I'm going to get tons of thumbs downs for this... oh well.
Because those people are rude. Trust me, if I had heard someone saying what I am about to say as little as three years ago, I would've said, "Oh my God, what a racist that person is."
But let me tell you - when you get a consistant type of behavior from a certain race over a certain period of time, it's obviously a cultural thing and there is simply no denying it.
I used to work for a car rental place a few years ago. There was incident where this family of Indians was unhappy with their vehicle. We were minutes from closing. They were relentless. They would not give up. They were not satisfied with the compromises I was making and what I was trying to do for them. I even called my boss at home and my boss allowed me to give them a steal of a price.... it was MORE than fair. And they still were not satisfied and they would not leave. They are relentless. They wear you down. Even after they reluctantly agreed to take the vehicles I gave them (again for a steal), they came back dissatisfied with those particular vehicles and wanted different MODELS. I said, "No. We're closed." And I stood my ground, even though I was shaking. By the time I finally left, all the other car rental places in the airport had shut down, I was mentally exhausted.
My boss, while I had been on the phone with her asking for her assistance with these people, related a story that had happened to HER months before I had started working there. She said "Oh, those people are something else." And then she went into this story:
She was working a night shift, and an Indian guy put her through a similar ordeal. He was getting mad. The other car rental agent working adjacent to her at the other company whispered, "Do you want me to call security?" Then he became so relentless that he would not let her leave. She shut things down, clocked out, tried to go through the swinging door on the side of the counter, and he tried to keep her in! O_O She eventually locked herself in the back room and called security. He finally left before they got there. And guess what...... he showed up the NEXT DAY to try again.... "As nice as pie," (my boss' exact words), as if nothing at all had happened the night before. That is crazy. The guy didn't seem to realize how out of line his behavior was. It's like, as far as he was concerned, that was normal banter between a customer and an employee. (Yeah, up in the mountains of India somewhere, maybe.)
There are a couple other incidents I won't go into, that I had with Eastern Indians. They give off an angry vibe. I think a lot of it has to do with the cultural difference. I personally think they believe women are inferior, should be submissive, etc. My most recent job was driving a shuttle van part-time. I pulled up to the airport, and the Indian guy holds out his hand dramatically, giving me the stop sign. ;-) Most people wave as if to say "over here!" but this guy was commanding me to STOP. lol Ugh.... that irked me. And he annoyed me in the van with some of his borderline-abrasive questioning. He seemed dissatisfied at my knowledge of the city and that I wasn't a virtual encyclopedia.
Yeah... overall, whenever I see one of them coming up to me I take a deep breath, remember my sense of humor, and mentally brace myself. I just mentally prepare for anything. I also prepare myself to be there a while...
I'll end on a positive note though. My experiences with them over the phone in customer service has been stellar. But I don't think they're very good at assimilating themselves to United States culture when they're visiting. They expect the women, especially the ones waiting on them, to be more submissive to their whims, etc.
Answered By: savoytruffle80 - 10/2/2010 |