Here and there
Date: Oct 11th, 2007 4:25:49 am - Subscribe
One of the hard things about being and expatriate is that I still have to deal with things in the USA. Now granted, this has been made infinitely easier thanks to the internet. I can pay my bills on line, send instructions for how I want things done, I can even make phone calls! I can get money out if my American accounts using an ATM. Things that I would rather handle face to face, with a person whose nametag I can read, I have to either have someone else handle or handle electronically. There is a certain loss of....humanity?...personableness?...relationship? Before I became a teacher I spent fifteen years in customer service. I took pride in the fact that I was able to smooth ruffled feathers and that I had regular customers who I looked forward to seeing and who looked forward to seeing me. My last year in customer service was in a call center for an insurance company. I had no regular customers, no familiar faces, and no personal incentive to serve them well. I would never see them or hear from them again. More than that, on the phone (I'm guilty of this myself), there is a tendency to treat people as though they are some kind of obstacle. Either as the client or the server. Though, I have to admit, having a PERSON answer the phone is far preferable to having to run circles through automated answering services with incomprehensible menus. Especially when you are calling from the far side of the planet in the middle of the night.
China has no real 24 hour services. Well except Mc Donald's and hospitals. There is a joke in there somewhere! I miss not having the freedom to go to Wal Mart at 3:00 in the morning as a cure for insomnia. Granted, I seldom went to Wal Mart at 3am, except when I was working second shift. But to know that If I suddenly developed a need for some kind of medicine I didn't have on hand or some other little necessity, that I could go and get it was comforting. Now the only thing I can do is satisfy the craving for an early morning French fry. Bleah.
However, I find that life here, tho' inconvenient, is really quite interesting. Here I am an English teacher, and a barely passable amatuer
musician, and I am teaching one of my Chinese friends how to play guitar (?!?!?!) in exchange for Chinese tutoring. What the heck is that? Tell you what though, It is forcing me to go back and review what I know about music. So, in the long run, it should be good. Destructo-kitty is crying for attention, and my laundry needs folding.
Ahhhhh, the joys of everyday life come crashing into my reverie.
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