Taking things back is one of the great indicators of character that exists.
The world divides into ‘those that do’ and ‘those that don’t’ – we will ignore for the purpose of this discussion ‘those who do when it’s M&S’ because that is the ‘taking it back’ equivalent of shooting fish in a bucket. In Spain the equivalent is taking something back to El Corte Inglés: no problem perhaps; no achievement certainly!
Some people make a distinction between returning those products which don’t work and those products they don’t want. I know too many people who regard poorly functioning products as the way of the world and the price we have to pay for original sin! Poor service, poor food, poor timekeeping – all are met by some with a defeatist shrug of the shoulders.
My mother was of the ‘don’t make a fuss’ school while my father was of the ‘sort it out now!’ persuasion. They were also RhA- and RhA+ in terms of blood and if blood has anything to do with temperament then it showed in their respective attitudes! They have to take the blame for me, and the shyly assertive person I have become!
I will take back anything and everything and, as I always assume that the people listening to me are as reasonable as I am, I usually get what I want. I don’t abuse the system so, with or without receipts people behave well for me. As one should expect. Shops offer a service which we pay for, it’s up to them to keep us happy.
None of this, obviously, applies to banks. Especially BBVA. They couldn’t give a, um, I suppose I ought to leave out what I was going to say here; so I’ll just say that my experience of banks is not very positive and Spain has added whole new facets of hatefulness to the banking experience.
Toni is not one to take things back. And we had two things to take back yesterday: a Nordica (which is the word for a duvet cover) and three pairs of socks. The socks were my fault: I misread the label on them and thought that one number referred to . . . well, the details are not important. It was just a matter of a simple exchange. The Nordica was the wrong size. The wrong size that is until we got back to the shop and we discovered that the size that I thought was wrong referred to the bed size and not the size of the Nordica. We actually had the right size. Toni was mortified that we had to go back to the assistant and take back what we had brought in to exchange. It’s a difference in attitude. One that I can appreciate but not understand.
This mortification was compounded by the exchanges at the bank. Normally I would go alone and after a white knuckle ride of language abuse I would generally come to some sort of final agreement about what was being talked about. And do something. Usually sign a vast number of dingy copies of documents I didn’t understand and give my passport to be copied.
That last phrase almost has the same cadences as the passage in Corinthians (?) about Charity and “even though I give my body to be burned” etc. I must say that copying my passport does seem to have some sort of ritualistic importance which transcends the information that it contains. The bank, for example, has photocopied my passport on numerous occasions. Given that the copies of the passport are printed on sheets which look like they have been made of recycled third world toilet paper, I doubt that they are doing a roaring trade in pirated versions of my national identity! Though, of course with banks, anything shady and disreputable you can imagine is probably happening in marble clad, superficially respectable, imposingly false branches of banks throughout the world.
Anyway, as Toni was with me he was able to give an explanation of why we were there. Unfortunately the conversation he was having did not relate to the right exchange that we had had. So, after a few moments of total confusion, he had to give another version to the bank assistant. For Toni this was not an understandable incident of linguistically crossed wires, but rather of personal humiliation. Compounded, of course, by my somewhat serendipitous approach to language accretion. Or laziness as it is sometimes called!
Next week, he said yet again, I must find somewhere to start (Shame! Shame!) my language lessons in Castelldefels.
Promise!
The world divides into ‘those that do’ and ‘those that don’t’ – we will ignore for the purpose of this discussion ‘those who do when it’s M&S’ because that is the ‘taking it back’ equivalent of shooting fish in a bucket. In Spain the equivalent is taking something back to El Corte Inglés: no problem perhaps; no achievement certainly!
Some people make a distinction between returning those products which don’t work and those products they don’t want. I know too many people who regard poorly functioning products as the way of the world and the price we have to pay for original sin! Poor service, poor food, poor timekeeping – all are met by some with a defeatist shrug of the shoulders.
My mother was of the ‘don’t make a fuss’ school while my father was of the ‘sort it out now!’ persuasion. They were also RhA- and RhA+ in terms of blood and if blood has anything to do with temperament then it showed in their respective attitudes! They have to take the blame for me, and the shyly assertive person I have become!
I will take back anything and everything and, as I always assume that the people listening to me are as reasonable as I am, I usually get what I want. I don’t abuse the system so, with or without receipts people behave well for me. As one should expect. Shops offer a service which we pay for, it’s up to them to keep us happy.
None of this, obviously, applies to banks. Especially BBVA. They couldn’t give a, um, I suppose I ought to leave out what I was going to say here; so I’ll just say that my experience of banks is not very positive and Spain has added whole new facets of hatefulness to the banking experience.
Toni is not one to take things back. And we had two things to take back yesterday: a Nordica (which is the word for a duvet cover) and three pairs of socks. The socks were my fault: I misread the label on them and thought that one number referred to . . . well, the details are not important. It was just a matter of a simple exchange. The Nordica was the wrong size. The wrong size that is until we got back to the shop and we discovered that the size that I thought was wrong referred to the bed size and not the size of the Nordica. We actually had the right size. Toni was mortified that we had to go back to the assistant and take back what we had brought in to exchange. It’s a difference in attitude. One that I can appreciate but not understand.
This mortification was compounded by the exchanges at the bank. Normally I would go alone and after a white knuckle ride of language abuse I would generally come to some sort of final agreement about what was being talked about. And do something. Usually sign a vast number of dingy copies of documents I didn’t understand and give my passport to be copied.
That last phrase almost has the same cadences as the passage in Corinthians (?) about Charity and “even though I give my body to be burned” etc. I must say that copying my passport does seem to have some sort of ritualistic importance which transcends the information that it contains. The bank, for example, has photocopied my passport on numerous occasions. Given that the copies of the passport are printed on sheets which look like they have been made of recycled third world toilet paper, I doubt that they are doing a roaring trade in pirated versions of my national identity! Though, of course with banks, anything shady and disreputable you can imagine is probably happening in marble clad, superficially respectable, imposingly false branches of banks throughout the world.
Anyway, as Toni was with me he was able to give an explanation of why we were there. Unfortunately the conversation he was having did not relate to the right exchange that we had had. So, after a few moments of total confusion, he had to give another version to the bank assistant. For Toni this was not an understandable incident of linguistically crossed wires, but rather of personal humiliation. Compounded, of course, by my somewhat serendipitous approach to language accretion. Or laziness as it is sometimes called!
Next week, he said yet again, I must find somewhere to start (Shame! Shame!) my language lessons in Castelldefels.
Promise!
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