Service interaction of the day: lost in translation

Setting: Miami Dade International Airport, 6:30 EST (5:30 CST), after a six hour flight from Lima, Peru.

Place/brand: Café Versailles (Cuban style cafeteria)

ME: Buenos días, ¡las empanadas de guayaba y queso se ven muy buenas! (good morning, the guava and cheese empanadas look great!)

CUBAN SERVER: Sí, buenísimas (yes, they´re great)

ME: Dame una por favor (give me one please)… and then I hesitate for a moment…

I´m thinking about a macchiato (cortado in Spain, exprés cortado in Mexico), so in a fraction of a second I figure, that being in the American continent, I’ll ask for a macchiato the Mexican way…

ME: ... y un exprés cortado.

CUBAN SERVER: con azúcar? (with sugar?)

At this point I cringe… I immediately remember the amount of sugar all of my Cuban friends put into anything they consume and I start feeling nauseous. Besides, this is getting strange, who in the world would offer a macchiato with sugar? Well, maybe Cubans.

ME: (Emphatically) NO! Sin azúcar por favor. (no sugar please)

CUBAN SERVER: (to the person in charge of preparing the coffee), ¡un exprés! (an espresso!)

ME: No, un exprés cortado (no, a macchiato)… and I go to explain, un exprés con un poco de leche por favor (an espresso with a bit of milk please).

And this is where it gets good…

CUBAN SERVER: (In a loud voice) ¡Parén el exprés, el cliente se ha equivocado y lo que quiere es un cortadito! (Stop the espresso, the client has messed up and what he really wants is “a cortadito”—i.e., a macchiato).

I’m perplexed, to say the least. Did this guy just scream across terminal D that the client messed up? So my marketing self (in a very polite and tempered manner) responds…

ME: Disculpa, no me equivoque, en mi país, un cortadito se llama exprés cortado (excuse me, in my country, macchiatos are called macchiatos)

CUBAN SERVER: Looks at me in disdain and doesn’t respond or apologizes.

I give my debit card to the cashier, she gives my receipt to sign, and then looks pissed at me because I leave no tip! Go figure…

I walk away thinking this is all kind of surreal. So I sit down to eat my delicious Cuban style guava and cheese empanda and take the lid off my coffee to drink my “cortadito”, to find out that in Cuba, a cortadito… is a freakin’ café con leche! (coffee with milk). Oh… and the coffee was burnt!