“English please, there will be clients going around.”
Hay naku, ganyan ang buhay call center. Kung anu-anong chorva at ka-eklatan talaga. Alam mo ba na minsan nga may raket pa silang magbabayad ka ng limang piso sa bawat salitang Tagalog na sasabihin mo? Kahit pababa ka na ng elevator kailangan English pa din! Grabe, gusto ko tumambling at mag-split.
Eh pano ka naman kasi di mapakaling mag-Tagalog kung wala ka nang ginawa kundi magsalita ng English. Sa totoo lang, minsan sa kaka-English mo eh nauubusan ka na ng masasabi. Pramis. Sabaw ang utak mo lalo na kung pang-gabi ka. Lalo na yan, kakaumpisa ng buwan, uulan nanaman ako ng mga report ng mga agents ko nung nakaraang buwan.
Leche! Dumudugo na ilong ko mag-English-English. Kung hindi Onaks eh mga taga-Inglaterra ang mga kausap ko. Nasa Pilipinas ako kaya kung gusto ko mag-Tagalog, mag-Ta-Tagalog ako!
Buti na lang Bayanihan Bloggers Network ito. Sabi ko nga eh. Proud Pinoy ay lola mo!
Yeba! 
Approximate fine for this entry: PhP 750.00 (US$15.97)
(Editor’s Note: Read on to see the English translation)
“English please, there will be clients going around.”
That’s how life really is in a call center. To keep you talking in English (for the sake of the clients of course), they come up with really weird schemes. Can you imagine, for every Tagalog (my native language) word uttered, I get charged 5 pesos? This rule even applies inside the elevator! It makes me wanna flip and land into a split.
I’m going crazy because sometimes you can’t help but talk in Tagalog when you spend the whole day talking in English. Truth be told, I’m actually running out of English words to say. Cross my heart and hope to die. My mind is mush, especially in the evenings. And it’s even worse at the beginning of the month, when I have to go through my agents’ reports. Which of course are in English.
(Expletive that implies self-entertainment deleted)! My nose is bleeding from speaking so much English! It’s already hard spending the whole day talking to Americans, and don’t you ever get me started on the British! I’m here in the Philippines and if I want to speak in Tagalog, I’ll speak in Tagalog!
Good thing we have The Bayanihan Blog Network. It lets me be proud to be Pinoy!
Yeah!
Approximate fine for this entry: PhP 750.00 (US$15.97)
11 Responses to “English Only Policy”
Shucks, even in problogging EOP still haunts me. However, the translation is really funny so I don’t mind at all!
Beejing: All the call center’s I’ve been in are like that. Is it the same is Cebu? Say one word in Cebuano and you get charged?
YEAH. YEAH. They’re one and the same. Been Center Hopping too and I’m tired of the Old Rule : English Only Policy. I even mocked EOP before, with one of the centers, as “English Only Pare” Wah! I got memo for that, wah!
LJ: I only translated it so that non-Tagalog speakers would understand what you’re’ going through.
I know. And what a fabulous translation indeed! I’m impressed.
Nice translation. Wah!
well, it’s all part of the trade i guess. but paying five pesos per Tagalog word is kind of prohibitive. P750 for your entry? sighs.
I think I remember something like that done during my highschool, to encourage (or force?) us, students, to use English as main language. Not throughout the day, of course. Only during classes in which English was language used as medium for teaching. So that’s about 70-80% of class hours for the day. Hehe.
Liz: Since I failed to mention it in my entry, the money usually goes to the team building fund which means that the money collected will be returned in a form of food and drinks.
Prohibitive, yes. But it works!
Prudence: That’s so true! But in my high school they still encouraged us to speak in English during recess. But I remember the HS EOP only lasted for a short period of time because my teachers kept on speaking in Bisaya.
Oh poor thing !!! I can understand your frustrations. Have to speak english all day! However, please think of it this way: You are talking to american customer and you suddenly slip ? ( you drop a word in tagalog ?) hmnnn I have been living here in Australia for 20 years, and from time to time , I say something in tagalog.The look on their faces ??? priceless !!! they are in awe lol.By the way it pays to speak english its a good practice so long as you dont have a welsh customer you all will be fine.
Oh, and did not know about it. Thanks for the information …
Leave a Reply