customer care and being waited on

bought a room heater yesterday. yes, pokwang, in summertime mongolia! central heating has been turned off. although temperature averaged +20, in some days it dropped to +10, even lower. definitely its still a bit chilly for my sun-sea-and-sand-conditioned bones. positioned the heater in the bathroom to stop the after-shower-bath shivering-quivering.

anyways ….. the appliances section of the state department store is at the third floor, where i bought the heater plus plus.  most purchases from here are retrieved at the first floor.  while waiting for mine, i observed two ladies first struggling to return to the box (after examining that it was in good order), the 29-inch t.v. that they have bought, and later lugging it out through the door.  none of the store attendants helped. 

mine came after more than 20 minutes of waiting, which was actually more than an hour after i have made my payment, having meandered through the linens section.  struggled a bit i did too with the heater, which i piled in a cart with the groceries. luckily the cart was big enough.  

in grocery stores, you also bag your purchases yourself. nannies, chauffers and househelps were never heard of until recently.  some modern families with means do hire househelps and nannies, but even these are not on the same degree as ours. my mongolian boss, whose father in his time was the second most powerful person in the land, has a day helper who comes twice or three times a week.  this seems to be the norm, unlike us who have live-in maids on call 24 hours a day and sometimes one nanny for each child. 

this lack of customer care befuddles me.  or am i just too steeped with the hacienda mentality, being used as we are to being attended to, hand and foot.  the hacienda mentality of the filipinos is certainly not confined to the well-to-do.  paulo freire avered that there is a landlord in a peasant’s heart that should be watched out for . he meant the tendency to oppress and exploit, but i’m sure it extends to the penchant for being served. 

mongolia on the other hand did not go the way engels described in the origins of the family and  the evolution of society.  from pastoral-nomadic, it by-passed the feudal and semi-feudal stage, leapt on to the socialist system wherein servitude is nowhere placed except with the nation, with the state.