Communication Difficulties.

Hey look! I'm alive!

Today's topic stems from two gentlemen i have 'spoken' to in the last week.

Case one: The (Possibly) Deaf Guy.

By and large, i really don't have a problem dealing with deaf people. I've had regular customers who are deaf, and we quickly work out a method of communication which gets them helped out as well as i can manage.
Now i assume this fellow was deaf. Maybe he was broken. Maybe he was a hamster in a human shaped robot-suit. Either way, the only sound i could get out of him was 'eee!' Now as syllables go, this one isn't among the most useful out there. Therefore our exchange runs as follows:
Hamster-Person: "Eee!"
Me: "Can i help?"
H-P: "Eee! eee eee! eee eee eee eee!" (hands waving around, indicating some kind of box, then something further away. Then something that might be a complicated euphanism for something horrible, or the plugging-in of a cable).
Me: "I'm sorry. I don't quite follow you."
H-P: "Eee! Eee! ooom! (Aha! a new syllable. Perhaps i can work with this). Eee!" (More hand waving, indicating more or less the same vaguely disturbing things).

My continued attempts fail to provide any more useful information, and eventually our conversation draws to a frustrated close. My customer is unhappy at our lack of results, but i feel unsure of what i could actually do. The gentlemen appeared to think we were able to communicate in this fashion, and sadly i was found wanting.

Case Two: The Guy Who Comes From Some Country That Isnt England, But I'll Be Buggered If I Can Figure Out Which One.

Now i deal with a lot of foreign customers. There are a lot of them around here, and i've gotten used to a lot of accents and dialects, and can usually get past all but the worst of language barriers. However, i cannot deal with someone talking a completely different language at me, as though this is a good way to communicate.
It really doesn't matter how many times you repeat it to me, i am incabaple of learning a foreign language enough to solve the problem at hand. Indicating that you have a television, and want to plug something in to it only gives me so many clues. Once i've exhausted the possibilities these clues provide, i generally require further information. I do not recieve such a thing, only the same explanation in a language i cannot begin to identify.

The problem is escaping these situations. One must avoid potential complaints, and therefore must try hard not to offend. One must try hard to be as helpful as possible. Retail companies send 'secret shoppers' down to you every so often, and they are often out to see how well you behave in difficult situations. Whilst i don't believe they'd ever be so drastic in their approach, you can never be to sure. Either way, you're being paid to be nice to these people, and therefore cannot really break of the conversation yourself for fear of causing offence.

It is therefore a long, painful wait for them to realise that they aren't going to get what they want, and end the conversation themselves. The worst part is that, unlike the dithering elderly, or the dribblingly mad, you cannot spot these people from a distance. By the time you realise you've got one, it's too late. And they never give up easily. Often they will come back for more. Yet another thing to colour the lives of retail workers everywhere. Because we'd hate to be bored.