Why we are getting out of the UK to join you....

[Jotty]

[quote user="Boiling a frog"]

We have been here in France for just over 6 years.Up until March this year I would have said that the French were polite and generally helpful.Customer service not bad and certainly nothing as bad as what has often been described on this and other forums.

[/quote]

This is what I have been saying.

You can be here for a while and everything seems fine, especially if you live in a village where everybody knows everybody, and it's a simple question of a few euros, or you can rely on who you know (a form of corruption even more widespread here than in the UK)

The same thing was generally true of village life in England when I lived there.

Things change when you get into a wider context: city,  national business (France Télécom being a notorious example) , or have to deal with a more complex bureaucracy.  Getting my first carte de séjour was a nightmare (I was subjected to unimaginable rudeness by someone who had become accustomed to bullying poor immigrants, and wasn't used to dealing with someone who was confident of his rights). Getting a photocopy 'certifié conforme' of all my qualifications for my first post would have been laughable if it hadn't been so frustrating.  I was told 'we can't certify that it is a photocopy 'certifié conforme'if it is in another language. I pointed out that I wasn't asking them to certify anything about the content or meaning, just that it was a genuine photocopy made by them, and not a doctored document.  But no, it wasn't possible, and I had to get around it by going a long way to the employer's HQ with the originals, and have them make their own copy.

As I said in an earlier post there is a gratuitous obstructionism, as well as a rude attitude which has nothing to do with my attitude, but you have to have either made some demands on the system by having tried to work or run a business here, or have been here long enough to have had time to meet it.

This has nothing to do with putting people in their place, it is simple an observation that it is more difficult to judge if you have as yet only skimmed the surface.

I would tend to agree with plod that it depends on individuals, but I feel that there are more 'jobsworths' in France.

[Chancer]

[quote user="Boiling a frog"]

Like: We are the experts we know what we are talking about do not dare challenge us.

[/quote]

How dare you challenge an expert, what do you know?

They have done a formation so of course they (believe that they) know more than you even if they are 20 years old still living at home with mum.

Not only are you older than them and hence stupid you are also an immigrant for gawds sake, why on earth should I take you seriously or bother to answer your stupid questions especially after the last one of you had the temerity to challenge my expertise. [6]

Editted

I am a man of undiminished faith and I firmly believe that my past experiences that provoked that reply were just an aberation and that very soon I will experience the other more customer friendly side of France, even here in Picardie.

[odile]

bien dit Rob...

[Scooby]

We have had a couple of bad experiences - both with large organisations.  Local people / small businesses have been fine.  The first was with Europcar at Limoges airport.  We had filled our hire vehicle up with petrol (before returning it) only half a mile from the airport but got a 30 euro petrol charge for a partially empty tank.  Whether or not the tank was full (which we believe it was) I asked the Europcar receptionist if she could check it (when we were back at the airport 4 weeks later picking up another car - from a different hire company!!).  Her attitude was that it was nothing to do with her - this was the responsibility of the man who filled up the returned cars.  We asked if she could follow it up and she refused.  When we pointed out that, whether or not she filled the tanks, she was the representative of the company her comment that no she wasn't she just worked for them!

The second incident was with FT who completely screwed up our broadband account.  The person we had seen initially had written out the details (completely incorrectly) of our package directly onto the FT publicity blurb.  When we went back to the store (because the connection wasn't working) and he explained the package we should have been on - we showed him his colleagues summary of the completely different package.  His response - that we must have written that ourselves because that wasn't right...  This is the same outlet and the two staff members were sitting next to each other (and we pointed out the author of the comments) so you'd think they'd know each other's handwriting!  The whole FT saga was much more long winded but won't bore you with details - suffice to say that the customer is always wrong!