It bothers me when I can't understand a co-worker because English is not their first language and they speak it brokenly with a very heavy accent.
I couldn't hire someone whose speech I have to constantly struggle to understand. People can call me a bigot for saying so, but good communication is a vital skill.
I suspect your co-worker with a heavy accent is just plain lazy. Learning another language is difficult, but not impossible.
My family moved from Ukraine to United States when I was 11. I could only speak two words in English. In school, they placed me in ESL (English as a Second Language) class. But it was a total waste of time. All of the kids were goofing off and not learning the language.
My parents asked the school to place me in a regular English class. By the end of the year, I got a B grade. I remember I used to watch a lot "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (because Patrick Stewart had this awesome British accent).
A few years later, I graduated High School with all A's.
I once shot down attempts to hire an Indian guy for our Oracle DBA position because our other DBA was already a Chinese guy who I could barely understand and I knew that with the issues our database had I would absolutely need to be able to communicate with at least one DBA. I had the good sense not to cite that as the reason to turn down the candidate, but that was absolutely the reason I did not want us to hire him.
You have to wonder the initial interviews for some of the more egregious examples.
"So, why do you want to work at MegaCorp?"
"(Unintelligible noises, one of the words might have been the word "English", but honestly it's 50/50.)"
"Sounds great, when can we promote you?"
Way back in the day, my university had a librarian whose first language was ASL. Yes, as in they were deaf to the point of not learning English first. They spoke English via lip reading and forcing air through mimicked lip reads. Not the most fluid speech, of course, but more understandable than a lot of people I've come across. If someone who literally has no idea what they're saying, since they can't hear what they're saying, speaks more clearly than you... You know, I think that would be a fine baseline. Can you speak more fluidly and comprehensibly than the profoundly deaf.
It bothers me when I can't understand a co-worker because English is not their first language and they speak it brokenly with a very heavy accent.
I couldn't hire someone whose speech I have to constantly struggle to understand. People can call me a bigot for saying so, but good communication is a vital skill.
I suspect your co-worker with a heavy accent is just plain lazy. Learning another language is difficult, but not impossible.
My family moved from Ukraine to United States when I was 11. I could only speak two words in English. In school, they placed me in ESL (English as a Second Language) class. But it was a total waste of time. All of the kids were goofing off and not learning the language.
My parents asked the school to place me in a regular English class. By the end of the year, I got a B grade. I remember I used to watch a lot "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (because Patrick Stewart had this awesome British accent).
A few years later, I graduated High School with all A's.
I noticed the typo. But the website will not save my edit.
I once shot down attempts to hire an Indian guy for our Oracle DBA position because our other DBA was already a Chinese guy who I could barely understand and I knew that with the issues our database had I would absolutely need to be able to communicate with at least one DBA. I had the good sense not to cite that as the reason to turn down the candidate, but that was absolutely the reason I did not want us to hire him.
If you are allowed to prefer someone who is bilingual then you are allowed to not prefer someone because of their heavy accent.
You have to wonder the initial interviews for some of the more egregious examples.
"So, why do you want to work at MegaCorp?"
"(Unintelligible noises, one of the words might have been the word "English", but honestly it's 50/50.)"
"Sounds great, when can we promote you?"
Way back in the day, my university had a librarian whose first language was ASL. Yes, as in they were deaf to the point of not learning English first. They spoke English via lip reading and forcing air through mimicked lip reads. Not the most fluid speech, of course, but more understandable than a lot of people I've come across. If someone who literally has no idea what they're saying, since they can't hear what they're saying, speaks more clearly than you... You know, I think that would be a fine baseline. Can you speak more fluidly and comprehensibly than the profoundly deaf.