My roommate Ari and I enjoy pointing out to each other "Israeli things" we find frustrating. One frustrating thing is that service employees have a mentality which is not very service-oriented. I doubt anyone from Bezeq, Orange, or Discount Bank has ever said "the customer is always right". I wouldn't even want employees to treat customers like they are always right, but a slight shift in that general direction might be nice.
Since such a shift seems unlikely, I've started treating my interactions with service employees like a game: the Frustration Game.
The inspiration for the game came when Ari and I went to pick up a modem from a Bezeq outlet as directed by a Bezeq employee Ari spoke with on the phone. I was just along for the ride, since all the interactions were in rapid Hebrew. The employee at the outlet told us initially that she could not give us a modem and that we should come back another day. After a long discussion, she gave us a modem. It seemed pretty clear that she reacted when Ari started showing the proper amount of frustration--the amount necessary for her to decide to help us.
Thus, playing the game means figuring out what the proper amount of frustration is and pretending to be that frustrated right away.
The game worked to great effect at Shufersal, a grocery store. I was expecting to get cash for returning glass bottles. I found out later that you're supposed to ask one of the clerks to count how many bottles you are returning, then put them in a grocery cart in the corner. I asked the wrong clerk, who directed me towards the cart rather than counting the bottles or directing me to the correct clerk. When I asked her for the deposit money, she refused to give me any money. If I was being polite, I might have explained that there was a miscommunication, most likely due to my poor Hebrew skills. Instead, I pretended to be offended and indignant. I wasn't rude, I just showed a bit more emotion than I was actually feeling at the time. The manager came by and approved my deposit money right away.
3 comments:
Do you mean the Supersol?
Yes, in Israel the vendor tends to feel like they have a right to your business. So frustrating. Good to turn it into a game!
The Hebrew could legitimately be read as "supersol", but Israelis say "shufersal". I think the origin of the name is probably the English word super combined with the Hebrew word for basket, and then the combined word was pronounced in a more comfortable way, but I don't know for sure.
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