Perpetual Change

Service with a Smile

It is amazing watching the changes here in 2 years. Lots of my friends complain that nothing changes, but in my experience this complaint seems to be a human quality that I often notice in Americans, when in fact, lots of things are changing.

Three of the greatest changes that I have noticed have been: more reliable and complete city services (water, roads, trash collection, police); a burst of small enterprises and remodelings; and a greater attention to service.

We had a winetasting at a restaurant. It was amazing. The waiters and chefs had uniforms, clean and pressed, complete with aprons. There was proper wine service, proper plating, proper silverwear service, and excellent food. This experience has been repeated at least twice at different places in the last few months.

Attendants in stores (usually after they know you) will sometimes refuse to sell you goods that you can see in the cases. At first this bothered me, so one day I asked why not (I have found that I have become a bit more forward when I speak Ukrainian). She said the yoghurt was bad, but the manager makes them keep it out. I have come to appreciate these, not always cheerful, but friendly intercessions on my shopping behalf.

At a kiosk between platforms in the Lviv train station, I was blown away by the customer service. The woman was quick, attentive and friendly and then she tried to up sell! I never thought I would be so impressed by an attempt to up sell.

At a school in town they keep a security guard in uniform at the front. I was stopped, cordially, and asked where I was going. Even though I was wearing a suit, it pleased me to be stopped. Now he recognizes me and says hello. (to some of you reading, this may seem strange, but in Florida all the schools have at least one police officer on duty. I tend to think of it as orderly.)

There is UPS in Ukraine, and they wear uniforms (still very rare) and the service was very professional (long story – but I was a bit afraid that I would have to pay a bribe. In all fairness, I think I have paid under the table only twice, both times to train conductors, and I have never been asked for a bribe, though I have heard many stories. I like to think this is another example of improvement. Corruption is still a big problem here, or so I am told.)

And then there are the things that I, unbelievably, don’t find strange anymore:
Passing money on a bus from person to person, up to the driver
Everyone carrying plastic (usually Boss) bags with all there things in them. You don’t see many
brief cases or backpacks.
The water stops every day at night, sometimes in the day. I have learned to plan on it.

And the things I may always:
Buying meat at the market
Telling the bus driver to stop, orally from the back of the bus
Trying to make a withdrawal and finding the bank doesn’t have the right change. (lots of people do
business in dollars here, in fact, as a foreigner I think the national bank requires me to keep
my account in dollars, but sometimes the bank doesn’t have any; this comment doesn’t refer only to dollars, though).

posted by jjs @ 8:06 AM