations on politics and religion and life in general. Yeah, I just bet they do. He rings me up and I also ask for a bag of their magnificent lime salt tortilla chips. Since he had watched the whole transaction from start to finish, he tossed them in the bag and told me they were on the house. In retrospect, this was good of him to do in a hospitable way...but, at the same time, it was also insulting to his subordinate who was watching me pay for my food. It's insulting because it probably completely wrecked her confidence for doing her job. Yeah, there was a language barrier issue, but it was classless of him to do it right in front of her. This is one of those things where he should have thrown a coupon in the bag or pulled me aside and we could have talked about it. I didn't want anything from this. I'm not an idiot. I realize the job requirements and social capabilities of the people who work at the Chipotle Taco & Burrito Assembly Line. It was just a poor managerial move. One that I hope he doesn't continue. That is not the point though.
It was lame, and an easy out for him. I get it that service jobs in the "kind-of-fast-food" industry are only going to be staffed by those who can't get a better job because of whatever reason. What Chipotle should do is really look at their numbers of how much they comp and give away and compare that with the amount of training it would take for a predominantly Spanish-speaking to learn the basics of their menu and English communication directly related to their job. Objectively speaking, I believe it would be less than what it costs just to throw free swag to customers. This is an unnecessary side point to make, but I guarantee you that this is a common practice of restaurants and hotels to do so just because of this issue. Coming from a hospitality background myself, this is just one of those things that is a true fact.
Grabbing the brown paper bag full of dinner, I left the restaurant. I sauntered back to my beat-up SUV with the desired tacos in hand. It is easy to think of yourself to have all the answers, because believing that gives you solace. Every person in elected office feels this jubilation, because they’re so confident that they’re always right and their close inner-circle agrees with them. I don’t think I’m always right, but there are methods that can be applied to potentially correct any issues that may arise. Just like how after they should fix Chipotle to not cause the effects that Chinese food does. It goes down so well, and then a short amount of time goes by…and you want seconds. Good thing they stay open until 10pm.
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©2009 Andrew Flynn & OHPF Productions, Inc.
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