Every once and awhile...
you get a real laugh at work.

I worked in a bank for four years during high school and the summer after my first year of uni, as a teller. Being from a pretty little town in northern British Columbia, noted far and wide for it's beautiful scenary, excellent hunting and fishing, and friendly locals, we got more than our fair share of tourists. Summer time had the highways and hotels packed, and seeing as we were the only finiancial establishment open on Saturdays, we did a lot of currency exchange. Our area drew a lot of German tourists, all whom were very pleasant and surprised I knew enough of their language to make their finiancial transactions less distressful.

But one of the best tourist encounter I had at the bank was one lovely Saturday in July. This American couple came to my wicket to exchange some cash (funny coloured money as most of them called it). I had a very nice chat about sightseeing destinations with the woman, while her husband stood the side and just looked around like a bit of a goon. After exchanging cash and giving them ten minutes of detailed directions to several local marvels (glaciers, double waterfalls, the like), she smiled, thanked me and they were on their way. Then her husband looked at me square in the eye and said, "Did you know you've got the only last name in here I can pronounce?".

Our town has a lot of german and dutch influence, so it's commonplace for people to have dutch and german sounding names. Some of the people I worked with had names like Giglberger, Hamhuis, Oevermann, Poohachoff, and the like. My last name is Edwards. So, during the entire conversation I had been having with his wife, he had been trying to figure out how to pronounce the other tellers' names.

Classy. I laughed my ass off the minute they walked out.
(chaoticmatter, Sat 9 Jul 2005, 21:34, Reply)