untranslatable

There exists many a German term that has wiggled its way into English. Foreign words, widely used and well understood. For instance expressions like Angst, Kindergarden, Realpolitik, Weltschmerz, Schnitzel, Übermensch, Wanderlust and so forth. But there is no correspondent for the term Dienstleistungswüste. And I guess I know why. Want to hear about my personal experiences in said Wüste? Not in general, just yesterday and today? Those of you, who follow my blog, might know that I am tight for time and have loads of duties to be finished before I can get away on my holidays. So, last night it got too late to catch the last bus from work. Plus I had to meet someone at 20:00 hrs in town. Knowing about dry service surroundings, as far as cab service is concerned, I rang a cab at exactly 18:25. About 8 lenghty phone calls later and the clock indicating 20:01, a cab finally turned up to take me to my destination, yet another 25 minutes away. Of course, I had to apologize forever to make up for that inexcusable delay. Plus pay the bill for dinner. But one would think one and a half hours is plenty of time to allow for a 25 minute waiting period for a cab to turn up plus 25 minutes to get there on time. Tonight, it was not much different. Other than the fact that I had no deadline to keep. I just wanted to get home after a hellish long day. All public transport long out of service. This time, the cab phone guys just kept me in a waiting line for – and this is not in the least exaggerated, my phone record offers solid proof – 15 minutes, organizing a driver. I got their cue, I hung up. Seemingly, it is just too much bother to pick up easy made 35 € for a ride that takes maximum 25 minutes plus the time it takes you to get to where I want to be picked up from. And trust me, this 35 € are not so easy earned on my side. To be fair, the guys on the job are not to be blamed. They get shit directions from their call centers and are not the ones at fault. But it took me a lot to tip them. As I was really pissed off. I need that dollar, too, to relate to Aloe Blacc’s real nice song. Whose job it is to console me after all this trouble. As he is NOT German, he does his part beautifully. I will buy his CD at the next opportunity, and that is a promise. After all the money wasted on bad services recently, I don’t mind any more and will be glad to give it to someone who brings a little joy to my life. Boy, do I miss niceness, combined with good service, sometimes. I am prepared to settle for good service, to be honest, forget about niceness.