Oh. Joy. "China" and "Customer Service" do not belong in the same sentence.

[icarus]

I just wrote this to libitina, but in case you were wondering about my joyous afternoon.

I got my essay in on time, if under the wire. But my presentation, due today, welllll...I did color transparencies, printed them, I was little late but not too bad. Then waited in line to the copy center. They had these two new Chinese kids working there. Their english was a bit fuzzy, I mentioned that the one job was transparencies but they didn't catch it and printed them on white paper -- this deleted the print job from the queue. They charged me for it, too, and then told me I'd have to resend it to the printer so they could get it right.

Their boss happened by. She cut them off with alacrity, told me they'd deduct what I'd been overcharged from my reprint. She suggested I email the job to them directly instead of sending it to the print queue.

But I had to wander around the library to find an unoccupied computer. Not an easy task. Finally found one, opened the presentation and emailed it.

Then I had to wait in line again.

Got to the front of the line, re-explained to them what they were supposed to do. The one guy wandered off... and disappeared. I waited. And waited. And waited.

I peered around the corner. The guy who was supposed to be helping me was just sitting there. I finally asked what was taking so long, were they having trouble finding the email-?Oh no, the color printer in the back wasn't turned on so it had to warm up. (It wasn't until later that I realized these jerks were deliberately making me wait because they didn't like being corrected by their boss.)

They finally brought my transparencies and then made a big production out of refunding my 60 cents. Like they were doing me some great favor conferred from above for which I should be eternally grateful. Uh. Thank you?

I get the feeling that in China, you wouldn't get your 60 cents back under any circumstances and their boss was having trouble instilling the concept of "customer service" in these two. While I was standing there someone asked them where to put money on their print cards. They just said, "Not here" and looked away. No, there was no one else in line and the place you added money to your cards was just three floors down.

I know enough about Chinese culture to guess from their behavior that Employees of the Copy Center must be considered a higher position than a Mere Student (especially since everything's higher than a Mere Student). If so, being asked to go out of their way for me or any other Mere Student would be insulting to them. In time, these two will either learn American attitudes or be fired. More likely the latter if the two keep working together.

Anyhow, after this study in cross-cultural miscommunication was finally done, I walked over to class... just in time to catch the last ten minutes.

How embarrassing. My presentation has been post-poned till Friday. This is the second time it's been post-poned, and this for a teacher I want to impress. Man....

Comments

[kijikun.livejournal.com]

*HUGS* Sorry you had a shit day.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Oh, it wasn't a shit day. It was all rather ironically funny, actually.

[memorycharm.livejournal.com]

Psst--you're at the UW, right? When I was there the computer lab to go to (unless you need comb-binding or something) was in Mary Gates Hall....

Admittedly, that was five years ago, but hey.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I like Mary Gates. There's always a computer there. But they changed the bloody print card system and now you have to put the money on the Husky card and get nickle-and-dimed with fees unless you use Odegaard's copy center.

Or print it at home, which is what I've been doing for the most part. But, um, no way is my deskjet up to doing transparencies. :)

[inkscribe.livejournal.com]

I live in a community that has a huge number of Asian-descended people (from various nationalities/cultures, but primarily Cantonese). The community might even be more of that culture than any single other culture in the immediate region. My personal experience has been very positive ...

... so imagine my surprise a few weeks back when I'm gadding about in the countryside and have cause to need to stop and ask for directions. Hey -- a gas station! They'll know -- gas station people in the country always know. Well, not only did the person not know where the place I was seeking might be (and I'll just say that it was a significant local landmark, so anyone who had been there for more than, say, 24 hours should have known where it was) but also gave me a "why are you so insane as to ask me directions?" look.

When I stayed put and waited for a real reply, the person just walked away without a word.

A couple weeks later, another gas station, as far as I know a different family -- same response. And to add astoundment to insult, this is after filling my tank, so it's not like I was expecting information without having contributed to the local economy.

Freaking weird. And completely outside my experience with the culture in my own community.

[from-the-corner.livejournal.com]

Heh. Where I work, we have Customer Service Coordinator who is known for saying to the customer "if you don't like our service you can go to the competition". Seriously. And yes, she's still working here... We are actually contemplating taping her conversations and present to the boss ('cos he likes her and doesn't want to listen when we say she's the worst person possible for this position).

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Oh, god. LOL.

[meishali.livejournal.com]

um...I just have to say, that's not true. You generally get more service in China because there are so many people competing for the same job. Taking anything to the manager will probably get the poor worker fired.
Those two you've met are probably spoiled rich kids (hence the attitude problem) that've never worked a day in their lives. Lots and lots them in Vancouver and Toronto. They're sometimes forced to work because they've already spent their allowance on Gucci bags/Prada shoes/etc.