The Customer Is Always an Idiot

(This is part two of a five-part series.)

Thing We Will Miss #4: Being Different

Ever since puberty, I have tried to distance myself from groups. At first, this was because large groups of people made me hyperventilate. But as this tendency continued into adulthood, my panic attacks receded. Instead, I just chalked my militant individualism up to the fact that I do not like being lumped in with any group of people because being lumped in interferes with my ability to be perceived as an individual. I am aware that this implies negative things about my maturity level. It’s also counterproductive: When you use other people’s behavior to determine your own, whether by seeking sameness or opposition, that still means you are basing your decisions around the decisions of someone else and, as such, any goal of autonomy is consequently destroyed. Nonconformity is a wonderful thing as long as you’re being creative and authentic rather than reactionary. And it’s hard not to be reactionary, especially when you’re an American living in and traveling through Europe in the post-Bush era of politics.

But enough of that. Suffice to say, being an American in a sea of Americans was getting mundane, and it’s refreshing as a narcissist to be someone that doesn’t fit: not in beliefs, language, mannerisms, musical taste, haircut, or even dress. Living in Lithuania makes being an American seem unique, interesting, perhaps even frumpily exotic. And, surprisingly, it’s given me a more objective perspective on Americans that generally improves my opinion of being lumped in with such a bunch. Americans, from an Eastern European’s point of view, are overly eager, overly friendly, and overly, almost stupidly, happy. We are idealistic and generous. On the negative side, we are loud, uninformed, wasteful, and badly dressed (or, as we call it, comfortable). From this side of the ocean, I can see how these things are true of me, especially the things I like. I’ll have to see how this newfound appreciation changes when I go to Cedar Point and am herded like a hot, queasy cow through 3-hour lines that I will undoubtedly share with a bunch of loud, uninformed, and badly dressed compatriots.

Thing We Will Not Miss #4: Being Different

Yes, that’s right. Being different is not all it’s cracked up to be. The truth is, we are Americans, and we have American expectations. When I pass one other person walking down a deserted street and flash a toothy grin, I expect that person to at least nod back, perhaps even to smile. When I hold the door open for someone, I expect that he or she will react with the same overly-eager enthusiasm that I would show had someone done the same for me and not, as we both leave the store five minutes later, to slam that same door in my hopeful face. And I expect, when I enter a store, that someone there would be happy to answer my questions and take my money. Despite the disappointments we’ve experience here, Scott and I still have especially American expectations when it comes to customer service.

In America, everyone who works in the customer service industry is taught the same rule: The customer is always right. In Eastern Europe, customer service representatives are apparently taught a different set of rules. Some stores, if they were to qualify their tenets, would probably write things like “The customer is always less intelligent than you,” or “The customer should be treated as if he/she hasn’t bathed in days,” or “We don’t need the customer’s money, so feel free to ignore said customer until he/she forces interaction.” Actually, I can’t read most store signs, so maybe it does say this somewhere.

The upside to this is that I am no longer intimidated by people who, seen through American eyes, would be considered very rude. A couple weeks ago, I was trying to find a substitute for vanilla extract so that I could make chocolate chip cookies for my students. I found a small dropper bottle that smelled like cake and said something vaguely similar to “vanilla aroma.” I stopped one of the stockers to ask if the bottle could be added to food. That is, I tried to stop one of the stockers. “Atsiprasau,” I said in my enthusiastic Lithuanian. “Ar jus kalbite angliskai?” (“Excuse me, do you speak English?”) Without stopping, she looked me up and down, sneered (or so I imagined), and continued past. Nine months ago, this would have made me want to run home and nurse my wounded pride with a Victorian flick and a giant chocolate bar. Now, however, when things like this happen, I am nonplussed. “Uh! Uh! Uh!” I cried. She turned around to see if I was hurt. “This?” I held up the bottle. “Eat?” Then I threw back my head and pretended to down it like a shot of vodka. She blinked, then nodded. I happily purchased my vanilla aroma and went home, only to discover that, after licking a dab from my finger, it tasted like toilet bowl cleaner. She was a tricky one, I thought. Or perhaps she was just obeying the supermarket’s customer service protocol. I imagined a laminated sign hanging in the employee break room: “If the customer is an American and wants to know if he/she can knock back small bottles of harmful household chemicals, simply nod and continue on your way.”

Although we have had some less-than-favorable experiences with Lithuanian customer service, we must also include a couple of disclaimers. First of all, the key difference here is not that Lithuanians are less polite but simply that they have a different culture, one that has been greatly affected by the recent 50-year Soviet occupation. Secondly, we can’t say that these experiences represent all of Eastern Europe. In fact, the further north we travel, the more we begin to think that there is an inverse relationship between customer service quality and how good looking everyone is.

Okay, this is almost entirely in jest, but two of the most obvious things you notice when visiting a new place are the friendliness level of the people and the attractiveness level of the people. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Lithuanians, women more than men, are, to quote Zoolander, “ridiculously good looking”. And, as I just mentioned, Lithuanians tend not to fall all over themselves for strangers. In Latvia, however, one country to the north, people in general go down a notch or two in super-model potential and up at least two notches in friendliness to foreigners. Then, from what we’ve seen, once you get to Estonia, the attractiveness level kind of bottoms out (no offense, Estonians), and the friendly factor explodes. They even over-compensate by giving all the beautiful young women jobs as serving wenches, although this is at least partly due to the medieval motif. This observation is based on very little data, and the relationship, if accurate, is probably correlative rather than causative. Still, it makes you wonder: Why are we Americans so damned friendly?