An accent is one thing. Inability to do your job and communicate with patients/customers is quite another. If a person is deaf you wouldn't hire them to be a bus driver...that's not discrimination, that's common sense.

Exactly. I've always been able to understand dialects, as long as I can remember. If I can't understand someone, there's really something wrong, and it's not my ear. It IS common sense to make sure that "John" can be understood by his customers.

As to the hospital scenario, a client of mine was being ignored by her nurses while in the hospital. After an hour of odd treatment, she made a call, and a nurse came in, laughing. "You called the police on us, did you?" I really admired her ingenuity!

I totally agree with you here.

seriously! it was such a crapshoot with the science and math classes! i registered for calculus 2 (which is hard enough as it is, never mind with an accent) for a professor with a seemingly American name... what i got was a Russian accent with a lisp.

how i managed to get a B in that class...sheesh.

Or how about New York, NY? :D

The "pixie dust" sent us a polo with neither name nor pirate insignia. Disney realized it right before the shirt arrived and warned us to expect it and said, "Just give it to charity!" They still claim that the correct shirt will arrive today.