I have seen some members of cabin crew, on non-English airlines, that "favored" people who knew their language over English/other languages speaking passengers, therefore some parts of the OP story don't really surprise me.
I also met people on the ground, in customer service roles, that made no effort to help people asking question in English and others that were more accommodating if the person tried to speak at least a couple of sentences in their language.

There are people like them everywhere, unfortunately.