Beer and Telemarketers

This past week I learned two very important ways to bridge interpersonal gaps: beer and telemarketers. Of course a large portion of my own belief system is based on the love and power of the former so this one was not a huge surprise. But the idea that telemarketers could bring people together seemed a little far fetched. Until this week.

So here's the story. For those of you that don't know I tutor two little Spanish darlings. They're a boy and a girl, five and seven years old respectively, and I tutor them in English one and a half hours twice a week. Although their parents speak English, they have strong Spanish accents and therefore their main concern for their kids is that they learn early and learn the proper pronunciation. From the best intentions... Needless to say it is very difficult to keep two kids engaged for 90 minutes at night while only speaking to them in a language they don't understand.

One day the little boy left the room for a minute and when his dad brought him back, he started sniffling and said in Spanish "But Papa I don't want to go back in there. I can't understand her. All she says is blah blah blah." Stern and well meaning their dad laid down the law and said that they were not allowed to speak unless it was in English or to ask me how to say something in English. Yeah, that went over well.

It's been over two months now and I think the kids are making really progress, but for a while there I was really concerned that the dad would fire me if his kids weren't speaking fluently by New Years. He just didn't seem to like me or the work that I was doing. So when he called me this week the day before my next tutoring session, I was sure he was going to can me. But instead he asked if I could help him with his English; he had an interview coming up and was out of practice. I said yes and feeling very stressed out about his expectations for the sessions, went to go tutor him.

The first day beer saved me. No, he didn't offer me a cold one and no, I wasn't wasted before I got there. We simply talked about his past work experience and it turns out that he used to work for a division of Coors here in Spain. Since I spent the last year working with reps from different beer distributors, we had a lot to talk about. And I was actually able to help him with the correct English terminology for the business.

On the second day I was only slightly nervous. I arrived at their apartment and listened to him talk about his past jobs and such. Despite the fact that he spoke fairly impeccably, I couldn't seem to get him to relax and the more flustered he got the more mistakes he made.

Cue the Telemarketer. In the middle of our session he got a phone call from Jazztel, a telephone company in Spain. After hanging up he came in and told me how much he hated those calls. Then I told him how my father did as well, but also liked to mess with the callers. I shared with him this typical conversation between my father and a telemarketer.

TM: Is Mr. or Mrs. Klambert home?

sidenote: Our last name is Klempert.

Dad:It's pronounced Klem-paire. We're French.

sidenote: We're not French.

TM: Hello, Mr. Klambert. My name is Karen and I'm called from (insert random company here). Do you have a few moments to talk about some of our exciting new offers?

Dad: Well the Dolphins game isn't on for another 15 mins so sure.

Then Karen will try and sell my dad something while he asks her what time it is in India, what the weather's like, her education, her life history. You know common telemarketer chit chat. His main goal is often to find out the callers real name, which of course they're forbidden to say. He's only managed it once.

This made the Spanish dad I work for bust a gut. Apparently he enjoys the similar games, when he has time. Most of their family accounts are in his wife's name so when they call and ask for Ana he'll say in a deep, raspy baritone, "Sí, soy Ana." Then he'll make up outrageous claims about his current long distance plan, like that they pay 3 euros a month for unlimited calls to anywhere in the universe. This leaves the Telemarketer with the awkward choice of calling him a liar or giving up the sale.

He was surprised that our calls come from India (the calls to Spain often come from Morocco and the callers claimed to be named Carlos or Juan) but it prompted a good bonding conversation. So I'd like to thank all the Karens and Carloses (Carli?) out there for possibly saving my job by choosing to have a universally annoying one.


K Learns Spanish: Lesson 10 


clases particlulares- tutoring sessions. 

crecer- to grow. As in La niña está creciendo a pesar de bebiendo mucho cafe. 

dejar- to leave (as in leave alone), to separate from or keep away from, to give up, to let (as in let the people get off the train before you get on the train). In general this word is pops up a lot and I always use it wrong. 

regla- rule. As in Para cada regla, hay una excepción. Incluyendo la regla de los bigotes.