I’m glad I went. But it wasn’t easy to work out what to do. First, because (even when I deliberately looked lost and in need of help), nobody noticed I was there. Second, because although there were three leaflets on offer, one was a request for customer feedback – “WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!” (which I’ve now filled in and returned), one was a “decimal odds converter” which I’m sure would be useful if I understood the concept of decimal odds, and one was about a gambling addiction helpline. Gambling addiction? I didn’t even know how to gamble yet!

So I went up to one of the two assistants (I could tell who to speak to by their badges) and introduced myself as a first-time visitor. “You can bet anything from singles up, horses, dogs, football or novelty,” she said without eye-contact - and got on with counting her betting slips. This didn’t help much, so I stood where I was for a while, hoping she’d say something else. She didn’t, because she’d spotted another customer she knew the name of and was chatting to her. The thing was: she was a perfectly polite, pleasant person, who didn’t realise that I couldn’t speak her language.

via connexions