I still stick by my comment about the lack of apologies though . I know that the English tend to apologise for everything and that maybe makes us more sensitive to it. But it does become a grind sometimes when someone is absolutely wrong and tries to twist and turn to make it look as though the mistake lies elsewhere.
Oh, and don't get me started on UK Transport (train, bus take your pick), they've always been miserable buggers as long as I can remember.
I swear I did not make this up
Just been away on business for a couple of days, I love BA more mature staff, icy stare, no cheesy smile, consumate pros who know their stuff and deliver with minimum fuss/words and a touch of wit lurking in the background. Perfect customer service for me
Today, I wanted to buy a camera. Before walking into the shop, I've already narrowed down to 2 cameras. Asked first question in High German. Person behind the counter replied in Swiss German. Couldn't understand a word. Ask him politely if we could communicate in High German since my Swiss German is not good enough to understand what he is saying.
Asked second question, and he still reply in Swiss German. Said "merci für Ihr Zit" and walked out.
Went to a second shop. Asked same question in my passable German, he replied in High German. Asked the second question in German again he replied in English but mixed with some German. A few more questions followed and although he didn't have a good command of the English language, he knows how to make a customer happy and the shop makes 1029.- CHF.
I have already emailed "praises" to the shop in question.
Since the first shop is on the way home. Stop and pretend to do window shopping with my shoping bag held in front of me. The guy behind the counter stared - showed him my shopping bag, smiled and walked away.
I know some of you may think otherwise and that I'm being childish. I really don't care because at the end of the day, a sale still means income and I'm very happy with my purchase.
By the way, I've said a few times here that I've never as yet met any particular rudeness here, but I did at the weekend and am looking forward to reporting her behaviour to her bosses when I meet them next week!
If you press any German speaker (and from my perspective you could incllude the Germans and the Austrians in this) on being right or wrong, you will often get a debate, and a steadfast insistence on being right. To some degree this is based on a cultural upbringing. We used to have very spirited debates in upper level high school in Germany, far beyond what Anglo-Saxons consider to be 'polite'. The point was to debate a position and not to give, to the point of what would appear to be a serious confrontation to Americans. In these debates we would each take a position and stick to it. There was no option of admitting to being wrong, because there is often no absolute right or wrong. Look at it as a sport. An intelectual game in which admitting to being wrong is like losing the game. It's not the right or wrong the counts, its the process of debate.
As an American in the US I would have debates with some of my old friends from high school in Germany and they would think we were in a serious fight. People would become uncomfortable listening to us, look to the side, make hushed remarks, etc.
As a side note, some of what makes people so polite in the US in customer service positions is that they can get fired at a moments notice. "Collect your money and leave, now." Not because they want to be polite. They can't afford not to be. Or they truly are fired.
In all of central Europe, this is not how the system works. No firing of workers without the chance for grievance procedures at the very least. And in the case of your post office worker, I think firing him is next to impossible - so he was just having a bad day or year or life. His mom just died, he hasn't had sex with his wife in 10 years, his mother inlaw lives with him ...
So customer service is by far the best in places where workers approach the position of indentured slavery. Why do you think those bus boys in the US are so fast... ever present to make sure your glass of water is filled, ever wisking away the dishes while causing as little notice as possible...
Small victories add up .....
I would rather have someon being falsely nice to me than genuinely horrible.
I have been on both sides of the fence and I can honestly say dealing with some members of the public can be a nightmare. I would not do it again. I took a job where we deal with the same customers on an ongoing basis and people tend to watch their manners more as we all know we have to deal with each on a long term basis.
As for the old man in the Post office, he may have his own story as to how he turned into what he is. Does not mean the public should have to put up with it though and I guess if you can be bothered it is worth making a complaint about the incident.
The number of good experiences for me here outweigh the bad ones. It is just that the bad ones sometimes stick out because we think that would never happen at home, and because we find it harder to stand up for ourselves as we don;t know the system. No it may not have happened at home but perhaps something else equally annoying would have...
Kind regards : ))
I work with Swiss, and they are very conspicuous in the non use of the sorry word. it's bred into them at school. My kids go to Swiss state school, and I saw straight away why hey are like they are.
dave
There seems to be too much emphasis on 'fighting your corner' rather than 'getting along'. My experience is that whenever disputes over something happened in Switzerland, I found that people would immediately get very defensive. They were always pretty suspicious if you offered a compromise as if it was some sort of trick to get one up on them. People were always extremely reluctant to admit they were in the wrong.
Unfortuantely that probably explains why people were so reluctant to cut slack or give the benefit of the doubt. The 'default' mode of dealing with people when there was a conflict/disagreement of any sort seemed to be "assume that this person is out to take what you have".
You could see the mentality when drawing up an agreement in the first place - everything had to be nailed down with absolutely no room for ambiguity. And the moment things were ambiguous, people immediately jumped in to take advantage (lest you take it, I guess). A very combatitive way to live and quite stressful IMO.
I think the problem is that kids are now brought up to think that they are always right: Increasingy lazy parenting means that they are rarely forced to face the consequences of their actions and believe therefore that anything they say or do must be 'right'. It's a lot easier for the parents to let things go rather than take the time and effort to monitor their kids behaviour and discipline where necessary.
The result is that as adults, they just can't comprehend that they might be fallible. It can lead to the most exasperating situations where 'grown-ups' who are completely in the wrong expect that they can more or less stamp their feet and make a fuss, and they will magically get things their way. I'd hate to be working in customer-facing positions.
What I notice is the Swiss find it very difficult to work in a team. They can't let the team be the "higher power" if you like, subsequently they end up walking on everybody's back, and simply won't except the greater good. I don't think they consciously do it, they just can't help themselves.
This then causes tensions within the team and is disruptive, which is frustrating for a supervise, who has as one of his duties to set the "ambiance"of the team. On this aspect I think they deliberately do this to gain the upper hand. It is very tiring, extremely annoying and negative.
They will never win a world championship in a team game, that's for sure. They may win an individual sport,e.g. skiing, but nothing which involves a team discipline.
I suspect after this, my Swiss nationality application will fall on stony ground.
I had some work done by a gardener on a house that I was building. He did a particularly bad job and trippled his bill in the process so I refused to pay. The court appointed an independant assessor to look at the work and he agreed that we had been overcharged and that (if anything) the gardener owed me money. Now, I thought that this would be a pretty open and shut case with the judge listening to both sides and then making a decision ..... WRONG. The gardener dug his heels in and basically said that he wanted more money. So the judge brokered a deal where I ended up paying some of the amount outstanding which the gardener eventually accepted. The reason behind this is that, in order to make a decision the judge would have to deliberate over all of the documents for a few weeks before making his decision and the bill for this deliberation would have to be paid (in part) by me. So effectively I was looking at paying some money to the court plus another appearance with time off from work; or paying the gardener. Basically, this guy new that if he just dug his heels in that he would get some money, even though he'd been proven to be in the wrong. No compromise.
Don't even get me started on divorce proceedings over here.
1/They want something from you., usually money
2/ Once they've ripped you off, usually with sub-standard service, you have to pursue them using legal means.
I have some really good examples of downright dishonesty on a client/service provider level. I would say, in Geneva at least, that the client is not someone who pays their salaries, but he is there to be ripped off. The Swiss call this pragmatism. If you don't like it then that's ok as well, as there are plenty of other suckers (with swiss francs hanging out of their pockets) out there who are waiting to be ripped off and won't even raise an eyelid. Ignorance is bliss.