It can be a tricky balance.
One of the things I love about living in Europe is the fact that the waiters don't expect to be my friend. In fact, from the way many of them treat me, it's clear that they generally prefer a relationship leaning more towards the antagonistic. But there's none of this, "Hi, I'm Steve, and I'll be your waiter tonight, and I'll make all kinds of little jokes while you're watching your food get cold and probably say something a little later to make your date really uncomfortable and maybe after we can go get a milkshake together?"
I want Steve to find out what I want to eat, to bring it, to check with me once after if it's okay, and then to leave me alone until I make eye contact with him. Otherwise, I'd ask him out for dinner.
But I've had a strange situation I've encountered twice in the last while that has led me to wonder if maybe language and culture play a bigger part in this than I had realized.
In both cases, I was asking for something that was needed pretty quickly (a steak from room service, in one instance, and if that doesn't carry with it an innate urgency, I don't know what does). And in both cases, I was told, "sorry, that's not available at the moment".
And both times, my initial reaction was, "oh, okay".
I'm glad I followed up though. The conversation went something like this:
Me: "That's okay... you can just bring it up when it's ready, then. What do you think - 20 minutes? Half an hour?"
Hotel Guy: "No, I'm sorry, but it won't be available tonight."
Me: "No problem, I'm here again tomorrow. I'll call back then."
Hotel Guy: "Okay, thank you very much."
silence
Me: "I say that because the steak WILL be available tomorrow, right?"
Hotel Guy: "No sir, it won't be available tomorrow night."
Me [with remarkable composure]: "Okay, let's try this another way. Instead of me calling you every time I get hungry, how about you tell me when the steak will be available, and I'll get back to you then?"
Hotel Guy: "We won't be doing any hot food for the next two months, sir."
Me: "Okay... I'm marking it in my calendar right now... two... months... and I'll talk to you then."
Now, for me, "not available for the moment" (the phrase used in both cases) indicates that at a later (but not too distant) moment, it will be available. It doesn't make me think in terms of days, or weeks, or months.
For those of you who know things like this, is this a direct translation from Italian or French that just loses something in the process? Or am I just hungry enough that it's making me crazy?
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7 comments:
You seem to be pretty willing to put up with a lot of crap in order to get a steak. And in my experience, European steak isn't usually worth it unless verified in advance...
But I like that philosophy of "find out what I want to eat, to bring it, to check with me once after if it's okay, and then to leave me alone until I make eye contact with him." AMEN!!!! Now that waiter had better be watching for my said eye contact. Because NOT watching is one of my prime pet peeves.
huh. "at the moment" to me typically means either a) sorry, we ran out of potatoes, we'll get more in the next day or two or b) the frier is down right now, give us another 45 minutes of patience and everything should be back to normal
if two months counts as "the moment," then "at the moment" i'm still training for the job i'm currently getting sick of. gah, 8 more weeks till i can escape to the land of part-time
Anonymous, there are a few nice things about working in Lugano:
1. If I have to travel, it's trip that involves two small airports (Geneva and Lugano) and a flight that only lasts 40 minutes.
2. I get to fly over the Alps, and it's beautiful almost every time I can get my eyes away from my book.
3. The coffee. Not quite Italy, but very, very close.
4. The style. See #3.
5. The steaks. I have found two restaurants within a 5-minute walk from my hotel and the hotel room service/restaurant that have really, really good steaks. Okay, not quite up to the Western Canadian top level, but that's a pretty high bar. They are miles beyond anything I've found in Geneva, that's for sure. So, yeah, worth a bit of hassle.
Jon, I think that before and during university is a great time to have crappy jobs. I had my share: selling vacuums on the road, building playgrounds, supervising young offenders with motorized landscaping equipment/weapons, cleaning blinds... and they all just help me to appreciate my current job all the more. So, the worse it is now, the better it will be later...
I'm glad to hear that despite your complaints of being too well known at the airport, you can vehemently laud the benefits of going to Lugano. (http://yellowcouch.blogspot.com/2007/04/happy-friday.html)
Clearly you have verified the worthwhileness of ces entrecotes on more than one occasion. Formidable. Congrats for finding a little slice of home in another little slice of paradise. Nice combination, isn't it?
Most likely the garcon you were talking with from room service simply didn't know what to tell you and was giving you the loosey-goosey Mediterranean "I don't know why we don't have it or when we will again, but I can't admit that to you, and at least I'll not be on my shift when you call tomorrow, or I'll quit my job in the next two months, before your exact-English-thinking personage starts calling me again"
Sucks, doesn't it.
Here's the funny thing - it's the same guy running the bar/room service pretty much every night, at least during the week. So, next time I called, it would still be him.
I've had some experience with the "I'd rather keep you happy than tell you the truth" thing. It didn't pan out that well...
haha That is just so typical. But honestly I think it's just a language/culture thing. The same thing happened to some friends of mine with the term "eventually". Priceless results.
In your case I think that what the person/waiter meant was that it was not available. Period. That's how I would understand it in French and in Spanish.
Hope you have better luck next time (=
Yeah, that seems to be how it was intended, so you can add Italian to your list. When are you coming back?
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