The Customer is Always Wrong

I turned the knob on the stove & waited for the little hiss.  I was answered only with silence.  There I was, frying pan in hand, ready to make dinner, & then…nothing.  Silence.

“Something’s wrong.”  I turned & looked in the living room.  There was Olivier, his body mangled in some painful looking yoga pose.  “The fucking stove isn’t working.”

He immediately unknotted himself & began flipping knobs, pushing buttons & tossing switches at various locations of the apartment.  It quickly became obvious that the matter was out of our hands.  We would have to call the gas company.  We were now in one of the worst possible situations that any resident of France could possibly be in – the circle of Hell that is almost too awful to even talk about – customer service.

Dealing with customer service in France is something that takes a lot of getting used to when you’re a spoiled American.  Ah…America – that fat, lazy country where the customer is always right.

It was so easy there, knowing that even if there was a chance that you were wrong, you’d still be in the right & would very likely get your way as long as you were the customer.

However, this is France.

After spending about an hour on the phone with customer service, we discovered that our gas had been shut off because the gas company had simply “lost” our account.  We didn’t exist, the account didn’t exist, so some pillar of wisdom at the gas company did what any brilliant sage might do – had the gas turned off, likely assuming that we were some nameless, faceless squatters who were thieving their gas.

Never mind the fact that they had sent someone here back in April to turn the gas on for us when we moved into this place.  It seems that their record keeping system is a bit flawed.

Now an obstacle had been put up that stood between Olivier & his dinner.  Not good.  Naturally, he did what anyone would do – insisted that someone come to our place ASAP to turn our gas back on, since it was their mistake & not ours.

“Sure.”  They said.  “No problem.  We should be able to get someone out there in two weeks.”

Yep.  Two weeks.  Regardless of how many times they are called, or how much we insist, they’re very unapologetic & in no hurry at all to rectify the situation.

There are so many great things about France, but customer relations is definitely not one of them – no matter how far up merde creek you are, in the end, it just isn’t their problem.  They’ll get around to it when they get around to it.

Really, two weeks isn’t all that bad – I suppose it could have been worse.  They could have been on strike again.

[tags]France, French, American, America, customer service, gas, gas company[/tags]