In our search for an apartment to rent, we had this rather shocking experience with one agent. When Lionel first told me that he had received a rejection from one of the apartments we viewed because we did not speak German, I thought, oh, that was nice of the agent to at least explain why we did not get it. However, when I read the e-mail, I was quite offended by the tone taken by Herr Bruno Rigoni.
Sehr geehrter Herr Heng,
in einem eng umworbenen Wohnungsmarkt wie Zürich, sollte man zumindest versuchen – in der vorherrschenden Sprache zu kommunizieren. Es ist zwar weltweit bekannt, dass wir Schweizer - mehrere Sprachen sprechen – so auch englisch. Wir werden deshalb ihre Bewerbung nicht weiter verfolgen, denn es gehört auch zu unseren Aufgaben, die passenden Menschen - für unsere Liegenschaften auszuwählen.
Freundliche Grüsse
Bruno Rigoni
Loosely translated by Google Translate, this reads:
Dear Mr Heng,
In a tight housing market courted like Zurich, you should try at least - in the dominant language to communicate. Although it is known around the world that we are talking Swiss - several languages - including English. We will therefore not pursue their application further, because it is also our job to the right people - to choose for our properties.
Kind regards
Bruno Rigoni
I could not believe my eyes at first. It did not occur to me that anyone would bother taking the time to compose an e-mail to express his bigotry so directly. He was reprimanding us for not attempting to use German in our application. Lionel had being writing short e-mail in simple German during initial correspondences, but in the final submission of documents, English served us well to make sure nothing was miscommunicated. And considering that it was our first week in Switzerland, as well as the fact that English is a language taught in schools here, I am stunned at such close-mindedness in what is supposed to be a world class city.
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