BUZZURRO

What I’d like to taste, not necessarily for breakfast. The recipe is here.

Some suggestions on how to get your economy class flight upgraded for free: useful especially on long international flights.
Here (thanks to him/her/it/whatever).

After reading another bloggers experience at the Post Office (which was naturally a negative one) I decided to post one of my own.

Nobody likes going to the Post Office in Italy. It is a punishment, but a necessary one.
Today I had to pay one bill. I am used to the US where to pay a bill you write a check, slide it into the enclosed envelope, attach a stamp and drop it in the mailbox. Easy.

In Italy though, nothing is easy. Bills are paid in person, usually at the Post Office for a transaction fee of 1 Euro. I walked into the Post Office. It was almost empty. Almost, meaning 20 or so people. I have never seen it completely empty, except when it is closed of course.

I took a number from the number machine out front, looked at the numbers above each of the open windows. I only had 24 people in front of me.. as I mentioned before, the building was almost empty. A wait in a line of 24 people is like a walk in a park. There usually are more people waiting. Italy is a country of long lines.

I thought maybe in 15 minutes I would be done but 15 minutes later I wasn’t much closer to the ‘jackpot’ of an open window.

I noticed that out of the 4 available windows, only 3 were in operation. I saw in the back of the room there was an employee engaged in a conversation with another. I don’t mean to interrupt an interesting conversation, but she obviously had some free time on her hands, why didn’t she go to an available window I though ?

Finally after 20 more people came into the Post Office and she decided to go to the empty window and the line moved much quicker.
I was finished in 30 minutes. Record time.

Today my friend and I had lunch together at a little restaurant near where she works. The menu with prices was on the placemats that the waiter/owner put in front of us. I ordered a 5 Euro pizza, and she ordered a 5 Euro pizza and a 2 Euro coca cola.
The food and our conversation were really enjoyable, but finally the time came to ask for our bills so we could leave. The owner brought my bill. It was 5 Euro as expected. He also brought my friend’s bill. It was 8 Euros. After studying it for a few seconds, she asked the owner ‘ Why is the bill 8 Euros? The menu says the pizza costs 5 and the coca cola costs 2 Euros. That should be 7 Euros total.’
And he replied ‘Well, I served you a medium glass of coca cola. That is 3 Euros. 3 for the coca cola and 5 for the pizza is 8.’
To which she replied ‘Why is a glass of coca cola 3 Euros ? It only says on the menu a coca cola is 2 Euros. It doesn’t even say anything about sizes or glasses. There is only the one price of 2 Euros mentioned.’
To which he replied ‘There was a misunderstanding. 2 Euros is for a can of coca cola. 3 Euros is for the medium glass, which I served you.’
She said ‘This wasn’t a misunderstanding. I didn’t want a 3 Euro soda, I wanted a 2 Euro soda, which is on the menu.’
To which he said ‘You pay for what you are served, and you were served a 3 Euro coca cola!’
So what did my friend do ? She PAID.
If it was me I would have made more of a fuss. I mean you cannot advertise one price and then charge another. In the US this would be illegal. Bait and switch. A crime. I’ve never even heard of a restaurant doing business like that. Talk about a fast way to lose customers. And over 1 lousy Euro too. The 2 of us will never go back there again.

It never amazes me how little customer service in Italy there is. It never amazes me how rude store clerks can be to customers too.

I have been given the evil eye in restaurants because I asked to pay my bill while my waitress was engaged in a deep conversation with another and I was just interrupting them.
I have found a bug in my salad and offered a spoon to get it out. (no new salads or refunds offered).

There is no end to the bad customer service I have either received or see others receive.

Today I went into a bar for lunch that I have been frquenting all week since I work nearby.

In Italy most of the bars have a glass counter where you can see what they have to serve, be it pastries, sandwiches or plates of pasta. I spotted a plate of tortellini in what looked like a whitish sauce, but since there is never a menu stating what the food items for sale that day in this particular place, I asked the person behind the counter what kind of tortellini they were.
Tortellini are usually filled with a cheese and another ingredient such as spinach, which I eat, and prosciutto ham which I do not, so I thought that asking was a good idea,certainly not a rude one.

Following is a transcript of my conversation with that ‘person’ behind the counter:

Me: ‘What kind of Tortellini are those?’
Clerk: ‘Tortellini.’
Me. ‘Yes. I can see that. What is inside the tortellini?’
Clerk :’I don’t know. My son made them.’ And she made no effort to find him to answer my question.
Me : (NOT BEING SATISFIED BY THIS ANSWER. I don’r care WHO made them, I just wanted to know what was inside them) ‘Could you please ask him what is inside them?
Clerk: ‘Oh. OH, OK.’ She replied, as if she was doing me some great big favor by finding out the answer to my question. She then turned and lumbered off at a snail’s pace towards the kitchen where her son was.

I mean, who is making the profit off of who? There are other restaurants in the area , Ms. Lady behind the Bar, including the one I will probably go to tomorrow.
If you don’t want to solve the problem by having a menu nearby, at least be prepared to answer these ’stupid’ questions such as ‘What is that food item’. Not everybody has X-ray vision and can see through tortellini to find out the filling on their own, ya know.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, she came back from the kitchen. She looks at me and says:
‘The tortellini are filled with spinach and ricotta and with a walnut sauce. Would you like some parmesan cheese on them?’ assuming that I’ll order them.
In 30 seconds her son came out of the kitchen and slammed the plate of tortellini on my table. It seems that they took my request for asking what is inside the tortellini as a definite order for the tortellini.
What if my story was reversed and I liked prosciutto ham and not spinach and refused ? What would happen then ?

To end my story, I was very hungry, so I ate them. They tasted good-even if the rest of the service at the bar wasn’t.

UPDATE:

Today I went to another restaurant for lunch. This is how that conversation went:

Clerk: ‘Are you ready to order?’
Me: ‘Yes. I’ll have some ribollita.’
Clerk ‘ One portion?’
Me ‘Yes’
Clerk ‘For here or to go?’
Me ‘For here.’
The clerk puts the ribollita in a container and then puts it on a tray with a napkin. He sees that I have a bottle of water with me and asks ‘Would you like a cup?’
Me ‘No Thanks.’
And then I take my food to a counter and eat.
Afterwards the clerk says to me ‘That will be 3 Euros and 10 cents’.
I pay him and he gives me a receipt.

Perhaps to the reader who does not reside in Italy this encounter does not speak of any great customer service, but to me who has been living in Italy for 3 years with such low expectations it was like finding a diamond in the rough.

Tomorrow I’m going to this restaurant for sure! (see how customer service can work in Italy ?)

…sottotitolo, a proposito del dibattito sulle epurazioni in Tocqueville.

Il fattaccio, a questo punto, dovrebbe essere noto e stranoto. Comunque, e’ tutto spiegato nei blog di Dacia Valent, Rolli, Andrea Mancia, Alberto Puliafito, Wind Rose Hotel.
In sintesi, i post dei toc villani sono selezionati, perche’ facciano bella mostra di se’ in TV (inteso come Tocqueville), da aggregatori umani.
In TV, esiste un (sotto ?)insieme di questi selezionatori che mette ai voti l’ammissione o meno di nuovi blog, e, quello che colpisce di piu’, l’eventuale espulsione di blog da TV stessa.

Che dire ? Se Andrea Mancia fosse il proprietario di TV, sarebbe suo diritto decidere chi puo’ entrare e chi deve uscire da essa. Se non sta bene a un blogger essere aggregato ben bene dal proprietario unico, signore e badrone di TV, uscire da TV o non entrare nemmeno sono due opzioni possibili. Nel qual caso, non ti obbligherebbe il dottore ad aderire a TV. E Mancia non sarebbe obbligato, da parte sua, ad accogliere chiunque purche’ blog-dotato.

Il problema e’ che Mancia non e’ il proprietario unico di TV, almeno credo…

Domanda: di chi e’ Tocqueville ?

Dal foglietto informativo di Tocvil leggiamo:

La redazione di TocqueVille si riserva insindacabilmente la scelta dei post da aggregare e il diritto di negare o revocare l’iscrizione.

La mancanza di chiarezza e di trasparenza costituisce una fonte di problemi.

Chiarezza, ad esempio, sulla ragione sociale di TV, altrimenti Alberto Puliafito, che non mi sembra esattamente un fesso in base a come scrive, non sarebbe incorso nell’equivoco di essere “sgradito”.

Trasparenza su questi “dietro le quinte”.

I toc villani sarebbero ciascuno di pari importanza, eppure un gruppo non ben definito di toc villani e’ in grado, tramite votazione, di cacciare un toc villano.

In quanto toc villano, avrei gradito alcune informazioni in piu’ su questioni non da poco quali il processo di espulsione di altri toc villani. Non mi sembrano cazzatine, scusate il francesismo.

Sebbene sia toc villano, nessuno e’ venuto da me, a bussare alla mia casella di posta elettronica, toc toc, toc villano, chiedendomi che ne pensassi di espellere Noantri.

TV e’ una comunita’ ? E’ un servizio ? E’ un’associazione politica ?

Se TV fosse un servizio, erogato a titolo gratuito (grazie al cielo), questi sarebbero i suoi terms of service, a cui si dovrebbero adeguare i suoi fruitori, pena la sospensione del servizio.

Il servizio a cui avrei aderito sarebbe l’avere alcuni dei miei post sparati sulla home page di tocvil, scelti a insindacabile giudizio… eccetera eccetera.

I fruitori fruirebbero a titolo gratuito, la fornitura del servizio avverrebbe su base volontaristica, gli epuratori aggregatori aggregherebbero aggratis.

In realta’, TV non e’ un servizio (o non e’ solo un servizio), si differenzia da un servizio ed e’ invece una comunita’, per il dialogo che avviene giornalmente tra i suoi appartenenti.

E allora, essendo TV una comunita’, come fa un gruppo interno a TV ad avere il diritto di espellere un blogger, senza interpellare nessuno al di fuori di loro stessi ?

Questo gruppo si deve essere costituito, almeno in prima convocazione, dietro invito di Mancia, in quanto detentore delle chiavi di TV.

Cio’ e’ evidente. Se io e un altro blogger iscritto a TV ci mettiamo a discutere di chi dovrebbe essere allontanato da TV, cio’ non ha nessuna influenza sulla sua permanenza o meno in TV, poiche’, ad esempio, noi non siamo detentori delle password del sistema informatico di TV che permette di eliminare un blog dalla lista.

Quindi, il diritto ad espellere gli proviene, direttamente o indirettamente, da Mancia stesso, il realizzatore di TV.

Mi sembra evidente che ci sia una carente comunicazione riguardante il funzionamento interno di TV, e in generale una carente comunicazione da TV verso i suoi appartenenti. E’ evidente che un sottogruppo (o sopragruppo ?) di blogger in TV prenda parte al processo decisionale, sviluppato attraverso un dibattito; da questo dibattito e da quelle decisioni sono tagliati fuori gli altri, che in certi casi, le subiscono. E’ evidente che, in molti casi, leggendo quanto aggrega TV in questi giorni, i miei concittadini toc villani sono soddisfatti di questo stato di cose, o, detto in altri termini, gli sta bene cosi’.

Ed e’ probabile che chi non sia di stretta osservanza neocon in politica estera, e pro-casa della liberta’ in politica interna, o, detto in altri termini, chi non segua la linea, le linee toc villane, rischi il cartellino giallo o rosso.

Cosa c’entra tutto questo col liberalismo ? Boh.

Mi piacerebbe essere smentito, ma sono pessimista al riguardo.

L’Shana Tova to all readers !

Some time ago my friend told me that he received a bill from a public utility that was 500 Euros more than it should have been. He called the call center of that certain utility to complain. The person at the call center looked at his bill and agreed with him. She apologized for overcharging him 500. Then she told him to pay the bill.

The ENTIRE bill.

And she warned him not to pay late because there are late fees too. She told him that his account would be credited the 500 Euros.

My friend asked her if the amount could simply be taken off the bill, after all, 500 Euros is a lot of money. Not all people have an extra 500 Euros lying around to pay a bill. The call center representative said ‘No, this is our policy. YOU pay. We reimborse you by crediting your account.’

What she did NOT say was that this public utility was going to put his 500 Euros in the bank and get the interest off it. The interest for 500 Euros for 7 months or however long it takes to spend 500 on one of their bills is probably less then pennies, but if you consider they probably use this tactic with a lot of their other customers it adds up.