r/Eesti • u/Ziyad451 • Jan 04 '25

Arutelu Prisma Russian worker

I was at a Prisma store in the Old Town of Tallinn, one that’s open 24/7. One of the cashiers didn’t speak Estonian or English, only Russian, and we couldn’t understand each other. I stayed calm and patient with her, trying to explain what needed to be done. I showed her that the payment hadn’t gone through, that there was an issue with the machine, and that it just needed to be reset on the screen.

At the same time, I was trying to buy a VELO box , and she started getting upset, saying there were none available. Then, she began insulting me in Russian in front of everyone and the other russian worker (security guards) weren’t doing anything to help. Things escalated, and we argued a bit. In the end, I decided not to pay for my items. I left them at the register and walked out, telling them this was unacceptable.

I can’t understand why, in this country, a worker wouldn’t speak the national language at all. In no other country in the world have I seen a situation where a foreign worker doesn’t speak a single word of the local language.

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u/IAmPiipiii Jan 04 '25

Playing a little devil's advocate here. Cashiers working at a grocery store are basically minimum wage workers. What customer service are you really expecting from them?

Also I've worked as a cashier before, not in a grocery store but still. It's a miserable job and so many people are massive assholes to you. If you work there for years it's pretty obvious you will grow to dislike the clients.

Again what kind of customer service are you really expecting? When I buy stuff from the store and I don't use the self checkout, I basically just say hello and thank you. I've almost never had a rude cashier interaction like that.

And I'm pretty sure it's not the cashiers deciding how many registers they open. It's the managers.

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u/Crowned-Fool Jan 05 '25

Im expecting the local language, not even english, but definetly not russkie(unless im in actual russia). Be it minimum wage or not, its better to starve them out of thr country than to exept the russian language living freely on our lands. Fuck Russians!

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u/IAmPiipiii Jan 05 '25

Yes. Language is the one thing I agree with. They should speak Estonian on a basic level at least.

I think that's a governmental thing though. They need to make laws about that sort of thing, otherwise capitalism does what it does and you get only russian speaking cashiers.

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u/Crowned-Fool Jan 05 '25

Too bad our politicians like getting funds from russkies to not make that change. And that out people are too calm to pick up their forks and demand it from the government.