Most French people assume that most English don’t speak any French… which is true to a fair extent.

My father and I went into a pub in England. In there were two Frenchmen, chatting away. As well, there was a young woman serving at the bar, plus another two men at another table — seven people in all. The two Frenchmen were well-heeled, yuppyish, I guess up-and-coming managers in finance or consultancy. Actually, it was unusual to see French people in this pub; although it was a popular tourist town, this wasn’t London, and it was in an obscure part of town that many locals didn’t really know. So French people would not reasonably expect to encounter other French speakers.

I’m afraid to say I took a dislike to them — not because they were French but because they were obnoxious. As well as looking and sounding like they’d been drinking for a few hours, they would also make occasional disparaging remarks about the décor (okay, it could’ve been better), “les Anglais”, my father’s hat, etc., all while looking down their noses at us and the two men on the other table.

Although my father and I both speak some French, we just ignored them, getting on with our own chat and beer. The barperson came round the pub to pick up empties, etc. Then, she stood on the bar footrail, leaning over to reach something behind the bar. 

One of the Frenchmen, watching her bend over, exclaimed in French something very crude.

The barperson froze. My father and I froze, too, staring at the two Frenchmen. Also, the other two people stopped talking and stared. The barperson righted herself and walked back behind the bar.

The [Barperson] said something under her breath, clearly in French, maybe street French, but I didn’t quite understand.

The Frenchmen clearly understood, and I’m sure they noticed the atmosphere had changed, but they pretended not to notice and continued with their beers.

One of the men at the other table spoke up in fluent French, “So, which part of Paris are you from?”

The man’s partner, asked, also in French, “Le [Redacted]ième?” (A rough part of Paris.)

This seemed to catch the Frenchmen unawares. One of them started to reply in English, then switched to French, and he seemed about to say where they were from, but he stopped. Then, they quickly finished their pints and slid out.

So, all seven people in this obscure English pub could speak French.

I’m sat at my desk whilst a coworker is sat a few desks away and her manager is walking toward the nearby printer.

Coworker: “Whilst you’re over there, can you grab me [document]?”

Manager: “F****** h***, what did your last servant die of?”

Coworker: “She was killed by the printer, so be careful.”

I’m teaching a physics lesson about gravity:

Student: “What country is in the centre of the earth?”

I am from an EU country and recently moved to the UK to work in a highly specialized job in the civil service. After living with a friend for a few months, I finally decide to get my own place and get in touch with a few local rental agencies. Some blow me off as soon as they realize I’m not British, but I manage to secure a cute terraced house just for myself.

The landlady is a woman who manages the house for her son who is living in Australia, and she informs me that she only uses the agency to find new tenants; all day-to-day stuff is handled by her. Shortly after I move in and pay the deposit and first month’s rent, I receive a call from a woman at the rental agency with a hostile attitude from the start.

Rental Agent: “It’s your first month and you’re already behind on your rent! If you don’t pay today, we will terminate your contract!”

Me: “Of course, I paid my rent, along with the deposit. Perhaps there is some confusion. I pay directly to the landlady, not to the agency.”

Rental Agent: “This is not true! By god, it’s always the same with you lot. You are just so stupid! You pay the rent to us!”

Me: “Can you please check what is written in my contract? Because you are definitely wrong.”

Rental Agent: “Okay, I will check it. But if you lied, you will be out on the street by the end of the week!”

Of course, I never heard back, because I did everything right. My landlady later came by with some flowers to welcome me to my new home. When I related the call to her, she got very angry and put in a call to the agency, saying that they were not allowed to treat her tenants like that.

I spent a lovely three years in that house until I decided to take a new position in a different European country after the Brexit referendum.

In early 2016, I quit a dead-end job in a call center and was looking for new pastures or at least a way to pay my bills. A certain company was recruiting for a sales team, and I figured I’d give it a go. I mean, if nothing else, a year and a half in customer service had sure fine-polished my gift of the gab.

The interview went fine — so much so that they excused me for ten minutes and then invited me back in to offer me the position. In retrospect, that should’ve been my first warning sign — who hires someone based on a fifteen-minute chinwag and ten minutes of deliberation? But oh, well.

I showed up on my first day for the contract signing, and it was then revealed that we’d be working on commission only. This should’ve been my second warning sign because if I don’t make any sales on a certain day, I don’t eat that day.

We then went off to a morning meeting in what they called “the Atmosphere Room”. This meeting consisted of everybody pairing up in twos and practicing the (near-identical) sales pitch on each other — with a boombox blasting loud dance music at the same time. According to the trainers, this was to “motivate us to talk loudly and confidently”. I was a bit skeptical, but I didn’t want to be “that guy,” so I played along nicely.

Then, we actually got off to work. It turned out we’d be doing “campaigns in residential areas” — which I quickly learnt was door-to-dooring — so as to recruit benefactors for a cancer fund/research organisation. “Commendable purpose, if nothing else,” I thought to myself. But I soon wised up.

For starters, said organisation had no operations in Northern Ireland (NI), so that alone made it tough to tickle anyone’s interest. Moreover, NI already had a variety of local organisations and hospices doing an amazing job. Lastly, I was no sales expert, but even I knew that knowing your demographic group is key. I also knew that NI was still shaky and divided despite the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, and saying the wrong word at the wrong place at the wrong time could still get you into a heap of trouble.

With that in mind, it’d make sense to focus only on Protestant/Unionist areas, right? Nope. We’d be sent off to random neighbourhoods with no regard for sectarian division. Now, imagine walking into a staunch Catholic/Republican area, asking people to donate to a London-based English organisation that doesn’t even operate in NI. In retrospect, I believe it was only my non-Irish/non-Ulster accent that saved me from major carnage. (“Ach, some weird Caneedien or Austreelien… Lad don’t kno’ any bettur!”)

The trainers kept telling us that for every thirty doors knocked, we’d be invited into thre homes, and out of those three we’d perhaps make one sale — in plain English, a conversion rate of 3%. We shouldn’t be discouraged but instead be more assertive and positive. We were expected to cover 100 to 150 households during one ten-hour day in the field, while keeping a tally of the number of houses visited, doors answered, invitations inside, and sales closed. After we’d visited the last house, we were to return to point of origin and revisit all houses that hadn’t answered the door the first time. After Round Two, it was lunch — which, by the way, wasn’t company-paid, so everyone had to find something on their own. With a very limited selection of shops and food outlets in no man’s land, it always ended up being overpriced fast food. On average, I’d spend £4 to £5 on lunch each working day. And unless one of the trainers would take us in their car to our respective patches that day, bus tickets were, too, funded by us. A day ticket in Belfast was £4 back then if memory serves.

At the office itself, things were getting more and more ludicrous. We were not allowed to drink beverages of any sort in the “Atmosphere Room”, and we weren’t allowed to go near the reception area if there were visitors in the waiting area. (They probably didn’t want us to warn inadvertently any “new fish” about this whole madhouse.)

On my fourth day, I started crunching some serious numbers. If, best-case scenario, I’d close a deal with 3% of the households visited, and each sale gave a commission of £2, I’d have to knock on 200 doors a day just to cover lunch and bus tickets that day! Never mind rent and utilities that whole month! There are only so many residential areas in NI! 

The drop that finally tipped the scale, though, was when I’d just returned to the office one evening. The dress code mandated trousers and a dress shirt, and as it’d been a fairly warm summer’s day, I was beat and rather dehydrated. Toilet facilities were scarce in the field, so everyone tried to limit their fluid intake.

As I still had a soda left in my backpack, I helped myself to it. One of the trainers walked by, and I jovially raised the can in a sort of toast. She flipped! What was I doing here? I wasn’t supposed to be out here drinking soda, but instead, I should be in “Atmosphere” to deliver the final tallies! I was like, “Gee, hold yer horses; I only got just in like thirty seconds ago!”, but she’d have none of it. 

And that’s when I left. I couldn’t even be bothered to hand in a formal resignation. I just left and never came back. Rack off, ya collection of lunatics!