different people's definitions of questions that should not be asked

[derien]

A while back bravecows made a post about how she thought it was odd that people would not ask about someone's ethnic and religious identity, because in Malaysia they will ask to be polite, in order to not offer someone the wrong foods.  (There was a lot more to it than just that in her post, and if someone would point me to it I'd be much obliged.)

A week or so ago we were informed that one of the people who works for the private company, checking tickets, will no longer be doing that job, because he had asked a passenger, on seeing their name on the ticket, if they were Jewish.  The passenger was really upset, and that person will no longer be checking tickets.  Although he did not get fired, at least - he can still skycap.  The purpose of telling us about this in inbriefing was to let us know that if we do such a thing we're liable to lose our jobs. 

The training today was as boring as I thought it would be.  He lulled us half to sleep by talking about things we already knew, then started in on new stuff when our eyelids were dropping shut and we were completely unable to take it in.  Test is tomorrow at 10AM.  Then there's that half-hour mandatory Big Sekrit meeting. 

Comments

[kryptyd.livejournal.com]

That's silly! Obviously people shouldn't be allowed to ask something like that in a job interview or similar, but I don't see why a question about religion should not have a place in polite conversation. I wonder why on earth the passenger was upset...

[derien.livejournal.com]

And one of the guys who works for the ticket-checking company is a young Muslim guy who's a fairly new emmigrant. If it was him who asked, he might have had no idea that this would be a touchy question.