Our American phone rang the other day. It was a heating and cooling company in Minnesota reminding me that they were coming to inspect the furnace the next day. I had asked the tenants living in our house to have the furnace inspected before it got too cold, and they had made the appointment. I asked the caller to get in touch with the tenants instead.
That got me thinking about another Swiss cultural norm: no one calls to remind you of an appointment. When you make an appointment to visit the doctor or the dentist or to have someone come over to the apartment to fix something, they just assume that you'll be there. It would be unthinkinable to miss it. American companies have learned through hard experience that they have to remind people about their appointments or they'll have gaps in the schedule. One explanation for the difference might be that the Swiss impose an automatic six-month prison sentence for missing an appointment.
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1 comment:
Uh-uh. That's nuts!
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