Since my face presently looks like Mrs Ratched’s in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, crisped and slightly scary, and my interior dialog sounds like George Carlin’s Seven Dirty Words monologue, I feel it’s time for me to participate actively in this thread.
I live in a separatist neighbourhood of Montreal, which is not a problem to me as I am a proud Francophone and I like Québec’s unique culture, even if I don’t necessarily agree with the movement. I also happen to work in the same area, as a baker in a grocery store that belongs to convinced separatists.
Recently, the owner of the store has decided to forbid all the employees to speak any language but French (unless it’s to Anglophone or Hispanophone clients, of course) and that made me extremely mad. Three of my co-workers speak mainly Spanish, two mainly English, and I always spoke to them in their mother tongues to show them respect and to improve my command of those languages. In the last six months, I have been warned numerous times because I only partially gave in to this ridiculous rule, refraining from using any language but French when clients could hear me.
Today, for the second time, I received a written warning for giving instruction in English to a Sri Lankan co-worker that barely speaks French. I only wanted to gain efficiency! Now, two more warnings and I’m fired.
We are lucky enough to live in a bilingual country (let’s say a country in a state of diglossia), and I believe we should embrace this state of things, not make it a constant war. Now if only my boss could understand that...
For those who care, as a baker, I DO make cakes, I DO make lots of pastries, and I DO make doughnuts – and sometimes eat what I prepare...