TIFU looking racist on the phone

Submitted by PrintFar6835 t3_111fmpz in tifu

(Not an English speaker, if that matters.)

This took place this lunchtime. I had a stressful morning at work making thousands of phone calls one after the other. Then came the lunch break. I get a call from a cell phone number I don't know. I pick up. At the other end of the line, I hear a lot of noise and a person speaks to me with a strong accent, from an African country, I don't understand what he says. I receive a lot of calls from call centers, so thinking it's another scam or telemarketer, I say I don't understand, goodbye, and hang up.

That's when I understand, a second too late, the FU. Tomorrow is Valentine's Day and my boyfriend had told me the day before that he had made a reservation for us in an African cuisine restaurant that looked nice and had to give my contact information for the reservation.

I call back the number to apologize and there the interlocutor tells me "I don't want to sell you anything Madam, it's the restaurant YYY, it's to confirm the reservation".

I then realize that the person has understood that I hung up partly because of his accent taking him for a telemarketer ... I apologize profusely, my interlocutor takes it on the tone of the joke, but I have nevertheless a small apprehension for tomorrow evening I am afraid that he took me for a racist person.

TL;DR: I took for a telemarketer a person with a strong accent who turned out to be the African restaurant where my boyfriend had booked for Valentine's Day

192

Comments

You must log in or register to comment.

Healter-Skelter t1_j8ey0b0 wrote

Damn. That is embarrassing. Made even worse by the fact that he seemed completely aware of what was going on.

48

herfacesunk1000ships t1_j8fcla0 wrote

I mean, It's embarrassing but I don't think it's racist?

Given the context: that someone was unexpectedly(ish) calling you, asking you for information, and speaking with an accent you could barely understand and is infrequently heard outside of scam calls... I don't think what you did was unreasonable.

It wasn't thorough, and it was rude, but not inherently racist.

81

Charlie_the_unicornn t1_j8fdqdq wrote

Not being able to understand the words coming out of someone's mouth is not racist at all.

78

Antassium t1_j8fhhrq wrote

I am missing the part where you were racist.. huhh???

31

Toucangenocide t1_j8fhw49 wrote

I get more scam calls than real calls at this point. If it's an unknown number and you ask for info without identifying yourself, I hang up regardless if you sound like my mother

45

solo954 t1_j8fx0qq wrote

Everyone is tired of robo-calls. You're over-thinking this.

15

beobear t1_j8g6nba wrote

hahahah good luck tomorrow

3

fuckimtrash t1_j8gjogx wrote

It’s not racist. I’m nz Indian and I’d hang up if I got an outbound call from someone with an Indian accent. Was hell for my Indian workmates when we worked in govt and they had to make outbound calls to the public 😂😂

21

generalmarius t1_j8gjzqw wrote

If you think you will see the person there then it wouldn’t hurt to restate your apology in person briefly as you get there or even have your boyfriend do it if you would be uncomfortable. Ultimately it’s not that big of a deal and I’m sure they will take it in stride whether or not you mention it again.

3

rawrzon t1_j8gq1tn wrote

Wait, you made thousands of calls in the morning? Are you sure YOU don't work at a scam call centre?

13

goosegirl86 t1_j8gsx5b wrote

Replying to fuckimtrash (#1,803,854)

One of my mates when I was working at a NZ bank requested to only be put on inbound calls not the outbound calls, because he just got hung up on at a much higher rate than the rest of our team did, simply because of his Indian accent. It was rough 😂 they missed out in the end tho cos he was one of our best bankers.

10

EastExplorer9019 t1_j8hchy7 wrote

Could be worse my dad got what he thought was a sales call told them never to fucking phone him again because he was sick of them, turns out it was my grans carer, she was not best impressed

6

wytherlanejazz t1_j8hckny wrote

Easy mistake to make, even if there wasn’t an accent involved. Unknown numbers etc .

You’re fine.

3

Mission_Ad_2224 t1_j8hdsjr wrote

Replying to goosegirl86 (#1,804,431)

I'm white Australian (but close enough country for this), and had a few Indian coworkers at a gov call centre and they had the same issue. We were mostly inbound anyway but their stats plummeted when processing because customers refused to give them a chance on outbound (85% of the time).

I hate that we're so racist. And I am putting that one down to racism, because we send a precall SMS and everything.

−1

goosegirl86 t1_j8heclp wrote

Replying to Mission_Ad_2224 (#1,805,626)

Yeah same dealio. His outbound stats were atrocious. He would laugh and joke about it, but it had to suck a bit there.

We didn’t do pre-call txts at that point, but it was always relating to a product they already had with us, usually their home loan, but still. Our team would only do some ob calls if the ib queues were already quiet. (As it wasn’t our main role)

I think in 2 years I only had 2 customers do the ‘let me call you back on the bank number so I know it’s not a scam’ thing, and they were all apologetic when they got back to me. (Kiwi accent)

But he was getting hung up on 8/10 calls. So the TL switched him to inbounds only for those days cos it was affecting his stats and job rating.

5

TwinklyDoor t1_j8heie1 wrote

I have a strong accent and I moved to a part of the country that it was common to have a totally different but equally as strong accent. Even though me and my neighbours were all speaking the same language, we could barely understand what each other were saying, no one was offended, it was funny. It’s not racist, sometimes people are hard to understand with strong accents. If you’re worried about the fact you mistook him for a telesalesman, the amount of scam calls people get these days, it’s understandable. I expect the staff at the restaurant had a good laugh over it and weren’t offended. Don’t worry so much.

2

Twizpan t1_j8hi54k wrote

You are french ? I am french, there are a lot of racists in here. I mean a fucking lot. This makes you feel like that but I think what you did has nothing to do with racism.

0

StarvedHawk t1_j8hr98p wrote

I am Indian. When i get a call from someone with a heavily indian accent that i don't recognise. I think its a scammer, So i dont think ur racist for it. Unless you cussed them out, they'll most likely put it behind them.

2

murmur_lox t1_j8hsnd9 wrote

Nah man i don't think they even put into account the accent. I promptly refuse calls from people speaking my native language because i think they're call centers lol. You're good

2

moonziekks t1_j8ilmhk wrote

as a white person (which i'm assuming you are) it's common to emulate/repeat racial stereotypes. in brazil we had a case where a famous singer, while staying at a hotel, mistook another guest (who was a lawyer, if im not mistaken) for a cleaning lady. nothing indicated that she was one, she wasn't even wearing an uniform. but this singer saw that she was black and immediately assumed that she worked a low paid job. sadly, it's engraved on the minds of white people that people of color work minimum wage, and statistically, that is true, but it's still racist to assume that every single one of them does not have a successful career and that all of them are ready to serve you.

you were conditioned your whole life, unconsciously, to assume things of the sort. you can feel guilty, but use that as a motivation to learn more and be better. it takes learning, a lot of listening, and most times, experiences like the one you described. the fact that you recognized your mistake shows that you're on the right path.

0