Stay polite and you get politely ignored. Make a scene and the problem is solved in a minute. A story about a stuck elevator and 90 minutes of waiting.
Over the past few weeks I’ve found myself in several situations where I keep noticing the same unpleasant pattern.
As long as I speak calmly and politely with our public healthcare system or any government office, I get politely brushed off and made to wait forever.
The moment I raise my voice and make a scene, the matter gets resolved fast.
Today, for example, during a blackout, my Nastya got stuck in the elevator.
I called the emergency service and put in a request for an elevator technician. They told me to expect 30 to 60 minutes.
I went up to the third floor, where the elevator had stopped, and talked to my wife through the closed doors so she wouldn’t be bored.
Meanwhile I wrote to a few of the building’s Viber chats, but nobody had the elevator key.
After 50 minutes I called the elevator company again, and again I got fed the same line: the technician is practically at your door, he’s on his way. Time passed, Nastya had less and less air, it was getting hot, and the technician still wasn’t coming.
I called four times calmly. Only on the 90th minute, when I called the fifth time and tore into the dispatcher, did the technician show up immediately and let Nastya out.
This is far from the only situation like it. I realize with sadness that here, if you deal with any bureaucrat politely, you get politely ignored. It’s only when you raise hell that they start moving.
Is it the same for you? Do you feel this pattern too?