(i know i probably am) To be disapointed that whilst at my local shopping parade all around me were foreign.

[MAMAZON]

I don't want to start a UCM type thread but it just struck me how prety much everyone i saw at the shops earlier was foreign.

no one seemed to be speaking English at all.

21million?
How about this then? 3billion pounds lost due to fraud and error

The benefits system currently pays out around 109billion pounds a year, so 21million is a drop in the ocean. It is in fact about 0.02%.

It is also estimated that if half a million (500 000 of your 800 000) people were to work in low paid employment they would pay around 1billion pound a year in tax, so that 21million pound still doesn't really matter does it?

Shorty84, then deal with what sounds like rude colleagues and perhaps not a very nice company culture rather than thinking this is typical of foreigners and feeling like a minority in your workplace.

do you speak any polish, shorty? have you tried?

i must be a bit of a pollyanna but i find it quite exciting that we are getting more polish people up here. new shops, new cafes, new community, the churches are filling up, it feels quite fun. and if i see a group of Polish builders on the street they never fail to coo (in a language of course i don't speak) at dd. (dd fluent in cooing and coos back... ) scottish builders? more likely to gob on the pavement and swear vociferously when faced with a buggy.

well i suspect that if i worked in an office in france i would talk to any english colleagues in english unless we were sat having coffee in a mixed nationality group

tho knowing the enlgisha dn french tyhe french would probably start to speak english rather than hear their language being mangled

LT, I also have a Russian friend who desperately misses her own language. When she and her friend get together, I am often told to stay home because they want to talk Russian to each other and I will slow them down.

I can say 'hamster' and 'snow' in Russian FFS. What more do they want? Pair of bitches

But lots of things get lost in translation, especially humour, and it is hard work speaking in and listening to a foreign tongue all the time.

oh blimey
there are 2 greek girls at work-they speak to eachother in greek, why shouldn't they? ditto the two french girls
don't see the problem really...of course if there are any brit monoglots around they switch to english...

LOL constance, sounds like a Max Clifford publicity stunt.

Yes I can speak abit of polish! I have started to pick up what people are saying but its not the easist of languages to speak but here goes (Czesc co slychac jak ci minal dzien) also they speak very fast so its hard to catch what they are saying.

I have not once said anything about people taking the jobs.

i agree, connie, it's absolutely exhausting speaking a foreign language all day.

shorty, your points seem all over the place tbh. i can't get over the fact that because your partner is black you feel this disproves the prejudice you clearly feel towards eastern european immigrants. is this just an acceptable form of racism nowadays?

so in summary shorty what were your complaints and reason for bringing this thread up from the grave apart from a sense of injustice that south africans lacked the same rights as eu citizens

also i am quite curious why yourt south african colleague was directing you to come on mn and search for threads about race/immigration/foreigners

But when your sat there 8 hrs a day and all you hear is a mumble of different languages it is rather annoying espeically when they speak English like any normal English person and I am not talking about one or two people And its not escapable everywhere you go all you hear is a different language even thou the company did state its a company policy to speak English.

well of course they speak quickly if they're speaking to other poles... why would they speak slowly?

Course it is Aitch, just like it's ok for me to call you a sweaty jock because I was born in Glasgow.

zippitippitoes they was not directing me to find a thread about this they were talking about a party thread about someone complaining about Cake in a party bag I could not find the thread so I put it alphabetical order to search for it and came across this I didn't realise at the time the thread was so old.

you really need to take that up with management, shorty. for the record, though, it is tiring speaking in another language, even if you speak it well, i know from experience. don't assume it makes no difference to them which language they speak.

rofl the cake in a party bag thread was the one you were looking for..why

VS sweaty jock indeed!

zippitippitoes O they said it was funny we was talking about some other thread and they said about that Thread and said it was funny what people were responding

Had a German friend at work many years ago, and her sister came to visit her in the office.

I did German at school and wasn't too bad, but I was madder than a wet hen that I couldn't catch most of what they were saying because it was much too fast.

I didn't care that they weren't speaking English. I cared because I wanted to understand what they were saying, and I couldn't. Probably more about me feeling incommunicado (context??) than what tongue they were actually speaking in.

Sweaty sock, VS! (All my nephews and neices born in Edinburgh. I'm allowed )

Listen as I said I don't have an problems with foreigners on a whole I have some issues with what goes on with some of them and The benefit thing bothers me etc If you want to see racists go on to facebook and check there groups on there and what people have to say. The only reason I mention my DP being black and BF GC is because someone brought black in the conversation earlier so that was just a point. I am sure you think that all Foreigners come here in perfect harmony do are shitty jobs and go home but that is not the case alot of them slag off the country amongst other things. ETC

PS Long live the Queen!

I read a rather interesting book called 'Everytown' in which a journalist lives for several months in a postcode with the most average characteristics (i.e. demographics, wealth, housing) in the UK - turns out its near Rotherham actually...

Anyway, a fair part of that book is about exploring the views towards immigration and immigrants of the average British person. The key thought that came out of it is that at a basic level British people are tolerant of much immigration and immigrants provided they don't feel personally threatened by it. This, no doubt, applies to people speaking different languages at work.

If you're secure and happy in your job, then you probably don't mind people talking in a million different languages in what are effectively private conversations. You probably find it colourful, interesting and enlightening (I certainly do). On the other hand, if you're feeling marginalised, unhappy or threatened in your job you probably feel a lot more uncomfortable by it. Just a thought, but it feels about right to me,

Who is UCM and what did she say to get banned?