WorldCon: Things I Did Wrong

[kate_nepveu]

(I was planning to write this as a section of my big roundup post pretty much from the start, to be titled "Ego Boosting and Deflating," but since I see an aspect of it is being discussed, I thought I should break it out separately so it would go up quicker.)

A number of people were kind enough to say to me that they liked things I said on panels or the way I moderated or things I write online. I am very grateful for and appreciative of those comments. However, since very few people (even at a con!) are going to come up to me and say that they thought I did a lousy job or said something stupid, I thought it important to publicly acknowledge the times I did something wrong at the con.

• I suggested a group of people sit somewhere physically incapable of accommodating at least one of the members of the group. I apologized to the group at least but possibly not to the specific person; I apologize for being ableist and sizeist.
• During a panel, I interrupted karnythia to explain something that she was going to get to in just a minute. (I apologized after.)
• Upon reflection, I'm pretty sure I mispronounced karnythia's name at least once while on a panel. I apologize.

  (I read by word recognition not phonetics and keep wanting to swap the "n" and "y" in her name, "cah-RIN-thee-ah" instead of "car-NEE-thee-ah." However, she said it out loud, that's no excuse, I should have written it down.)

• I told Kathryn Cramer something true but not complete and appeared two-faced as a result.

  When she approached me and said that she regretted that I had dropped off a panel with her called "X, Why? Minorities in a Large Field, or Majorities in Our Own?," I said that I had been scheduled for items at 9:00, 10:00 (that one), 11:00, and 12:30. I should also have added "and as you know, we have fundamental differences of viewpoint, so I didn't feel it appropriate to be on a panel with you." I apologize for the inaccuracy.

  (I was considerably surprised by her approaching me, especially since I had previously been told that she had stated that I had refused to be on a panel with her [*], and so socialization took over in the absence of preparation.)

  [*] Yes, her knowledge of this raises other issues; I'm asking you all to defer discussion of them for now.

• I was a thoughtless Anglophone to hotel staff several times.

I have more complicated thoughts on my moderation of the "Writing Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Geographic Terms" panel, but I think they need to wait.

Do feel free to add to this list. Anonymous commenting is on here as usual, but I will screen gratuitously nasty comments (and then repost under ROT13 so you all can judge for yourselves).

(As I've said before: please don't say "oh gosh those aren't that bad, you're too hard on yourself" or whatever. I'm not looking for consolation or cookies. Also, I'd appreciate it if you'd save anything nice you were planning to say for a more topical post. => )

Comments

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

I'd expect that in a hotel, yes, and likely in a restaurant as well.

(True story: I went to buy a camera battery in Lugano and discovered that the man in the camera shop in the center of one of the biggest tourist destinations in officially-multilingual Switzerland spoke NOTHING but Italian (not even French or German). That boggled me.

Now, to be fair, on rereading what kate_nepveu wrote above, she said "hotel staff" rather than making it clear if she was talking to client-facing staff. I'd have no such expectations of, say, housekeeping or maintenence staff, but front desk, restaurant, bell staff, concierge? Absolutely.

[kate_nepveu]

Not just client facing staff, but even there, I wanted to do "bonjour hi" or ask rather than just start talking.

[neverjaunty.livejournal.com]

Why? I mean, certainly you don't want to be the American who shouts really slowly, but I don't think you need to feel guilty about speaking English to Montreal customer service staff at a large international hotel. Unless you're fluent in French. Personally I'd worry that being able to say not much more than "bonjour" would come across as trying way too hard.

[kate_nepveu]

No, but I consider it polite when in a place that isn't Anglophone to at least acknowledge that I _know_ it isn't.

[neverjaunty.livejournal.com]

Why? I mean, I agree that it certainly is polite not to expect (in the "how dare you not SPEAK ENGLISH sense") that everyone on the planet is Anglophone. But in a country that is officially bilingual, in a hotel that has a lot of English-speaking clientele, where your native and primary language is English, merely speaking English doesn't strike me as an offensive act.

[kate_nepveu]

I see offensive, acceptable, and polite as points on a spectrum; I desire to act politely, instead of just not-offensively. Is that clearer?

[keristor.livejournal.com]

It's polite. I did try to say "bonjour" and followed it with "parlez-vous Anglais?" if I actually wanted to converse (if they had replied "non" then I would have attempted to continue in French, which would probably have been painful for both sides since I learnt it around 40 years ago and haven't really used it since). The exception was the hotel desk, where I had already confirmed that they were happy to use English with the guests (and indeed preferred it to having to decipher ancient school French).

The only place so far I've been stumped in learning at least the politenesses (hello, goodbye, please and thankyou) was in Guangzhou ('Canton', China), where the pitched tonal language defeated me. Apparently at least one of the ways I said "Ni ha" (hello) was rather rude, and I couldn't hear the difference, so I gave up rather than be impolite in a different way. I believe that if I at least start and end with attempting to use the local language people will be more willing to make the effort to communicate.

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

Agreed with the polite. I live in a city in Flanders where probably 70% of the people are fluent in English (they tell me TV and movies have a lot to do with it), and even then I start off with "Dag, sprekt Engels?" if I know I'm not going to be able to blunder through in Flemish.

And I hear you on the tonal languages thing. A couple of my fellow linguistics students in grad school were from Shanghai, and they tried to teach me tones. Apparently I am tone deaf, since I failed epically. I still have no idea what I said, but apparently it was really funny.

[janni.livejournal.com]

I'd feel better about it if I knew my country extended similar respect in turn, but living in a border state, I know too well that we don't.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

And, come to think about it...Canada's part of the Commonwealth (and uses UK spelling). How about tourists and business travellers from other English-speaking countries?

[keristor.livejournal.com]

But they still drive on the wrong side[1] of the road *g*. The spelling is not too much of a problem, given how many people maek spelign erorrs all teh tiem the differences between American and British spellings rarely cause misunderstandings in practice. Some of the words, however (please do not go into a British Gentleman's Tailor and ask for a DJ, vest, pants and suspenders[2] like a couple of young American lads I knew did in the 60s!)...

[1] Which is, of course, the right side, due to oddities of the language...

[2] For the sake of any Americans who aren't familiar with the differences, what they wanted was an evening suit with a waistcoat, trousers and braces, what they asked for was a disc jockey with underwear and a garter belt...