In Canada, people will apologize for walking between you and the groceries you're looking at. It's a sheepish type sorry to let fellow shoppers know that you are a decent person who realizes that it's somewhat distracting to have your browsing interrupted yet not so apologetic as to make people believe you have no backbone. You are after all in a grocery store aisle and it is expected that people will be walking by. This mentality applies to all other interactions and I'm sure if I were to do a tally of how many times I say sorry per day it would be quite a large number.
Before arriving in France, a land known for its surly customer service I figured it couldn't be that different. Canadians don't really say sorry that much more frequently than the rest of the world, do they? After my short time here I can already conclude at least two things. Compared to countries that were formerly members of the British Commonwealth, Canadians are only slightly above the norm, perhaps even average when it comes to general niceties and friendly customer service agents. Compare an average French person to a Canadian, and they probably say sorry as many times in a year as we do in a single day.
Having already been to several grocery stores I feel qualified to make this call. The grocery store is a silent place, devoid of sorry. I am fairly certain that even if a fellow shoppers ran over your foot in France you wouldn't even get a sorry, you may perhaps get a "Bah, y'a beaucoup de monde' (Well, it's busy) accompanied by hand gestures. I have understood this to mean, 'I did just run over your foot but you should have expected that, these aisles are crowded and I couldn't possibly be expected to politely ask you to move over'. However, this is not to say that all the French are rude, I have met some very kind and helpful people. It just seems that they are the exceptions rather then the norm.
I have also seen customer service agents engage in behaviour that would have been fired on the spot for back at home. Yesterday, while I was getting my bus pass they girl in charge of making them couldn`t have cared less. I gave her the same sized picture as I had used for getting my student card earlier that day. She then proceeded to ask me a few questions in the rudest, 'I couldn't care less about you or your bus pass' kind of way. I now have a bus pass with a standard ID sized box ( similar to the size on a Driver`s license) which contains a minuscule photo of me, my face is about 1/6 of the size of the box. I don`t even know why she bothered to put my photo on at all, you can`t see my features. Although I supposed I should be grateful that she didn`t flat out refuse to make me a card. Perhaps most disconcerting about the whole transaction was the fact that not once did the girl smile, say thank you or make eye contact.
On Saturday I was in a checkout line that was very long and there were only two cash registers open, I witnessed the most jaw dropping display of customer service (or lack of). There were about 10 people in each line, the checkout ladies were just a chomping away on their gum, scanning items in a very casual aloof manner. It was an 'I hate my job and can't be bothered with you or your items, you are wasting my valuable time' type feeling. Then, as I was about 3rd in line checkout woman A picks up the phone. I assumed that she was calling for someone to open another till. Wrong. She actually wanted to talk to checkout woman B. Checkout woman A is at the checkout right beside checkout woman B, they could have probably shook hands if they really wanted to. They then proceed to have a 45 second conversation about nothing, which further reduced their scanning efficiency, hung up and went back to chewing their gum loudly. I`m fairly certain their manager was at the next checkout over, she didn`t appear to care at all.
I've also had a bank employee draw me a map so I could find my way to the next branch location without getting lost and provide detailed instruction. At their other branch I also received excellent customer service and the woman opening my account was a delight.
I suppose that there will always be good and bad customer service experiences. It just seems as if the French don`t particularly care about minimizing your bad experiences, if you don`t like the service you receive c'est la vie. You had better move on because there is no chance, not in a million years, that you will be getting an apology.
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