How Can I Help You?
In the ?gold old days? of former Yugoslavia, getting an espresso was a major undertaking. It went something like this: You would sit down at a cafe and hope to get the server's attention right away. When that was unsuccessful, you would then wave or nod or politely call out. Nine out of ten times, your server would continue to ignore you and instead lavish attention on his friends at a nearby table.
Only after you could no longer be ignored, the 30-year old waiter would punctuate his rise from the chair with the sigh of a 90-year old man and saunter over to your table.
If you were lucky, he would feign surprise that you had been sitting there all along. If you were unlucky, you would get a heap of bad attitude. In that case, you could look forward to several minutes of trying to charm him into providing mediocre service.
The underpinning for this bizarre ritual was one of communist Yugoslavia's favourite clichés - ''you can't pay me as little as I can work''. Sure, the wages were low, but you could almost never get fired. Therefore, the point of any business – which is to serve the customer to the point that they would actually want to return – was lost. Work was seen a means to a paycheck – one that came whether you did anything or not - and the focus was on accomodating the waiter, the cook and the cleaning lady. The customer was a necessary evil – and one preferably avoided.
Almost 3 decades later, I was at the Sanitation office. I wanted to change the billing address for my father's garbage pick-up, as he passed away 3 weeks ago. Being paid was something that I assume Sanitation would want.
Their website clearly laid out their office hours - Fridays 7:00-15:00. I arrived at 14:00 with my stack of papers.
?You have to come back another day. The office is closed,“ said the guard.
?The website says they work until 15:00,“ I said.
He responded, ?Yes, but they work with customers until 13:30.“
I asked him if they were working behind locked doors.
?I can't say“, he said….which actually said a lot.
I had never encountered the concept of limited customer-facing working hours until moving to Croatia. It's a part of our communist hangover and it's a lose-lose proposition. We lose in terms of overall productivity but mostly we lose in terms of psychology. The set-up suggests that customers are an intrusion rather than the point of government service. We all work with our minds (whatever we do) – meaning, our attitude greatly determines the quality of our work, not to mention our enjoyment of it. So we lose, as do those not serving us.
I have worked in Canada, the United States, Germany as well as Croatia and I assure you that customers could call me or come any time they wanted. I was always available and happy to hear from them as that was the point of my being there – to serve. I wasn't serving coffee or doing administration but make no mistake – whether it's a retail customer, a corporation or a shareholder, we all serve somebody.
Customers are not a problem to be limited. Customers provide the revenue that pay our paychecks. Customers allow companies, careers and economies to bloom. They are the fuel for our economy. Limiting their access to service makes as much sense as going back to the gasoline rationing of the ?good old days? of former Yugoslavia or modern day Venezuela.
This is a translation of an original column that was published in Croatia's largest newspaper, Ve?ernji List, on August 20, 2018. See my pearl trees for a complete gallery of my articles for Ve?ernji List and other publications, including The Wall Street Journal.