Ok folks, time for a soapbox stand - I have a gripe. I am all in favor of multi-cultural diversity. I love the ethnic variety of CA. I support people to celebrate and maintain their heritage. I think raising bilingual children is a superb idea. That being said, there is a time and place for this and the work environment is not either one.
I have a coworker who speaks another language as his native tongue. He shares this language with yet another coworker. The issue comes in when they have long, involved cubicle discussions in that language. If it was a personal discussion, I probably wouldn't say anything - after all, we have the right to talk to our friends in any language we choose. However, these conversations (a half-dozen a day) are all about work topics. It is easy to tell as there are some words that work best in English (technical, database terms). By excluding everyone else around them, they lose any chance that someone else might have some input that would help resolve the issue they are discussing. Additionally, they hide those issues from the rest of the team who might benefit from knowing more about the topic under discussion.
You work in America at an English speaking company - put your language skills into practice please.
1 comment:
At my work, you are not "allowed" to discuss work in another language - work shall only be discussed in English.
Personal conversations can be held in a different language - but not work topics.
One policy that I actually agree with.
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