This is quite the thread. Please understand, I love German products, whether that be Joura pipes, Wusthof knives, or German Sig Sauers. They just make awesome stuff. I also love Switzerland, and it is my favorite country outside of the USA. But I will say, this attitude seems in line with the German mentality. Please allow me to share a couple of entertaining personal stories to illustrate this, if anyone cares to listen.
I spent a month in the German areas of Switzerland when I was nine years old (my family used to go there about once a year, and I was brought along on one of the trips). It was a wonderful, magical trip, and I have been in love with Switzerland ever since. There were some hilarious, and unsavory moments on that trip as well.
During that trip we once went into a store to buy my little brother a Playmobil set. We were shopping around, and no employees were talking to us, they were just letting us shop around. When we went up to the counter to buy the Playmobil set my brother had chosen out, the girl behind the counter was counting change. She said, “We’re closed.” My Dad was like, “U wot m8? We were just shopping around for a good amount of time and you didn’t say anything to us.” She repeated that they were closed, but eventually let my Dad buy the item after he pressed her on the issue. When we went to leave the entrance was locked and the manager or someone had to open it for us. It was surreal.
One night at a restaurant, my Mom ordered veal or steak. It was cold, so she told the server (my Mom isn’t someone to complain, but it was cold, and she wasn’t used to that). The server became upset and said that it’s the way they do it in Switzerland.
While getting on a train once, my family was separated because the doors slam shut exactly at departure time. You have to understand that Switzerland is famous for its on-time rail system, and they don’t wait for anyone.
But the craziest story on that trip was when we were in a ski resort area and went to a bakery. It had some outside tables that were shared with the restaurants next to it. My Mom got some stuff from the bakery and then brought it back to our table, where she then took some food out for my youngest brother, who had just turned one year old. The owner’s son, who was a stereotypical giant, bulky Swiss-German Schwingen wrestler type, came out and started yelling at us: “NO PICNIC! NOOOOO PICNIC!” My parents realized he was talking about the outside food they took out for my brother. Even though the other restaurants sold food, and the bakery didn’t even sell food, he was still upset and kept going off. He then PUSHED my Mom. So, we proceeded to go to the police station and they were really nice and told us that he has a history of harassing tourists (which was funny because it was a tourist area).
We had a similar experience at another public outside area, in another town. My Dad sat at one of the communal tables to eat some ice cream he had bought from one of the stores, and an employee from one of the restaurants came out and basically said that the table he was sitting at was too close to their restaurant.
On another trip to Switzerland, years earlier, my aunt or someone was next in line to buy a bratwurst or something from some type of window restaurant (I don’t know what you would call them, but almost like a concession stand at a ball game). The employee took the person’s order in front of her, and then slammed the window shut as my aunt walked towards it and put the “Closed” sign up. My family started busting up laughing.
Anyways, I hope these stories cheered up this thread with some humor. I would encourage anyone to visit Switzerland if they get the chance, and then report back to us with any funny stories.
I do think there is a distinct difference in customer service between the US and Europe generally, and the anecdotes in this thread are pretty accurate reflections of that difference. However, the American “customer is always right” approach has its shortcomings too. Anyone who has ever worked in a service job knows it can be kind of humiliating to have to defer to an obnoxious aggressive customer when you really want to tell them to fuck off... which I’m pretty sure you can do in Europe.