Germans - You Mean I Have To Pay For That?
Pop quiz time:
Say you’re in a store - you’ve chosen the items you want, you’re ready to leave and you find yourself standing in the cashier line. Based on previous experience, what’s your next line of action?
a. Pay for your items and leave.
Now, you may be tempted to ask, “wait a second… where are the other options?” but, let’s be honest, there aren’t any other options are there? I could have tried something clever like, “b. Jump the line and make a dash” or, “c. Barter” but that would have been ridiculous.
Things have worked in pretty much the same fashion since the Aboriginal Australians started dealing in ochre and seashells in 100,000 BCE. That’s what makes every trip to a German supermarket so frustrating. I really find it hard to believe that this country hasn’t received the memo on how transactions are conducted. The women here are the biggest offenders and though the German male seems to have figured out the basics, even he doesn’t have my full confidence.
Allow me to illustrate: let’s pretend you’re in line behind Gudrun (a proper German name). The cashier will scan all of Gudrun’s items and then tell her the total. She will then let out an audible exclamation of surprise (Oh!), and then calmly reach into her purse for her wallet. It doesn’t matter that Gudrun just watched five people successfully complete transactions ahead of her - the payment part still comes as a complete shock to her. As if that weren’t maddening enough, Gudrun will insist on fishing exact change out of her wallet despite the fact that there is a long queue waiting for her and despite my hopeful wishes for her bumbling nincompoopery to cease.
(Quick digression: you can also count on there only being one, maybe two, registers open during the busiest shopping times. Even if the supermarket employs 100 cashiers, 49 of them will be on vacation and 50 of them will be sick at any given time.)
While I don’t have anything against paying with exact change, the way it’s done here tends to drag out for an inexplicably long time. If the total to be paid is 17.86 Euros, Gudrun will pull out a 10 and a 5 then start the search for the appropriate coins with a inner monologue that goes something like this:
My girlfriend tried to bring this custom into Ireland and she was thrown out of the shop.
I felt vindicated. Bless the Irish.
Say you’re in a store - you’ve chosen the items you want, you’re ready to leave and you find yourself standing in the cashier line. Based on previous experience, what’s your next line of action?
a. Pay for your items and leave.
Now, you may be tempted to ask, “wait a second… where are the other options?” but, let’s be honest, there aren’t any other options are there? I could have tried something clever like, “b. Jump the line and make a dash” or, “c. Barter” but that would have been ridiculous.
Things have worked in pretty much the same fashion since the Aboriginal Australians started dealing in ochre and seashells in 100,000 BCE. That’s what makes every trip to a German supermarket so frustrating. I really find it hard to believe that this country hasn’t received the memo on how transactions are conducted. The women here are the biggest offenders and though the German male seems to have figured out the basics, even he doesn’t have my full confidence.
Allow me to illustrate: let’s pretend you’re in line behind Gudrun (a proper German name). The cashier will scan all of Gudrun’s items and then tell her the total. She will then let out an audible exclamation of surprise (Oh!), and then calmly reach into her purse for her wallet. It doesn’t matter that Gudrun just watched five people successfully complete transactions ahead of her - the payment part still comes as a complete shock to her. As if that weren’t maddening enough, Gudrun will insist on fishing exact change out of her wallet despite the fact that there is a long queue waiting for her and despite my hopeful wishes for her bumbling nincompoopery to cease.
(Quick digression: you can also count on there only being one, maybe two, registers open during the busiest shopping times. Even if the supermarket employs 100 cashiers, 49 of them will be on vacation and 50 of them will be sick at any given time.)
While I don’t have anything against paying with exact change, the way it’s done here tends to drag out for an inexplicably long time. If the total to be paid is 17.86 Euros, Gudrun will pull out a 10 and a 5 then start the search for the appropriate coins with a inner monologue that goes something like this:
Ok, I have a 2 Euro coin and two 1 Euro coins. I may need a Euro later but if I paid with the two 1s, that’d get rid of some of my change. I guess I’ll pay with the 2 though. Now, I have to find the 86 cents. Should I pay with four 20s, a 5 and a 1; four 20s and three 2s; a 50, a 20, a 10, a 5 and a 1; two 20s, four 10s, two 2s and two 1s or…I will watch this with my blood pressure steadily increasing, then glance around to see if anyone else share’s my incredulity. No one does. Germans are as immune to this as the English are to dentistry.
My girlfriend tried to bring this custom into Ireland and she was thrown out of the shop.
I felt vindicated. Bless the Irish.
posted by Sivlitz at 2:26 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home