Does Roxanne Still Put On Her Red Light?

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Amsterdam, Engineering, France, French, funny, Humor, Humour, Language, Prostitutes, Sex, technology, Translation, Work

I work for a French company, in a factory with lots of modern machinery.

This machinery frequently breaks down, meaning we need to call in engineers.

As many of these machines are foreign made, it follows that the engineers are also foreign.

Part of my job involves me translating what these foreign engineers are saying.

We use English as our common language, and I then translate it for the benefit of my French colleagues.

We had a major problem with one of the machines recently, a machine of Dutch origins, and so we had to call in the engineers from Amsterdam.

A full team of highly trained, specialist engineers with many, many years of experience between them duly arrived.

They spent the first part of their morning preparing their equipment, assessing the problems and setting to work on it, with efficiency and speed.

Their tools were all laid out, gleaming, on the side, they were in constant contact with their boss back in Amsterdam via Skype, and they even had the very latest in Microsoft Virtual Reality headsets, so they could show the problems directly as they repaired them, and their boss could advise them in real time.

They then asked me, following the successful analysis and repair of the machine, if my assembled French colleagues had any questions for them.

I translated this to the group and there was much muttering and discussion, before a consensus was taken.

‘Could you ask them’ began the spokesman for the group ‘If they still have the ladies in the windows in Amsterdam?’.

My job is never boring.

Two Countries. Two Attitudes. The Same Result…

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cultural differences, English, France, French, funny, Humor, Humour, Work

I was chatting to one of my (French) colleagues at work today. He was annoyed because the machine he was working on was playing up, and he had to wait for the engineers to fix it before he could continue. I had the exact same problem.

‘What do you think about it?’ he asked me. I just shrugged my shoulders in response, as if to say ‘These things happen, what can you do?’.

‘Ah!‘ he said ‘That must be the English way, you aren’t bothered about it at all. Me? I’m really annoyed and I’m going to let the boss know how I feel!’

‘That’s one of the differences between our two countries‘ I replied. ‘It’s like when the price of fuel goes up. In England we just shrug our shoulders and accept it, at least the French do something about it – you go out and protest‘.

‘Yes we do go out and protest‘ he replied ‘But you know what? The price still goes up anyway!!‘