Thursday, July 10, 2008

I Like Lowe's, But...

After having little reason to enter the store for quite awhile, I have been to Lowe's three times in the past two weeks. I enjoy going to Lowe's: They sell things I like, and generally at good prices. But....

My last trip entailed a brief wait at the customer service desk. It wasn't a red-letter day for the CS staff; they looked a bit haggard...but that's beside the point. While I was waiting for my special order purchase to arrive at the counter, I looked around and saw that every single sign in the store had one or more subtitles in Spanish (and perhaps other languages as well). Terms like "Electronics," "Window coverings," and "Tool World" (which is a much longer phrase in Spanish) were in Spanish also; greetings like "Thank you for shopping with us" also contained something in Spanish below—presumably a translation.

The only exception was the company's website address, which is pan-lingual, apparently.

This is America, specifically West Michigan. I still think an official language, English, would be both appropriate and practical.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Oh my.....don't even get my husband started on that one. He had a case thrown out of court because he hadn't asked the drunk Hispanic man a question in his language. That's a very sore subject for him. We agree totally!