The service is worse here in Europe. I strongly believe that it’s to do with the tip culture in the US. Servers in the US have a storng motivation to provide good service; those in Europe have no more motivation to do so than any random call centre worker or similar.
While this only applies directly to certain services (waiters, hotel staff, etc.), I believe it has a strong ripple effect which affects the whoe service industry in the US.
I don’t believe this at all. In the US, it’s common to have low-paid service drones or high school kids working as waiters and salespersons. In Europe, waiter and salesperson is a proper job, which (in Germany) you train 3 years for. Since they aren’t high-school kids, they expect a certain amount of respect from the customer, not a “come here and lick my shoes because I pay a tip” attitude that some Americans (esp. on vacation in other countries) seem to have.
And it may surprise you, but people do get tipped in Europe, too. It’s just that waiters get a decent pay to live on, because they know that too many customers are cheapskates who would otherwise stiff them. This way, the waiters get their basic pay, and the customer can show appreciation with a token tip.
If you really believe that a tip - or the threat of firing - makes people work better than a good enviorment, a capable manager, and praise, then you are a very bad/ incapable manager.
Always underdressing for the wrong occasions?
Stranger
I think those are the biggest factors. If you book a diving tour from say Germany to the Red Sea, travel included, then either all equipment will be brought there, or more likely, they will have a partner down there providing the equipment, that has been thoroughly vetted before and knows it’s in his own interests to provide good quality to keep the long-time contracts.
I also wonder how easy it would be for a white person (European or American) loafer/ hitchhiker to set up shop somewhere where the govt. regulation is lax and profit from the prejudice of the tourists that whites are more reliable than the natives. Not that I’m accusing the OP of this! Just that emigrants from Europe/the US aren’t automatically more trustworthy/ competent/ quality-oriented than the natives (if there has been enough time and contact for the natives to develop qualifications and understand what their partners and customers expect of them).
Did you ever see the movie “Open water”? No proper head count = very bad idea.
The bar staff in my local pub trained for 3 years? That waiter in the restaurant in town trained for 3 years? The bellhop at the hotel I sayed at last year trained for 3 years? The sales staff in Tesco’s trained for 3 years?
Give me a break. They’re minimum wage earners. And they act like it.
I am aware of this. Pretending that the US doesn’t have a much stronger tipping culture than Europe, and that such staff are not more dependent upon those tips, is wilfull ignorance.
The tips in Europe are significantly smaller and less common than in the US. In the US it’s pretty much mandatory; in Europe it’s optional.
I’m not a manager at all; I’m a freelancer. That aside, take this argument up with the hundreds of thousands of establishments across America which work on this very principle. Whether you consider them to all be very bad/ incapable managers is neither here nor there - but the service is much better in the US.
Am I allowed to chime in with an “Ay-men, sistah! (or “brother”)”?
I’ve got problems with the tipping system in the US. How, when, how much, etcetera etcetera. I’ve been raised in the belief that an employee generally is being paid a salary sufficient to live on without being dependent on customers’ gracious gifts, and I have a hard time adjusting to the necessity of tipping when I’m over on your side of the pond.
</hijack>
Just throwing this out there: is it possible that the businessess in question were fronts? If their real business was in dealing blow, that might explain the cold shoulder they gave you.
A dive shop, especially one that runs its own dive boat tours, seems like a damn strange thing to use as a front. It’s got fairly high maintenance expenses, and you’ve got a non-zero chance that one of customers will die while using your services, leading to all sorts of investigations (especially on a tourist-dependent island). This seems like a bad thing to do if the back of your shop is full of blow.
Constanze - I do consider Tahiti and Bonaire to be ‘first world’ countries either because they are actual protectorites of first world countries, or the businesses are all run by people who are from first world countries. In Tahiti, all the dive shops are run by French folks (not French speaking natives) and in Bonaire, they were all Dutch. Your comment about renting equipment requiring a dive log and certificate of health is also weird as I have never been asked for either. All anyone asks for is your certification card. Dive logs are pretty pointless anyway because I could have filled one out five minutes before I got to the shop saying whatever I wanted. And yes, I did see the movie ‘Open Water’ and it did freak me out, hence why I was so conscious of the fact they didn’t do a count.
Muldoonthief - No offense taken. I will admit cruise ships do attract the overweight and overly loud obnoxious tourist crowd, but I don’t think someone staying on the island versus coming for the day is any more of a ‘serious’ diver all things considered. I do wish we had known the shore dives were so good, because the boat ride out to Little Bonaire island was pretty pointless. I think I saw more fish in the six feet of water off the beach than I did on that island.
John DiFool - not a chance this was a front. It was an established dive shop with reviews on TripAdvisor and a considerable investment in beachfront real estate and equipment, albeit somewhat more ‘used’ than I think it should have been.
Personally, I wish there was a way to differentiate a ‘European’ dive shop from a ‘U.S./other’ dive shop when looking them up because it does make a big difference. I find it odd I’d even have to make the distinction. There is nothing about the actual act of diving that requires you to be in shape, or even healthy for the most part if you are doing a generic boat dive. Lugging a 60 lbs rig down a beach several hundred yards and fighting incoming waves while wearing a wetsuit in 90 degree heat and humidity, however, DOES require some level of stamina and strength. I’d like to know what I’m in for especially as I get older and continue to dive. Perhaps I’m spoiled with the U.S./non-European way of doing things. When you rent a car in Europe, do they give it to you with no gas and tell you to drive around the parking lot first to make sure the brakes work because they don’t know or care? Do you get it with a flat already on it and get told to replace it yourself since you should know how to do that?
I guess it depends on the island. Places that have lots going on, like the Bahamas or Hawaii, you’re absolutely right - the worst diver I ever saw in my life was in Hawaii. Places that are primarily dive destinations, like the Caymans or GBR, I’d expect the divers to be a little more experienced and have been diving in the not-too-distant past, just because they’re spending a lot of money to go diving. I don’t think its inaccurate to say that people who plan their entire vacation around the diving are more serious divers at that time than people who go on a single dive while stopping from a cruise ship.
I can assure you that you’ll find plenty of bad divers all over the world. When I was in the Galapagos Islands years ago, I was on an expensive dive trip and watched a diver with a camera yank on a resting nurse shark’s tail to get it’s attention and get it to turn around so he could get a picture of it. I know those aren’t particularly dangerous sharks, but this one was in excess of 6 feet long, and they do still have teeth. That was unbelievable…
The term “Europe” means nothing in this context. France is not Spain is not Germany is not Ireland is not Iceland is not Sweden.
It is lazy to lump such different cultures together.
I’ve patronized dive shops in Indonesia, Malaysia, Hawaii, California, and Florida run by Indonesians, Malaysians, Australians, Swiss, and Croatians so I can’t really answer say whether Europeans are the worst. But, based on my limited experience and reading Undercurrent dive shop reviews back in the 1990s (http://www.undercurrent.org/) I would be really surprised if Europeans, as a group, ran worse dive shops than everyone else.
It is not when they have something in common - in this case a lack of a tip culture to the American degree. None of the countries you just listed have such an ingrained tip culture.
It also applies to many other places outside Europe which are not the USA, but we were talking about Europe.
Sigh
I just love how everyone assumes I was somehow being spoiled and selfish because Europeans can NEVER be wrong, or something.
Here’s what I found: when I was buying from a small shop, without “professionals,” I found the service was usually decent at least. The larger the establishment - and the older and more German the staff - the worse the service got. Italians? Glad to see you. Turks? Loved to chat. The old guy who ran a little restaurant? Friendly as they come.
The young lady waiting tables in central berlin, even when the place was utterly dead (as in, we were the only customers for an hour)? Stayed out of sight if at all possible. Took forever for a simple drink order and then vanished. And I know sunday night isn’t the most fun time to wait tables, but another place was also empty while we were there: you don’t have to keep your face in a perpetual sneer at our very existence.
And I don’t have very high expectations. If you can bring my food out warm and take a drink order, I’m good. I don’t expect smiles, even. But the least I expect is the absense of frowns and glares. We’re customers. Yes, separate checks are a nuisance, but sadly it’s more or less required for young students trying to make their way. And heck, we were tipping extra. But some of those were too much. There was a huge dichotomy between attitudes among poeple we met: either they loved you like along-lost brother, or they thought a dog had squatted you out.
I have never, in 8 cruises, seen a ship that didn’t offer scuba excursions at every single port of call. Yeah, they cost more than self-booking, but they are frequently inspected by the cruise line and the ship won’t leave you behind if you’re running late.
But those of us who travel extensively in Europe and the US know that to claim service is “worse” in Europe than in the US would be silly. Not all European countries are the same, nor are all American areas.
I have been treated like a king in rural France and like dirt in Paris. Similarly, treated well in Mystic CT. and dreadfully in New York.
If there is a perception of poor service it may be that the larger cities (which are the ones most likely to be visited for tourists) in general, give poorer service. That is a reasonable opinion and may well be true both for Europe and the world in general.
Anyway, hijack over.
I don’t think what I wrote makes that assumption, nor makes that claim.
So it is quite possible to get good service without tipping in Europe?
and not all Europeans are the same?
This seems less safe than demanding the full set to me.
Um, no, I don’t mean personal diaries. I mean official log books that have the date and lenght of dives and are signed by a diving instructor.
So after two experiences with European-run shops (outside Europe), and how many? experiences with “US/other”, you want to generalize to all European-run shops? But lumping US/other together is ok?
Huh? What’s special about a “boat dive” that you don’t have to be in shape???
If we discount “diving without apparatus” - just mask and fins, from surface to max. of 5 m (15 ft.) - because you mention the oxygen bottles, then diving from the boat or from the beach or a pier is still between 5 and 15, max. 20m (15 ft. to max 60 ft.) If you do that longer than 10 min., it certainly is a stress on the lungs, the heart and the circulatory system even if everything goes well. And you need to be prepared if something goes wrong and your heartrate goes up.
I can’t imagine a responsible shop letting an unknown diver dive without a health certificate! It’s always required.
The other reason for that is, even if the shop doesn’t care about their customers, they are afraid of insurance and persecution for neglience. Letting somebody dive without the proper paperwork means they can and will be sued for neglience if anything goes wrong. While Europeans don’t sue at the drop of a hat, they do sue for neglience and similar often. (Sue not only privatly, but in the broader meaning of “the state attorney/ police start an investigation into a death to make sure it was an accident and not somebodys fault”
Question: did you not sign a waiver that you know about the risks and absolve the shop of all responsiblity for anything that might go wrong? Was there no standard boilerplate in the waiver “I have been instructed in the use of the equipment; I have been informed about the risks inherent in diving; I hereby certifiy that I’m in good health”?
The European way would be turning older, non-fit people away. Not because of lugging the stuff around, but because you need to be fit to dive.
:rolleyes: Yes, everything is run-down in Europe and we go especially out of way to be rude to everybody. (sarcasm).
Only nobody assumes that. You’ve offered personal anecdote; others have countered with positive personal anecdote; and I have pointed out that different expectations can play a part.
Activly frowning at a customer is bad service, no question. But I’ve often heard Americans (or Rhinelanders) asking why all the people on the Munich subway were looking so grumpy / angry/ frowning when they were simply looking neutral in a “don’t bother me, leave me alone/ It’s too early, and I have to go to work” way. So again it might be simple dissonance.
I don’t expect and rarely encounter the first attitude, and rarely the second one. My expectation of a waiter is professional-neutral. A good waiter will make me feel welcome, but not turning it up to 11. A less good waiter will just bring the food. I can’t remember the feeling of dog-squat as you describe it. Maybe you are too thin-skinned for big city attitude?