Italian Customer Service

Italian Customer Service is kind of a funny thing. You just have to laugh and take it with a grain of salt. It started on our Alitalia flight to Rome. A 12-hour ride and not a single flight attendant even cracked a smile. The food cart rammed my friend's seat evey time it came down the aisle, and she never even received a 'sorry', 'excuse me', or any kind of acknowledgment whatsoever. When they needed you to do something, like move aside if you were standing in the aisle, they didn't speak--they just pointed. At a hotel in Rome, we needed to buy bus and metro tickets from the front desk. We knew how many tickets we needed but the desk clerk wouldn't even let us finish a sentence and kept interrupting us when we were trying to explain it all. My favorite 'customer service' experience was at Termini, the train station in Rome. We needed information on the times and prices for the train to Venice. I had already researched this from home, but we wanted to verify it in person. After waiting for half an hour, our number is called and we go to the window. Some Italian woman pushed in front of us and he waited on her first. Only Americans stand in line, Italians push to the front. Once she was done, I told him what we wanted. He presses a few buttons on his computer--and this is my favorite part: turns his computer monitor towards us, then promptly turns around to talk to his friends who were gathered in his cubicle. I had to get his attention in order to get him to scroll so we could see the next page of the train schedule. It was unbelievable and funny at the same time! But, I guess, in their defense, it all worked out: we landed safely at Fiumicino, we successfully hopped the correct bus and subway to get into town, and we made that train to Venice. And for what it's worth, I'd do it all over again!!