bwisegardening

Cultivating a Culture of Gardening™

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Multi-cultural Communications




I have an incredible staff. My right hand gal, Yelena Petruk, is creative and hardworking; Luis and Armondo are as obsessive as I am about bed prep and layout, and they make sure that the rest of the guys work as hard as they do. But having an international staff has led to some interesting communications. Yelena is from the Ukraine, Luis and Armondo and crew are from Mexico, and my husband - the airline pilot - flies all over the world. Ok, the last part doesn't actually count for me having an international staff but thought it makes me sound a little more multi-cultural. Here's an example yesterday of the often funny misunderstandings that occur between my deep southern accent, Yelena's Russian accent, and Latino broken English:

We had just finished putting up Christmas decoration at one of the developments I work in and Yelena, Luis, and I were standing back to inspect all the work. Yelena says, "Du zu lock de door?". Luis, "Do I need to lock door?" Me, "The door locks by itself at 8 tonight." Yelena looks at me perturbed, "No, du - zu - lock - de - door?" Luis, "I go lock attic door." Me, "Remember, I locked the attic when we were finished putting all the boxes away." Yelena, now really giving me a disgusted look, points to the front door, "Du zu lock (like) how I decorated de front door?" Finally getting her question, and after I stopped laughing and explained to a still bewildered Luis who was worried that he'd forgotten to lock something, I told Yelena that I really did LIKE the door. Check out her handy-work and let me know how you "lock de door"!

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