Центр Английского Языка, Здравствуйте

Tuesday evening as I was riding the bus home from teaching my second day's class, Nina mentioned to me that her sister was not going to be able to babysit for her on Wednesday. Now, Nina has a lovely nine-month old daughter - this is good. But bringing her daughter to the office where she needs to answer the phone and deal with new applicants to the K-ELC - this is not so good. In a rather nonchalant, off-handed sort of way, Nina asked me if I wouldn't mind going in to the office for the busiest part of the day Wednesday to 'hold the fort down'. Then comes the clincher, she told me I could practice my Russian. How could I refuse? It is not everyday that I get to make a fool of myself in the workplace. So from 13-15 yesterday afternoon I played secretary. I thought it may be interesting to share the notes I jotted down while on the phone. Here they are:

• 13:35 - man, didn't understand
• 13:36 - woman, asked about German classes, I told her no, but maybe next semester, she said I didn't speak Russian (really?)
• 13:40 - wow! something about not having a пропоск (student pass); I ended up interrupting and saying to return to class, she got the picture and hung up
• 13:43 - son attends school № 48, can he come to school, how much costs? (at this point I realized nobody told me how much school cost, so I made up something and told her that her son would probably get a discount because he was in school) she will bring her son in for interview tomorrow
• 13:57 - man that I didn't understand came in, I still didn't understand him, but he will come back tomorrow at 10am
• 13:59 - girl studied in the spring (didn't catch what level)....will call back tomorrow
• 14:10 - hung up
• 14:10 - asked for Nina (no) and Irina (no), both not in, but will be tomorrow
• 14:29 - german or french taught? no, but maybe in November
• 14:38 - i told cost, she says "Oh, you speak English, let me get my daughter," I talk English
• 14:35 - father of a pupil of mine comes in to get his student pass changed
• 14:41 - lady called, was nice and repeated statements several times, but I told her to call back tomorrow, я не понимаю
• 14:48 - dial tone
• 15:02 - German? Why not October? No director today, goodbye
• 15:07 - nice lady, told to call back at 10a tomorrow
• 15:14 - asked when level 2 is meeting, after stumbling on my part (how are you supposed to say FROM 6 TO 8 in Russian anyway?) she then asked about level 0B, and said it was too late, or maybe later. told her to call back
• somewhere 14:40-15 - delivery man came in and handed me two slips, I tried to explain I have little Russian; he looked rather amused and said, "Oh, it must be next door," his smile when he left was large - I'm glad I provided some comic relief for at least one person

If I were the director of a school, I'm not sure that I would put a non-native non-fluent speaker on the phone answering calls from perspective clients, but it was good experience for me. I think there was one person that I actually had convinced I knew Russian. She spoke really quickly and I didn't understand everything, but everytime she came up for air she would ask me if something was right. Being daring, I simply agreed with her by repeating her last sentence. Who knows what I agreed to, but she seemed happy and said goodbye. Who knows, maybe her whole family got a lifetime of free English lessons. That's not such a bad trade is it? Two minutes of practice for Troy in exchange for a loss of 2800 rubles per person per semester.