BAD SERVICE

So far most of the stuff I've posted on this blog has been fun, positive, or funny, but I'm going to use this post to vent a little bit about the one thing that bothers me about Germany: bad service. I don't want to generalize all restaurant service or any other public service in Germany, but there have already been some aggravating experiences in my short time here. And to counter these bad experiences, I have had some good ones, too, especially (strangely enough) involving the government-controlled public services like at the train station and the foreigner office (they must get paid well). Anyway, in most restaurants, the servers are very slow and will only give you your bill when you angrily wave at them. I've tried looking at them, flashing my money, and putting an impatient look on my face, but these subtle techniques don't work. So if you're in Germany, don't be afraid to wave at the server to get their attention because it's pretty normal here and apparently not rude.

I know restaurants have rules, but there was one place which held true to the pedantic stereotype of the Germans. My roommate and I went to a pretty famous brewery/restaurant called "Zum Schlüssel" to get some beers and watch a soccer match on TV between Schalke and Barcelona in the Premier League quarterfinals (Schalke was the last German team left in the tournament so it was kind of a big deal). We stood at the bar during the first half and at halftime decided to sit at an empty table right next to the bar. Immediately as we sat, I saw our server shake his head and he stormed over to our table and demanded that we pay our tab. I told him that we'd come right back to the bar as soon as the game's back on, but he just shook his head and wanted us to pay now, so we did. Of course, when the game started and we went back to the bar he wouldn't even look at us, because we had crossed the invisible line somewhere between the 5 foot distance we traveled, turning us from friend to foe. So we found another table nearby so we could still see the screen, and wouldn't you know it, I saw our good old server whisper something to our would-be-new server, and now he wouldn't look at us either. We were shunned from being customers in a restaurant just because we were tired of standing! As he came by I tried using my newly acquired waving skill and was able to at least ask him for a beer, but he simply said "nein" and moved on. By this time I was just getting angry, watching everyone around us happily drinking, and seeing our old waiter putting on his fake smile, the same one he used on us when we were customers. Finally, my roommate got his attention and simply asked him what we did wrong. "You keep switching places!" he yelled at us in German. "Sorry, we didn't know we did anything wrong." my roommate said. Finally he slammed a beer down and said, "1 Euro 60." That's the best deal we were going to get.