Happy Talk

My job consists of me being on the phone a lot. I would say about 60 percent of my day is done on the phone dealing with people from all walks of life. I am either on the phone dealing with a problem, confirming orders and other things. Anyway today my boss asked me to do a strange request. He asked me to call up this Korean Newspaper and ask if it’s possible to use certain characteristics for survey purposes. Which I replied to why would you think that a KOREAN Newspaper would not be able to use certain KOREAN symbols??? So my boss told me to stop asking questions and to just call and ask.

One I still wasn’t sure what exactly he wanted me to ask them cause this was seriously a dumb question and Two, the woman I needed to call can not really speak English. But like the good worker that I am I tried to accomplish this task.

Me: Hello X this is Rose from Blah Blah Blah

X: Hello

Me: I was wondering if you could tell me if there is a difference in characters for Good and Very Good?

X: …

Me: Like for a survey are there different symbols for the words Good and Very Good?

X: I don’t know what you mean

Me: Do you know what a survey is?

X: Yes

Me: Okay so on a survey you know that they ask for your opinion about something and you have to rate it?

X: Yes

Me: So I want to know are there different symbols for the words Good and Very Good

X: I don’t know what you want to know.

Me: uhhhh

X: So you want to know that if I can put 2 different ads and one will say Good and the other Very Good?

Me: No this is all for just ONE ad. It’s going to be a SURVEY (I am starting to raise my voice)

X: I don’t know what you mean

Me: Are there 2 different translations for the words Good and Very Good. They cannot be the same symbol on this ad.

X: I don’t know what you mean. Can you e-mail the ad so I can take a look.

Me: No I haven’t received it yet.

X: Well when you get it, send to me and I will see.

Me: Umm okay. Thanks bye.

My boss soon after asks me if they will do it and I have no answer to give him. Then I get in trouble for not being able to explain it to her well enough.

So I say, "I still don’t understand why you think the Korean language wouldn’t have a different meaning for good and very good. EVERY language can do this."
To which he says, “Yeah I’m going to need it in writing from them”.

I actually have to try calling again and making her understand this. Sigh…