Do You Speak English?

Do you speak English?

20^th May 2011

It’s the night I love to hate… formal night! The only good thing about the night is that it does tend to go quickly – if all goes well.

Tonight I wasn’t supposed to be shooting in the dining room. We are trying to keep a studio open for the last minute arrivers who want their portrait taken just as we are going into Ressi. Luci was signed off sick and I’ve been feeling rough all day. I think I’m starting to catch whatever she has. I was to take Luci’s place in the dining room and shoot her section.

My first two stints in the studio were shooting the Titanic backdrop which went pretty well. Again, I wasn’t exactly the fastest but the quality of my work is getting much stronger. At the moment I’d prefer quality over quantity. When the quality is up to standards I’ll concentrate more on getting my shoots up to speed.

Even though they are effectively my bread and butter, a handful of Americans are starting to get on my nerves. Some are a great laugh and I enjoy speaking to them but last night took the biscuit. A group of Americans were standing behind me, watching and talking to me in between shoots, fine. Not a problem. There were a few couples who apparently couldn’t understand my accent or phrases. For example, I asked one couple to stand side by side and link arms. So the stood in front of each other and muddled their arms up into some weird entanglement that didn’t look human. More Mr. Tickle spaghetti arms that anything else. The American guy I’d been speaking to came forward when he saw I was getting frustrated and said “Guy, look” and he held out his arm for me and we linked arms. Two seconds and the couple I was photographing were in position. The lady, however, was amazed “oooh, you mean link arms. I’m sorry, I didn’t understand.” What do you say to that? Clean your ears out love? They blamed it on my English accent – I’m talking “properly” and formally. I’m sure they hear my accent and decide they don’t understand. It’s either that, or they don’t listen. I even do actions but they still don’t get the idea. I don’t know what to do, I’m going to have to talk to Stuart for some help.

Later on I had another American couple who really upset me. More than I ever thought possible. I was posing them, speaking loudly and clearly as well as doing the actions. The man looked totally bewildered and disgusted! It was like I was asking him to put his wife into some sordid erotic position that's illegal in most countries!! He looked at me and loudly, over pronouncing every word “I’m sorry but I just don’t understand you”. He then looked at his wife and asked “Does she speak English?” then up at me again and asked, somewhat frustrated yet amazed, the same question. Do I speak English? That was it! Gritting my teeth, I walked over to the guy and and plastered a massive smile on my face and overly cheerful told him “Of course I speak English and on top of that my English comes from the Mother Land - England”. Not only did he understand perfectly but his face dropped like a tonne of bricks!! Picture perfect. Now that was a real Kodak Moment! It’s no wonder he wasn’t smiling in any of the photos. 

I didn’t necessarily mean to be rude or more to the point sarcastic but I was rapidly losing my temper over people who were just refusing to listen or being ignorant. Last night it was like they were pushing and pushing until I got to my limit. I have no problem understanding the Americans, Scottish, Irish, Australians and people who speak English as a second language and they don’t have a problem understanding me. It’s just the Americans. Why?

There are three lovely Australian girls on the cruise. While Stu and I were breaking down LSP one of the girls came over to speak to Stu. She said “I don’t know if you have a girlfriend but could I give you my email address please?” She told me before that she really liked him and asked if he’d go to Dragon’s Lair (the ship's night club) with her on the last night of the cruise to party. I was hiding my face, getting on with breaking down and trying not to let out a giggle. The poor guy didn’t have the heart to say anything along the lines of girlfriends and simply muttered “yeah, sure” and took her email address. Once she’d walked away, Stu came over and told me what happened, I was in fits of giggles ribbing him “Awww Stu, you’ve got an Aussie fan.” “Wow, you’d better keep in touch with your Aussie girlfriend – email daily so you don’t let her down”. Watching him go all embarrassed mixed with utter confusion only made me laugh more. Jeni joined us; we told her what had happened and she joined me making jokes. If Stu was the type the blush, he’d have been as red as a lobster with sunburn!!!

Later when all work was done I retold the "Do You Speak English?" story to everyone including my BM. Every single one of the team burst out laughing. Reuben went bright red in the face. I never thought it was possible to see an Indian go red - it only made me crease up more. 

Stu had to give his opinion on the matter and said even he finds it hard to understand me sometimes especially when I speak “my English” which is when I don’t speak “properly”. If I speak to an English member of the crew from Kent/London and go ten to the dozen, he doesn’t understand. That again, annoyed the hell out me. There were my chances of asking for his help out the window. A few things were said and I gave up speaking properly and reverted to “my English” and what did I get back? Afrikaans from Stu and David. Before losing my temper I walked out the office. 

Not long after, Stu called me back because my pentab had been left in the office. Hernan had been the last to use it and hadn’t bothered packing away my equipment. My temper was reaching boiling point. Stu took my case off me and opened it to pack everything away "properly". He saw the radio slave still attached to the camera and told me not to do it. Another Stu lecture. Again, I pointed out I hadn’t been the last to use it. Turns out the antenna was bent and could have been completely put out of use. This made me fly into one. My temper had reached boiling point! Rather than say anything in English I said all I had to say in Spanish, they didn’t understand but they knew I wasn’t a happy bunny. Reuben told me not to worry as I wasn’t the last person to use the equipment (we are responsible for our own equipment but have to let other people use it if they are shooting in our studio – go figure!)

Later on Stu knocked on my cabin. Now it was his turn to be pissed off. He’s made a bit of a cock up that could cost him his job but a few things had been said about his shooting. Stu is by far the best at thinking outside the box. Or, as he puts it “thinking outside the box that the box is in”. He’s the best shooter on LSP and comes up with the best poses featuring a number of different props including people perching on upside down chairs – sounds strange but the results are great! 

The mangers reckon he’s getting slack and maybe the compliments he gets are just them being nice. What the hell?! His cock up was trying to help a crew member and get some money in for Image, for our team. The lad had a huge amount of images to print but had forgotten his crew card. Stu just punched the lad’s name into the computer but got the surname wrong so he refunded the money. According to Stuart, he was going to wait until the next time when the lad came to pick up his photos with his crew card and then charge him. Rueben had spotted it on the system and pulled Stu up about it. Even though Stu came clean and apologise Reuben wasn’t happy. 

There was a joke made to Stu about him losing his job which obviously didn’t go down to well. Stu always takes his job seriously and does the best he possible can. For someone to say that to him, it was far from a joke. There was no way Stu would have seen the funny side of it all. Stu hung about speaking to me for a bit but he was really down which isn’t like him at all. It worried me a bit. Soon Stu was out the cabin and searching for the crewmember to get his Crew ID. I was to call Stu the next morning for the Crew ID code and make the charge. At least that way it’d get done straight away, first thing in the morning. Until then, I hope Stu doesn’t let it get him down too much. I know it will though.