pardon my french

I'm dealing with a customer group right now that has decided to only speak french, even though I'm pretty sure everyone in the group speaks english. I will readily admit here that not speaking another language is a huge failing of mine. But, if you hire an english speaking consultant, what language do you THINK they are going to speak?

That made for an interesting day yesterday. I was creating models in french as they spelled words for me (I was like what fucking letter is "vu"?????). The day went slowly because the customer was being...shall we say...shy about sharing information.

So today I decided to speak french to them. No, I don't know french. I just made shit up. I was trying to capture a business function for training, so I called it "le traineur". I greeted them with "bon jer!" every time they came into the room. I said it when they were leaving too because I don't know how to say good bye.

Weirdly, that seemed to have a positive effect. In most countries where I've worked the locals look at me like "oh shut up" when I try to speak their language. These people look at me in equal parts confused about what I'm trying to say, horrified by my pronunciation, and yet amused at how much of an idiot I am. I think to them listening to me speak french is like watching a bunch of retards play soccer (that wasn't politically correct, but if that's what you're looking for you're reading the wrong blog). Also, they are speaking english to me now, I guess because they realize I'm not going to judge them on their skills (or lack thereof).

And somehow, chalk it up to 5 years of latin, I'm starting to learn french words. I can translate about 70% of the written content I'm using without having to ask what words mean.

Though, I can't understand a damn thing they are saying to me. It took me almost the entire afternoon to figure out "vu ase beh" is how they refer to a USB drive. Just say it really fast. Then tell me you could have figured it out more quickly.