What on earth is this woman's problem? Well, one thing might be the fact that she thinks the apparent dearth of nice waiters in her native country (New Zealand) is a "tragedy." Um -- it's not a tragedy unless someone dies. That's in the rule book.
There's an attempt to pull in linkage by invoking the Lord of the Rings juggernaut (one of her puzzling complaints is that there are going to be more visitors to that land because of the movie, which she decries even though she seems perversely proud of the fact that she has "taken this fair land for granted my whole life.") Well, speaking for myself, I have wanted to visit New Zealand ever since I was a child and my great-aunt and grandparents went on a trip there. I was taken in further by a variety of National Geographic articles and such. Darn those hordes of tourists anyway, they might encourage NZ to spiff up its (she says) lousy service industry and then writers like her will have one less thing to complain about.
Anyway, I live in a major tourist area, so if she wants points on how to cope with the expected onslaught of foreigners to her pristine shores she can always write me.
Posted by Andrea Harris at January 21, 2003 11:07 AMAhhh, I know of what she speaks.
Andera, you live in the Land o' Service, while the remainder of the world suffers a service industry that deigns to serve. The one thing Canadians always mention about their maiden voyage to the south is the service..."the waiter was NICE!"..."they gave me extra coffee WITHOUT ME HAVING TO BEG!"..."I asked directions and the hotel GAVE ME A MARKED MAP!"..."I told them I was allergic to fish and they SUBSTITUTED AND DIDN"T CHARGE ME TWICE AS MUCH!"...."I went shopping at Target and there were STAFF!"
On the other hand, the writer and I live in colonies of the former British Empire. Bad teeth (we've fixed that one), bad service. It's the Brit legacy.
Posted by: Jane at January 21, 2003 at 11:47 AMI read that article too, and was rather puzzled. I grew up in a hotel, worked in one for years, and am still in the hospitality industry, so I guess I have trouble reading those articles with enough detachment :)
Posted by: Ith at January 21, 2003 at 11:51 AMOf course, the word "tragedy" is so frequently used that it's been stripped of the force it should have. Yes, there absolutely unquestionably has to be death involved, and one simply must hold the line on this aspect of the definition. But, personally, I don't like natural disasters being described as tragic, either. There has to be SOME human action involved, even tenuously--some triumph of ego over sympathy. A car crash is tragic because it probably could have been prevented; a house being destroyed by a tornado is terrible, but not a tragedy. Where's the hubris?
Posted by: David Jaroslav at January 21, 2003 at 11:55 AMHey I used to live in NZ and there's no way anyone could fault the service at the Rimutaka tea rooms - coffee and a bowl of chips served up by Jesus himself. And the view was something else...
OK, so it was closed down for health & safety reasons 6 weeks after I left, but I'm sure it wasn't Jesus's fault.
Posted by: Steven Chapman at January 21, 2003 at 06:49 PMMaybe somebody messed with Jesus, and instead of turning the water into wine, he turned it into... something else.
Nobody messes with Jesus.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at January 21, 2003 at 10:10 PMI'm reminded of the scathing comments Robert Heinlein had on how appalling he and his wife Virginia found the service everywhere they went in the entire country of New Zealand, on their around the world trip in the early nineteen fifties, as recorded in his non-fiction book, Tramp Royale. Not that I'd expect a fifty year old account, even if fair and accurate, to be precisely relevant, but I'm still reminded.
Posted by: Gary Farber at January 27, 2003 at 09:13 AM