With Halloween here, I’m reminded of an incident that took place about this time last year at the previous company I worked for. One of our suppliers was located in Mexico and Karen, one of our sales reps, called the Naucalpán office asking the Spanish-speaking phone operator to speak to Carlos, our contact there.
“Sorry, Carlos no is here. They dead.”
“What?! Carlos is dead?” Karen cried.
“Very, very sorry,” the phone operator sighed. “Carlos no is here. They dead.”
We had developed a very close relationship with Carlos over the years, and by the time I arrived at the office Karen was in tears.
“Andrew, we called down to Mexico, and Carlos is dead,” she choked. “Can you call them and find out what happened? They just kept saying “he’s dead, he’s dead.”
“Excuse me,” I ask the operator in Spanish. “I understand that Carlos passed away and we are all in shock. Is there a place we can send flowers or a card?”
“Carlos? Oh Carlos is out of the office,” the operator explained. “Today is Día de los Muertos. He’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Oh!” I say, relieved. “Our sales rep said you told her he was dead. What did you say to her in English?"
“I told her ‘Carlos no is here. Day Dead.” I laugh and thank her for the help.
When I explain that “Day of the Dead” is Mexico’s holiday to celebrate the lives of the deceased, tenseness in the room subsides and we all go back to work, happy that our friend south of the border was merely enjoying a day off from work and not actually gone for good.
As the global market continues to broaden and our audiences demand more multilingual options, it’s important to remember that good communication starts with a good foundation of knowledge about culture. If you’re not careful, someone could end up dead, or on holiday, depending on the context.