Hmm.

DecR writes:

I really hope you can highlight this document on Broadsheet. It was found today in Fresh supermarket in Grand Canal Dock {Dublin] and is about restriction on staff use of their own languages – even among themselves.

It starts quite sympathetically – but then gets sharper and sharper towards the end. I think it deserves wide attention so that the many people of foreign descent who spend freely in Fresh every day can make an informed decision about where they take their business.

I have used Fresh in Grand Canal Dock every day since it first opened. There are Polish, Brazilians, Romanians, Chinese, Hungarians and more – several of whom I have gotten to know over the years.

Only last Thursday, during lunchtime I was asked by someone doing an in-store survey for Fresh what the best thing about the shop was – my answer “the staff”. Language has never been an issue to anyone I have ever seen over all those years (Perhaps FRESH can prove different).

Sure – there may be some disaffected misanthropes who complain over such things. But it is incumbent on a responsible business like Fresh to filter feedback the “crazies”.

Particularly galling in this document is the lip-service to valuing “multiple cultures”. Multiple cultures – fine. So long as it fits our in-store mono-culture. I’d love to know if other customer facing businesses have a similar ethos?