Time for a break

The Canadoca and I are Canada-ing it up right now. I'm visiting my parents in the interior of BC. It's been fantastic. Mr. DRL joined us for about a week but has since returned to Brazil. I'm enjoying my time, as it was time for a break. What do I mean? Well, here is the main indicator that it was time for me to take a Brazil Break...

The day before I left, I snapped on two clerks, and was even silly enough to ask to see a manager at one store... I should have known that in Brazil this does no good.

So why did I snap on two clerks? Whenever I'm about to return to the land of plenty for awhile, my patience seems to run thin on all things Brazil. It's probably me over-glorifying how great things are back home. Whatever the case may be, I'm owning it. I realize I was bitchy. But these people were asking for it... (A sidenote - traveling home does provide some perspective - I'm sure not saying that there's no bad service in Canada!)

So I go to the Havaiana store in Ipanema to buy - you guessed it - Havaianas. Except they had none of the sizes I needed in styles/colors I needed to get. So then the clerk proceeded to try and talk me into buying the styles and colors I needed in other sizes that they did have, which makes no sense, I know. (By the way, be careful when buying Havaianas for people back home based on their US shoe size. The US shoe size that the Havaianas list are usually not accurate. But that's a whole other story.) So, eventually the clerk who thinks that she's such a good sales person that she can sell people the wrong sized shoes takes off to do something else, or so I think, and I start looking at the Havaiana bags (super cute by the way!). Another sales person approaches me and starts talking to me about the bags, and goes to grab a brochure to show me all the colors available when my original sales person notices this  and starts arguing with the second girl I was dealing with about how I am her customer/commission etc. All the while I am standing there with NO ONE helping me. Nice. So I went to the counter and paid for the one pair of Havaianas I was able to secure in the correct size and color. I asked to see a manager and informed her that instead of helping customers choose things to buy, the staff was too busy squabbling over commissions that had yet to be secured. My concerns were basically dismissed with a shrug and half hearted apology.  Hey, just trying to help you do better business, people.

 

 For the record, despite the lousy service I did get a bag for my sister's upcoming birthday. It's the one you see on the right, except in hot pink with purple. It's reversible and super cute and I am safe to show you it before she sees it because she has never once looked at my blog in her lifetime ;)

On my way home I stopped at a shoe store to check out some purses. I walk in and there's the usual wall of employees, save for one girl who is apparently too tired to stand, and rather is sitting in a large swivel chair where customers try on shoes. She immediately asks me if the Canadoca is cold. I assure her she's fine. She asks me again within about 30 seconds. I tell her to mind her own business.

I inquire about a purse I like (another employee serves me), and while I'm distracted looking at the overpriced-in-a-major-way-purse, the employee who thinks she should sit down on the job and harass patrons about their parenting comes over and pretends to play with the Canadoca, but I soon realize that she was actually just trying to feel her feet. She then looked at me like I was the most negligent parent she'd ever encountered and told me that the Canadoca's feet were cold. For the record, it was at least 25 degrees out that day.  I assure you that the Canadoca was in no danger of losing a toe, as one of my friends recently put it.

Personally, if I were the clerk dealing on the purse I'd be pretty annoyed that she was badgering my customer that way, but she didn't seem to mind, even though I told her that her colleague had cost her a sale. (Which was not exactly true... the purse was overpriced! But I was trying to make a point!) What I can't understand is how they can apply so much pressure to customers constantly but then have such low standards that they tolerate their colleagues scaring off customers by being so rude. 

Perhaps I wouldn't find the parenting pep talks so insulting if I hadn't also recently encountered a woman being downright abusive (physically) to her children in public in the streets of Leblon, and yet everyone around seemed okay with it. I sure didn't see anyone giving her parenting tips, or encouraging her to fica calma or count to dez....  And yet I get lambasted for not putting socks on my child in 25 degree weather. Nice.

It's hard enough deciding which of the GOOD advice to take when you're a parent, let alone having people try to convince you of all this ridiculous nonsense.

The degree of my irritation with these situations = a sign I was ready to go to Canada for a bit. Snow and all people, snow and all....

But I'm sure that once you give me a couple weeks, Brazil will be sounding pretty good ;) What do I like about it? It's always interesting and there's always a story!

Comments

[Anne]

I can relate...in just the one month I was in Rio I was told that my son was unable to breathe in the Baby Bjorn (he was facing in), that he was going to choke on the tie of his sunhat because it was touching his face, that he was going to overheat because I had him out when it was too hot outside, and that I wasn't supporting his neck well enough (he was sleeping and very comfortable with his neck flopped to the side). On the other hand, we got many more "he's so cute!" comments in Brazil than we do in the US. That sort of made up for all the bad parent comments we got.

[Account Deleted]

Poor you honey! Seriously, enjoy your break, you deserve it and have no doubt, you're an amazing Mom! The end. Things here can be stressful with so many opinions (unwarranted, unsolicited) indeed, but you have to turn a deaf ear sometimes, just like I do...it's a survival instinct and necessary. Find a soundtrack to play in your mind...and use it!

[D]

It is irritating, I know.
But look at it this way, at least you are out there doing it. Many North Americans that even have passports find it difficult to so much as buy a souvenir without a tour guide 10 feet outside of a resort.
Bravo to you (us).

[Frank]

Wow DRL...you said that you overheard the 2 salesgirls arguing about their commissions; which means your Portuguese is good enough to understand the Brazilian eh?! (I'm so jealous!) You've been in Brazil for what....2 years right?
So Portuguese is not as hard as people say?

Also, when you go around in public places and talk to clerks, salespeople, waiters, waitresses, etc, do you do it in Portuguese or English?

Cheers!

[Daily Rio Life]

THanks ladies.
Frank, after two years my Portuguese is good enough to understand that sort of conversation but not nearly as good as it could or should be if I were to mix more with Brazilians (I wish!) or take more lessons. Currently I have not taken one in over a year.... pathetic!

There are close to ZERO english speaking waiters and clerks here. Portuguese it is!