Can someone help me with the racism? The OP is from Southern California and knows "enough Spanish to get by" and his "English is good enough to file complaints". It appears that neither English nor Spanish is his first language. On the other hand he takes the liberty to utter "Who hasn't had bad service in Europe?" or "Ido know that service is Europe is substandard compared to the US". If the OP behaved or better misbehaved himself the same way in the said IC, he cannot really be surprised about frosty reactions. The approach is simply bad and substandard compared to the way we use in Europe.