Service desert Sweden

"Service" and "Sweden" -
the only connection between these two is that they both start with a "S".

I am from Germany. And shop assistants/waiters in Germany are not famous for being the most polite or most helpful ones. Actually a lot of them are fucking unfriendly and on the border to brazen. So I thought that it could not get much worse. Haha. HAHAHA. How wrong I was. Because, how unfriendly those people might be, at least they usually help you if you ask them to. Sure, they might put on a face full of pain and disgust that a customer actually dared to approach them, but except of that, you usually more or less get from them what you want.

This seems to be not necessarily the case in Sweden. Let us look at a case study I conducted (involuntarily) yesterday when shopping in Malmö. I was in the best shopping mood, I was craving for some cool shit to spend my money on. In addition, a new perfume was also on the agenda. So, first stop was a perfume store. Or maybe we should better call it "perfume museum". Why? Because you were not supposed to touch the perfume bottles! Instead they were protected from customers by a sort of fence. I call it the Swedish drugstores' answer to the Berlin Wall. I am not sure if you would be shot when trying to surpass that, but I can easily imagine that. Anyway. So we are in that 'store', staring at the perfume bottles from a distance and wondering how we could test them. 'Fortunately' a shop assistant is near. Not to help us though. This woman, according to her facial expression she must have been on crack and ecstasy and 500 boxes of Snus at the same time, smiles at us and asks the rhetorical question "Can I help you?". Of course she does not expect a "yes" answer. When hearing a "yes" she would probably disappear within one millisecond. So we are clever and avoid using yes. Instead we say "We are looking for a new perfume..." And what does she reply? "Oh yes, you can have a look at the bottles." Excuse me?! Did I miss something? Is there a way you can make a spiritual connection with the fragrances and smell the perfume without actually spraying it? Needless to say we left that store pretty soon after that. Only looking at perfume, not so much fun. Plus I do not get why they have to protect their perfume from potential buyers. Seems that they think of their customers as criminals. Lovely.

So it was time for the next stop. After that fiasco I knew there was only one place that could comfort me and soothe me. The holy Zara store. I really love Zara. During my time in Spain I nearly lived there. The one in Malmö is actually the worst Zara store ever, always a mess, always everything I like sold out, always size S non-existent. But anyway, you have to work with what you have available and because the next Zara is 3 hours away, Zara Malmö is the only option. So I went in there. And I even found a shoe I liked. I say 'shoe' here because there was only one shoe of the pair. After having proactively already searched the whole store for the second one, I had to do what is worst in Zara Malmö: ask a shop assistant. The collection, tidiness and sizes might suck in that Zara, but the personnel - even worse. Incredible. I cannot even put into words how unfriendly they are. Anyway, so I found the first shop assistant standing next to the only tidy table of sweaters, touching the sweaters. I asked him if he maybe knew where to find the other show. First he tried to ignore me. But I stayed.

At the second try he looked at me, looked into the store and says "Dressing room.". So I went into the dressing room where there were huge piles of clothes and started to go through them to look for the missing shoe. Suddenly I was interrupted by an even unfriendlier female shop assistant turned zombie who was wandering until then pretty aimlessly through the store. But now that she found a victim she was alive again and bitched "The dressing room is closed.". But I was not gonna give up so easily. I told her that her colleague send me there to look for the missing shoe. Without a second of hesitation she said "It is not here.". For a short moment I was impressed how she can know that. Since there were two huge piles of clothes and shoes which did not look sorted at all. Maybe she had X-ray vision?

Of course she hadn't. And when I retreated from the changing room, a third shop assistant dragon shouted towards me "we are closed!". It was not even 18.00. I hate shopping in Sweden.


But don't worry, there is a happy end. Not for Zara Malmö, but for my faith in service. Today I was at two supermarkets, the place where you least expect customer service. AND THEY WERE SO FRIENDLY. Maybe that is the answer: I will only go shopping in supermarkets from now on.

Who needs Zara Malmö when you can have ICA and Willys?