Nat ponders the intricacies of losing one’s temper in Thailand. Does one accomplish anything by getting angry? Or is it better to seethe?
I want it to be known that I have no anger management issues.
I am not one of those people who throws dishes, glasses or temper tantrums. I realise it is pointless to make threats, enemies or plans to inflict bodily harm. My bar at home does not have a dart board with someone’s picture taped over it. I tell you this to show you how nice a person I am.
In fact I am so nice that, like most Thais, I do not get angry at all.
I get even.
Let me tell you a story. It is a nice story, without any shooting or dismemberment ― at least none that ever left the realm of my imagination. This is not a story that has any violence that should be considered too horrific. It even has a little romance. My story is about Thailand. It is about smiling genially through dashed hopes and broken dreams. It is about customer service.
Anyone who has tried to get complaints addressed in Thailand will understand why I mention dismemberment and customer service in the same breath. This is because, for all our smiling and welcoming ways, we have no knowledge about handling an unhappy customer.
Compared to a rugby union player, I am not a big person. But I am larger than most Thais. Okay, I admit that I’m larger than many westerners, too. And, being aware of this, I make it a point not to physically intimidate people, especially young receptionists at the dry cleaner who have been trained to smile more than to manage anger — my anger. But then, I contradict myself. I do not get angry.
You see, I didn’t want much. I just wanted an explanation. A reasonable explanation. A detailed explanation as to why an expensive suit I had bought at a good, well-known men’s clothing shop came back to me fried crisper than a Lay’s potato chip. It was so shiny from over-pressing that I could have used the reflection to comb my hair. Such shininess could only be coaxed out of wool by an iron that was turned on to the ‘cool’ setting in Hell.
I leaned over the desk, looked at that little receptionist square in the eye and asked her to tell me how this could happen. Could she tell me? Could she? Could she?
Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t angry. I don’t get angry. I just was surprised to see that my expensive suit, when turned over to the care of an expensive and supposedly reputable dry cleaner, had, within the space of a few days, gone from high fashion to crap.
Karma — It Suits You Sir!
I suppose the reason I and most Thais don’t get angry has to do with karma. When you believe in karma, you don’t physically intimidate little girls who are cowering behind a reception desk and flinching at everything you say. After all, it could catch up with you. A rugby union player could take exception to what I write, come to my office, lean over my desk and look me squarely in the eye as I cower behind it, flinching at every threat he makes. The karma you make comes back to haunt you.
You see? Anger accomplishes nothing, especially when demanding satisfaction at customer service desks in Thailand.
I believe the lack of ability to deal with customer complaints comes from the fact that we in Thailand have a generally bad reaction to anger in the first place. When someone starts shouting, we shut off. Although our brand of boxing is considered the world’s most deadly, we are actually a peace-loving people who abhor violence. We are taught to let our annoyance go, understand that our suits are ruined and get on with our lives.
And receptionists in dry cleaners are probably not paid enough to do much more than smile. Such receptionists are certainly not paid enough to look into a situation and then explain that many popular dry cleaners have such a huge volume of work that the pressing machines never get shut off, cooled down and then re-set to a lower, more appropriate setting for fine wool after having just pressed linen, which requires a higher temperature to sear out the creases.
Such receptionists certainly don’t have the authority to make the workers in the laundry room do their jobs properly. They don’t dare pass on your complaints to the boss in case they get the boss angry. And so, it does no good to lose your temper with these receptionists because they will only cower more or maybe even start to cry, which only ads to your frustration and gets you even more angry.
Besides, the receptionists will feel sorry for the laundry room workers who are probably overworked and underpaid, too. So the best they can do is to smile and hope you won’t get angry.
And so I don’t want to complain too much or else the receptionist will get her feelings hurt and then refuse to help me. Or worse yet, the laundry room staff might take exception to my being too much of a bother and then, out of their own exasperation, purposely ruin the next suit I take to be cleaned. Karma comes back to haunt you in more ways than one.
This combination of not handling anger well and yet having no true power to deal with customer complaints conspires to annoy clients like me who just want good service.
A Clean Conscience
And so I let it go. I stopped taking my clothes to the dry cleaner and started using Dryel, a home-dry cleaning kit I bought from Singapore. All I do is take my clothes that need to be cleaned, put them into a zippered bag with a sheet soaked with dry cleaning chemicals and pop them into my dryer on normal heat for half an hour. And, like magic, my clothes get cleaned. Everyone is happy, especially the receptionist because I no longer complain to her.
See? I don’t get angry. I just do a public service by recommending a better product. What better way to get even? I didn’t even initiate bad karma.
Oh, did I promise you a little romance earlier? Sorry. Just don’t get angry with me.