This goes back to over 30 years ago. The company I was working for at the time no longer exists.
I had been in the business a couple of years and had started meeting people. The waterfront seem to draw a number of characters and one of the was a petroleum inspector. These people are generally referred to as 'gaugers' because they gauge the various tanks, both vessel and shore to ascertain the amount of cargo being moved.
Sometimes, but not often a dock supervisor would follow us around and sometimes become a nuisance by following us around and trying to spot mistakes. There were none and the over supervision only wound up aggravating us or slowing us down.
Now a lot of gaugers are legal immigrants. Most of the immigrants do speak good English and virtually all of them speak passable Engilsh. However occasionally you will hear two of them speaking to each other in their native tongue.
One day we had just finished loading a load of #6 heating oil. we had disconnected the hose and were getting ready to gauge the boat. As we were getting the measuring tape we saw one of the supervisors headed our way and sensed aggravation in the making.
The Gauger turned to me and started babbling in some incoherent tongue. I looked at him curiously for a second and he looked back at me with a smirk. I picked up on it and babbled something incoherent back at him.
The plot was hatched.
We got to the first tank and I stuck the tape into it and reeled it in. I babbled at the gauger and pointed to the number on the tape. He wrote it into his book and babbled something back at me. I nodded.
The supervisor kept his mouth shut and we went on to the next tank where the process repeated itself. When we had the second tank's number in the gauger's field notebook the supervisor announced he's meet us in the galley.
We'd done it. We'd made him uncomfortable enough to get out of our hair and let us do our job.
Over the next couple of months we did this to that particular supervisor a few more times until when he saw us he's just go below and wait for us. One time when he was below he asked my shipmate what language we were speaking and he shrugged and said, "Probably Mandrain Chinese."
Some time later we loaded a load that was of questionable quality. The specifications were supposedly off and the office called two of us in to deliver the sample we had taken of the cargo. They were to be tested by the petroleum inspection company.
We walked into the office and there was the gauger who greeted me in gibberish. I answered him in gibberish.
We conducted all of the important business in plain English in front of the office people yet carried on sort of a side conversation in gibberish.
I did get along with everyone in the office except for one person. The people I got along with paid our gibberish conversation no mind. The guy I detested quietly pulled my shipmate aside and in a belligerent tone demanded to know what language we were speaking. He replied, "I think it's Mandrain."
This particular supervisor went straight to my employee file and added "Fluent in Mandrin Chinese" right next to where it said I was fluent in French. In fact I spoke neither.
A couple of months later I quietly sat down with one of my supervisors and we went through my file and cleaned a few things up. I was lucky to have this guy as a 'Father confessor' that was willing to take the time to set the record straight.
I always thought that it was important to keep things like that accurate. It can save future embarrassment.
There in nothing harder to squirm out of than explaining you are now useless when someone from the top office calls and says, "Send Piccolo up here. Cash My Check is arriving from Shanghai and we need someone to interpret because he doesn't speak English."
When something like that happens everyone runs for cover and more often than not you are left holding the bag. It's best to keep the record honest.
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