The Robins Nest Forum

Stood waiting for coffee in an eatery in Luton Airport and started paying attention to the accents of the half-dozen or so staff: every one of those with Eastern European accents were smiley and happy, eager to help customers; every one with an English accent was a misery guts who clearly couldn't care less about those inconveniencing their morning by wanting service.

And...?

Hope you are not foolishly suggesting that we must stay in the vile EU because of a miserable indigenous barista.

Just saying who I'd rather be served by; who I thought was doing the better job; and the apparent difference in attitude.

asl wrote:Stood waiting for coffee in an eatery in Luton Airport and started paying attention to the accents of the half-dozen or so staff: every one of those with Eastern European accents were smiley and happy, eager to help customers; every one with an English accent was a misery guts who clearly couldn't care less about those inconveniencing their morning by wanting service.

And you wonder why the hospitality sector like to hire EU workers. Same up here. Some staff (local) make you feel like you are an inconvenience others (students and EU) pretend to be more grateful you are spending money on their product.

Though saying that - Finland just announced as the happiest nation by the UN earlier this week. Thing I loved about my time there last week is that needless small talk is not in their culture. So buying a coffee is a transaction and the conversation transactional. But, none of the resentful grumpiness of British hospitality workers or the saccharine smiles of their student or EU colleagues. A nice balance.

To back this up further, I was at a restaurant in Brum on Wednesday night and had some absolutely c!#p service from a Brummy waiter. The interactions weren't far off "what do you want to drink, what do you want to eat...yeah alright, cheers" and then it took bloody ages to get anything. At one point, I noticed a guy holding a tray of drinks having a chat with a colleague for about 5 minutes before bringing them over to us. Our waiter seemed far more interested in the party of 18 or so that came in 20 minutes after us, and the larger tip he'd no doubt be getting (he only got the change, 95p, off us in the end). When we'd finished eating and he was paying no attention to us at all, after about 10 minutes a non-English girl, no idea what nationality, realised we'd been sat there with empty plates for a while and came over to ask if we wanted anything else with a big smile on her face, complete contrast. So yeah, Las Iguanas, Birmingham. Good food, c!#p service from the English employees.

asl wrote:Just saying who I'd rather be served by; who I thought was doing the better job; and the apparent difference in attitude.

Have you met the ‘happy’ Polish bus drivers around Chelt/Glos?

Just because you had one bad experience doesn’t mean every other good working Brit are the same.