I'm going to begin with restaurants.
In Canada my expectations at a restaurant are always the same at every restaurant from Boston Pizza or... Some fancy restaurant (can't you tell I went to lots of fancy restaurants). You get seated by an overly smiley host/ess, before your even sitting fully on your seat a waiter/ess is asking what you want to drink. Three minutes later they are back with your drink (maybe five if you ordered alcohol, which be honest, you did). Immediately after putting your drinks down they ask you for your order. If you are ready you give your order, if you are not ready they will come back every two minutes until you are. After placing your order you sit for ten to fifteen minutes until it is ready and then you eat. After you eat you settle your bill and you are out of there. This whole experience will have taken you 45 minutes. This experience also involved bottomless pop and you gave your waiter/ess a potentially generous tip.
Now, in France. You wait in a cramped "hallway" for five minutes, some waiter/ess notices you and gestures in a sit wherever fashion. You sit. You sit. You sit. FINALLY, the waiter/ess comes and plops down a menu and bustles off. You look at the menu. You look at the menu. You look at the menu. You flag down the waiter/ess and order your drink and food at the same time (if you are getting water be very careful to order tap water so you aren't paying for your water). The food comes fairly promptly. You eat your food. You sit. You sit. You sit. The waiter/ess comes back and asks if you want dessert. OF COURSE you want desert, you've been sitting long enough your food has settled, and hot damn, deserts are great here. You eat your desert. You sit. You sit. You sit. You settle your bill and leave. This whole experience has taken 2-4 hours. You did not get bottomless pop and you did not tip your waiter/ess. The reason you didn't tip isn't because you felt the service was subpar. it's because you just don't. Waiter/ess' make good money here so they aren't constantly at your table working (read: annoying you) to get a good tip.
I am really not sure which I prefer, I like aspects of each country. For Canada, I like the quick meal, and the bottomless pop. In France, I like the space you get and that you aren't getting asked "how is your meal?" when your mouth is full of food. Can we meet half way? Probably not.
Customer service in stores is fairly similar to how it is in Canada, perhaps a little more hands off. It is very rare to get more than a "bonjour" in a store. Perhaps this would be different in more specialty stores, but I haven't experienced that as of yet. It also seems that cashiers and floor staff might not be as "empowered" here as they are in Canada or they don't have the same level of responsibility. It is a very French thing that whatever shows up in the computer must be right. For example, I was at an IKEA buying towels, when my total came to something like 12,000€ I just looked at the cashier with a confused look (now I feel I could at least express my confusion, but that was then). She looked at the screen and pointed to the number with a shrug that said "it's in the computer" eventually, she called down a manager and the manager pointed out that she had inputted 4,000 towels, not four. Now, she might have just been new... Or kinda dumb.
I'm not going to say that this hands off style of customer service is necessarily better but, it is better for me. I prefer just to be left alone, especially since my French is still a little... Let's call it shaky.
Random story: A few years ago a lady got her cellphone bill for 17 billion euros. She called the cellphone company because OBVIOUSLY this is a mistake. They didn't look at it and immediately go "whoops, our bad!" they set her up with a payment plan. It took months before they realized someone had just made a decimal error. If wikipedia taught me anything it's that if it is on the computer it must be right.
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| photo credit: http://memeshappen.com/meme/ron-swanson/its-not-the-computer-its-you-2201 |
Bye for now!
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