Can you hear me now?

Today I experienced the joy of waiting for an hour in a Spanish mobile phone store. To my surprise the notion of “the customer comes first” is only an American thing. Service and money are not directly linked in Spain. They serve you when they want to serve you. Waiting in line is not organized and you better hope that they saw your face and remember when you came in. I am used to waiting in line at a phone store, as a slave to my contract. At least at home they treat me like I am their most valued customer. People come in, look at the line and choose to leave or stay. In my experience there is normally more than one worker at the store but it takes two of them to process an order. It is a very time consuming ordeal, and a visit to the phone store is never fun but one is Spain can be excruciating.

I have waited for hours in the states at the Sprint Store and if given the choice between that and waiting in Spain – I would choose Sprint every time. This is only because you can yell at them in English and they will quickly try to resolve the issue. Not the case in Spain -you yell, they say “It’s not my fault” and nothing gets resolved. Let it be known that Spaniards argue all of the time about everything. What I miss most about the states is that employees address you based on priority and not who is closer to the desk. But Spanish mobile phone companies did get one thing right: You can buy whatever phone you please with no contract! Thanks Sprint for binding me for two years with roaming fees…