I definitely see your point, and understand the frustration you feel when a service employee can't seem to communicate with the customer about basic service needs. On the other hand, I think you'd be happy to know that most professions that substantially involve customer/client safety - such as a NYC cab driver or a 911 dispatcher - mandate a fairly standard level of English proficiency.

For jobs that don't already require language proficiency, the real question becomes: How would you go about requiring English proficiency for a barista, clerk, or school instructor? It doesn't seem reasonable to regulate how a business owner evaluates their hires. If an employer wants to risk hiring non-English speakers in an English-speaking area, then let them make that decision. Perhaps the employer wants to give the employee a chance to learn the language, no matter the inefficiency it may cause. Or maybe the employer simply doesn't care, in which case, customers can take their business elsewhere. Either way, I can't see how intentionally hiring non-English speaking employees would help a service business succeed, or how enforcing a language regulation on private (or even publicly traded) businesses would not cause its own inefficiency in the market system.

Moreover, even if you found a fair way to mandate language proficiency for many businesses, how would you implement a test, and what standard would qualify for 'proficiency'? Would an employee have to speak well enough to take orders, or communicate mathematical concepts also? Would the state have to design a test for each service profession? A barista who spoke proficient English probably wouldn't have the proficiency level to teach a math class according to a standardized English test. So would people have to have perfect fluency? And who would decide fluency? I could see how this standard might be abused by preventing people with strong accents or lower-level English skills from getting jobs. Someone who grows up in rural Appalachia or inner-city Baltimore may not be able to pass a fluency test, depending on how administered the test. Tests could be designed to exclude certain kinds of people from getting work, whether or not they actually spoke sufficient English - especially if the government contracted testing to private companies.

I've definitely encountered plenty of native English speakers who communicate very poorly due to either a lack of verbal English skills, or a rural southern dialect, etc. These same people would have to subject to the testing standard of non-English speaking workers, most likely. What costs more? The inefficiency of waiting for an order longer or implementing a fair English-language system? I would bet the latter costs more. And then there's this: Would we create an exception to the law for special VIP speakers? What about a visiting lecturer or a temporary worker who has a special ability in a field of research or medical treatment? Many people are willing to ignore a language barrier if the product is quite good: Einstein and a lot of other Nobel Laureates did not speak English as a first language, but you can bet that many students would have strained happily to hear their lectures.

And then, thank goodness, language is a learned skill, so take solace in the fact that the employee will likely improve in their speaking skills over time. If, on the other hand, everyone starts to speak a non-English language, then you may have the benefit of learning their particular language as you go about your day, becoming somewhat bilingual. So it might even be a net win for all at the cost of a little inefficiency in the beginning. But of course, that assumes free market forces would find it beneficial to hire people who couldn't speak English in the first place. And then that assumes that those non-English workers don't create some economic or service value that's not based on language.

The final issue of mandating English would involve scope: Would you require English proficiency for all service jobs or just jobs in English-speaking communities? If I travel to a Mexican restaurant in an Hispanic area, I don't mind if the servers only speak Spanish. I want authentic food, and usually that comes with a language barrier. So how does the regulation begin and end? This doesn't even touch on the legal barriers to making a law that discriminates economically for the purpose of creating better service, or for mandating how employers hire such workers. Any regulation in this area would face 'rational' level scrutiny under Constitutional law. While we know it's rational to require a 911 dispatcher to speak proficient English - and so our taxes pay for those exams - we don't necessarily have the rationale for non-safety related work areas based on the points above.

Additionally, it's possible that the barista you encountered was on call for another employee who didn't show up, in which case they had to put him in the position that required the least training: taking orders as opposed to making orders. And then the professor thing was a fluke! Two bad experiences in service in one day. I just don't see a lot of non-English speaking communication/service employees even in my diverse city, so I would offer that maybe your situation was not the norm.

And finally, to appeal to the human spirit in us, maybe the employee probably needs the job desperately - especially given their lack of English skills. By taking the job, they are probably improving their English-speaking the best way possible: By interacting with customers. American business favors the hard worker for the least amount of pay, whether for good or bad. So there could be economic reasons on both side of the hiring spectrum. And finally, I doubt that the barista's total lack of English ability would last for long. If I were a stranger in a new place, and needed to learn a language, I would also look for a job where I could do the least harm while also quickly learning the language. Barista sounds like a perfect start. For the professor, I can't guarantee this would be true; perhaps he was filling in for a lost adjunct? Maybe he's just an amazing mathematician on the side or a Wolf Prize winner? The circumstances are often not as they appear in these situations.