Straddling the language barrier

It's always an adventure working in a call center and getting to talk with folks from many lands. Even a land as far removed from Texas as, say, Pennsylvania offers fun communication challenges for the dedicated customer service worker.

Take the customer I talked to today who, upon being asked what her middle initial was, rudely replied, "Why?" I wasn't sure quite how to respond to that, so I simply asked again what her middle initial was. Again she said, "Why?" After my moment of silence she realized what was going on and said, "Y like Yolanda."

Duh.

And then there was the Hispanic gentleman just trying to give me his name but he kept using unintelligible words to indicate what letter he was calling out. "What is your middle initial?" I asked. "P," he said. "B?" I asked? "P," he said. "P as in Peter." "B as in beeper?" "No, P as in Peter." "B?" "No, P." "Okay, P." Which, as it turns out, is the family middle initial. Only one of the five drivers had a middle initial other than P. Thank god I got it sorted out ok.