I load trucks for a living. I make decent money but I'm not getting rich, just getting by. I deal with a LOT of truck drivers. Most of them are pretty decent people. I really don't have much trouble with spanish speaking drivers, mostly french canadians that expect me to speak french. I don't.

I have very little tolerance for drivers who are either brain dead (point at a dock and say "back in there" and he drives off to where ever) or just want to play mind games. We are timed. If we take too long to load a truck, we get to visit the office. I had one a while back that woiuldn't even try to speak english. Alas, I was in one of my moods. I started babbering in german. To someone who speaks it, it would be nonsense. However, after I went on for a few minutes, he looked me straight in the eye and in perfect, unaccented english said "I cannot understand a word you said".

 

That is sweet.

While I was reading this, I was having visions of spraying someone with a very little bit of OC spray, and then asking them if they would like another... man, when I got sprayed with that stuff, I would have spoken Latin if you could make the pain go away...

 

Unfortunately its not going to get better. I finally resigned myself to having to learn Spanish but its going slow.
My first time I spoke in a language that is not allowed on this site. Also, I would have stuck my head in a toilet to wash that stuff out. Taze me don’t spray me!.

 

I thought it was rather tangy actually. Reminded me of a properly made cuppa coffee!

I don't know any languages other than English. If I was going to go to another country, then I'd learn their language even if for a very short visit. I may not become fluent but they'd at least know what I was trying to talk about. And that's the way it should be here. Learn my language or go talk to someone else.

 

Man, you can pull a gun on me, tazer, Rin Tin Tin, I'll think about fighting you. OC spray? You better not put that bottle away, I'll kill you...

I've got two thousand dollars that says you'll scream like a woman and run in place/circles...
I did the same while I was in Japan.

 

Ok, I'll admit it. I don't think it was OC spray. I don't think we HAD it back in the 80's/90's when I was copping. I've even forgotten what it was actually called now.

 

I use the cue ball philosophy.
The harder you hit'em, the more english you get out of them.

 

Us has spanish, Can has frenchmen{frogs} who can speak english but refuse to because it is an offical langrage.

 

You probably got CS gas in gas mask training and Mace for your qualifications (both are worse than OC in my opinion). CS can really goof up your lungs (feels like little shards of glass). Mace was like CS but seemed to affect the eyes nose and throat a little worse (IMO). I would rather get Pepper Sprayed than get hit with CS or Mace.
LoL, never heard that one before.

 

I've started speaking Japanese just to mess with folks.

Ego ga wakarimasu ka? Dame!

 

Mace. That's the one.

 

It's All Greek to Me.
Than there is the other kind of mace that could be used for teaching English.

 

Then you did not get the same OC I got.

I don't really need a mask in the CS chamber anymore. I've been maced before, but I fight through it very well.

The OC spray we were sprayed with was an oil based OC, and I was told by the instructors that it was twice as strong as the law enforcement type. I was convinced, I've been sprayed by cops before, and it was not this bad at all...

Here is the SHU scale, maybe it'll give you an idea...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoville_Heat_Unit


Grouch, sorry I hijacked the heck out of your thread. I'll hush now.

 

That's what we had to do. We were maced, then had to apply cuffs to a resisting adversary. I did it, but neither one of us was pleased when I was finished.

 

My experience with languages in my own country really disappoints me.
I was going out to Quebec to buy a car. I flew from Regina to Montreal/Dorval.
I took french in school for several years.
I went to get a room at the Holiday Inn. I was waiting in line at the front desk...and I could hear this lady speaking perfect English and laughing, then speaking in French and laughing with a guest she was checking in. When it was my turn I asked to get a room in English...very politely. She SCOWLED at me and looked past me and in french tells the guy behind me that since I cannot speak French, she will serve him.

So I turned around to her and I said..."je parle francais tre bien" I hope I spelled that correctly...what I said was I speak French very well.

Then I told her to Fou..... and went across the street to the Rodeway Inn where the gentleman that spoke French understood my not so perfect French and says..."Ahhhhh you come from across the road oui? We can speak English here too."

It was an encounter that has left me with a bitter feeling towards that kind of ignorance.

However, when I got to my destination of Sherbrooke PQ I was greeted with kindness and the folks there barely spoke any English but we all made an effort to communicate and it turned out to be fun.