Baking a Fight

February 2010:

On any average Saturday morning, I escorted my Turkish friend Burcu (along with her friend Tarik) to the train station very early. By the time we arrived it was exactly 6 AM, and we were all very tired and cold, having only gotten approximately a half an hour of sleep and then having walked in the dark, cold, and snow to get to the station.

After purchasing their train tickets, Burcu and Tarik proceeded to walk further down into the small train station to buy some food for their three hour trip to Budapest. I assumed they had gone to the tiny bakery at the end of the hall which offers fresh pastries, (not so good) fresh coffee, and sodas. An expensive place, but a quick and easy stop for travelers in a hurry who are hungry.

I finally decided, after a few minutes of waiting for them to return, to join them, and see what was taking them so long. Both she and Tarik, though his English is limited while hers is very good, can speak Hungarian hardly at all. A few words - but just enough to get them by for the six months they’ve been here.

When I walked in - I was still half asleep, and heard some arguing in English. She was yelling at the man behind the counter who also appeared upset. I asked her what was wrong and she said,
“He’s so rude! Tell him that I don’t have to speak Hungarian because I am the customer. He should learn English! Tell him I don’t have to speak Hungarian!”
I really had no idea what I had just walked into, so very calmly I asked the man,

“Excuse me - is there a problem?” Very roughly and slamming money on the counter he said,
“Yes! There is a problem! Because they’re not normal!” I was stunned by this - but why am I surprised by any behavior such as this put forth by a Hungarian - and so I told Burcu who began half laughing, but still upset,
“I’m not normal? I’m not normal? He’s not normal! Hungarians aren’t normal!” I asked her what happened again and she said that he started going crazy because she didn’t speak Hungarian and threw the change at her. I confronted him, again very calmly and said,
“Listen. I wasn’t here, but she says that you threw money at her.” Very defensively and upset again he said,
“As if I threw money at her! They’re the problem!” Reader, I was so tired I honestly could not think of a come back to the situation. The only thing that I kept thinking was that I had no call to get into it with him, because I simply wasn’t there.
After we left the bakery, we talked it out. She began saying that
"this is a train station" and that "they should speak English." My only defense to the man was that he doesn’t “have to” speak English. She agreed and said,

“No! He doesn’t have to! I started talking to him in Hungarian.” She said that she had pointed to one pastry and said in Hungarian,
“One, me.” Then to another pastry and said,
“One -” Then pointed to her friend. The man had made a mistake and placed two of one kind in the bag, and when she emphatically said,
“No, no, no” in Hungarian, and tried to explain the mistake he'd made in English. Wherein he began berating her in Hungarian - which is right about when I walked in. Someone said,
“Idiota” when I first walked in, which is not hard to figure out - and since that’s a Hungarian word, I reckon’ it was him.

We said our tearful goodbyes a little while later on the platform, as she was headed for Budapest, then on to Turkey. After her train departed, I went home. However, this incident did not vanish from my mind. I was very upset about it for a number of different reasons: The first of which of course, is that this happens here in Hungary all too often with the way people are treated. Not just us foreigners, but people - CUSTOMERS - in general.
The second reason is that I have traveled through that train station more times than I can remember over the past five or so years, and I’ve gone into that bakery a handful of times to either get a coke, coffee or pastry. I’ve spent some money in there. Nothing that would break the bank - but when they’re almost double what any other places would be, it’s enough to say that they should treat their customers a bit more hospitably. My mother has had problems in there too. In fact, about three weeks ago, when she and I were on our way to Debrecen, we popped in there to buy a coffee. The same man was rude to us and very annoyed asked,
“Well what kind of coffee do you want?” rolling his eyes, and then impatiently and abruptly preforming the oh-so-difficult task of pouring a cup of coffee. A previous time that I can recall, a young blond woman who works there, once sauntered over the half a foot to the cooler to grab a coke for me, then set it on the counter, rolled her eyes and asked in a dejected voice,
“Anything else?” Didn’t say thank you when I paid her, and just went back to looking upset.

Gee…don’t be grateful I’m spending money in there so you can stay in business or anything.

Needless to say, all these factors inclined me to go back and have a word with the manager or better yet - the owner. They should be aware of the kind of service their employees are providing their customers with, and I’m willing to take some time out of my day to go up to the train station by bus in the snow, to do it.
I walked into the train station ready with a little speech in my head. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to use it when I found out the information, I’m about to dispense here in this blog.

I walked in, and it was the same blond woman I just described a moment ago. She looked unhappy as usual to be there. The truth is, it’s a combination of indifference and unhappiness. The point is - no smile.
“Good day.” I began, “I’d like to speak with your boss.” I was taken aback by her response.
“I’m the boss.” She said again, indifferently.
“You’re the boss?” My eyebrows raised in surprise.
“Yes, I’m the boss.”
“That’s sad.” I continued with, “I came here today to complain.”
“Yes.” She seemed less than thrilled, rolling her eyes at me.
“There are a lot of things I came in to complain about, but the first is something very important that happened on Saturday.”
“Yes?” She literally could not have cared less.
“I was here with my friends, and the man that works here was unbelievably rude to them.” She waited for me to continue.
“They don’t really speak that much Hungarian, but enough to ask for a particular pastry that they wanted. The man didn’t understand them, and when I came in they were arguing. When asked if there was a problem, the man responded, ‘Yes, because they are not normal. I was surprised and was angry with them that they didn’t speak Hungarian.'”
The woman had no reaction. She closed her eyes as if this story was boring her and had no interest in the fact that her employee was so rude to a customer and responded with,
“Let me explain the situation as to why this happened -” I stopped her,
“Were you here?” I asked, her understanding where I was going with this,
“No, but -”
“So then, why aren’t you apologizing that this happened?”
“Because, he was very sick that day with a fever of 40 Celcius.”
“That’s not my problem. Why was he here if he was sick?”
“Because I have been working five days straight and I needed a break.”
“Again - not my problem.”
“Fine. It’s not your problem. What do you want me to say?”
“Do you hear how you’re talking to me right now? You’re not even apologizing for what happened. You think it’s okay that he would speak to a customer that way?”
“Okay - let me explain something to you,” I nearly fainted when I heard the rest of her 'explanation', “When we have foreigners come in here that don’t speak Hungarian, what can we do?”
“So basically what you’re saying, is that every foreigner that comes through this train station has to speak perfect Hungarian?”
“No.”
“They tried to speak in Hungarian, actually - but because he didn’t understand them, they tried speaking to him in English.”
I started raising my voice at some point and we were both yelling at each other about different things, and I was telling her how rude she was, and how this is the problem here in Hungary that they don’t know how to treat their customers. At one point I said,
“Don’t you care, that after this conversation I’m going to walk out and tell everyone I know never to come in here because you’re so rude? Don’t you care?”
“No.” She shook her head. She continued, with her ridiculous excuses,
“How should I treat a customer? I’m standing on my feet all day, I have problems with both my feet - the other guy is at home sick with a fever of 40...what do you want me to do, call him up and yell at him?”
“Listen,” I began,
“I’m sorry he’s sick. But again, that’s not my problem. Why is he here in front of food if he’s so sick? He should be at home. And anyway, he should still be smiling and nice to the customers.”
“Well, this isn’t England,” Apparently I’m English, “I can’t just call up anybody and have them come in.”
“I’m not English.” I said,
“It doesn’t matter. Where are you from?”
“It doesn’t matter where I’m from. I’m still a customer.”
“No you’re not.” Oh no she di’ent.
“I’m not a customer?”
“No. Your friends that came in, they were customers.” I lost it, imagine Lisa yelling - cause this is how the rest of it went.
“No! I AM a customer. I’ve come in here many times and spent money. From the moment I buy one thing I’m a customer!”
“Fine.”
“And it doesn’t matter, my friends were still treated badly.”
“Where are your friends from?”
“It doesn’t matter where they’re from. They’re still customers.” The "customers = business = money = profit = food on her table" concept was gravely lost on her, as it is tragically on so many Hungarians even still today.
“Let me tell you this - if I’m in a foreign country, and my friends don’t speak the language then I go help them communicate.” This voluntary statement of hers, was where she crossed the line.
“Do you hear the stupidness you’re saying? There are so many foreigners that come in here, they can’t all speak Hungarian. You should be nicer.”
It was clear right from the beginning she had no interest in speaking to me, and finished the 'discussion', for lack of a better word, with,
“Okay, okay. I told you: I listened to what you have to say - and I will talk to my employee about it.” But since her initial attitude was in defense of him and what he had done, I smiled knowingly and said,
“I’m sure you’ll talk to him. But what you’ll say to him, I’m not so sure…” I said goodbye, and left.