Annoying things about Switzerland...

As I may have mentioned before, there are some subtle but noticeable differences about living in Switzerland compared to living in the UK.

I mean, it's not like being somewhere where people communicate by way of bouts of chest-thumping accompanied by primitive howling, ritually rub themselves with pig sweat and scratch around in the undergrowth for food (although France is only 20 km away), but every now and then, we experience or notice something that makes us say ,"Eh?" ...and sometimes worse.

It's nearly a year since we moved here, and seeing as the blog that marks that milestone will likely be very positive about Switzerland, this one gives an opportunity to vent a little about what's not-so-good.

Customer Service
The Swiss are absolutely shit at it. That goes for bars and restaurants, shops, the trains, banks, the post office - pretty much anywhere where servicing the needs of customers is part of the staff's job. They haven't got a clue. This is something of a surprise due to most Swiss people one meets being very polite (people say hello to each other on the street here - like in south Wales, but without the depression). Take a normal trip to a Swiss supermarket as an example:
1. No-one welcomes you to the store - actually, I hated that in the supermarket we used to go to in the UK where they had employed some old duffer to stand around and get in people's way when they were trying to get a basket, wearing an oversized badge saying "Hello! I'm Bert and I'm here to help!" - he was a waste of space (and a waste of a badge) who they obviously didn't trust to do anything else. So, on balance, maybe the Swiss have got that one right...
2. There are never any staff around to ask where things are - aside from not being competent enough at French to ask whether they stock extra virgin cold-pressed tamarind paste, this is annoying nonetheless. I also think their merchandising and product association logic is all wrong, but I'd sound like a bit of an anorak if I went into too much detail about that.
3. It's when you get to the till that Swiss customer service really comes into its own, lowly league. There always seem to be queues and I don't think I've ever heard an announcement along the lines of (but in French), "We apologise for the long queues during your payment experience with us today, and would like to assure you that all staff - excluding Bert - are doing all they can to assist you".
4. To be fair, when the time comes around to have your shopping scanned, you are guaranteed to get a "bonjour" from the staff. However, this is delivered by the cashier, slumped back in their chair, without any genuine enthusiasm or heartfelt benevolent wish that your jour will be bonne. Now I don't expect to be hailed as a trolley-pushing saviour and gently fellated by the cashier when I come to pay (note to self: try to avoid using "come to pay" and "fellated" in the same sentence), the standard experience is that you'll be lucky to make eye contact with a Swiss cashier as they glance at you with the disdain appropriate for someone who is merely prolonging the monotonous futility of their existence.
5. What happens next is perhaps the biggest departure from how things work in UK supermarkets - as soon as the cashier has removed the 'next customer' little plastic bar thing and slotted it into its rack (unhelpfully just out of reach for the next customer to be able to use it), it's like the starting gun has gone off for the 'fastest shopping scan challenge'. Before you've even got into standard produce-receiving position at the bottom of the conveyor, soft fruit, bottles, bread, cheese and boxes of washing powder will be flying at you without let-up until the last item has beeped and the cashier demands to know whether you have a "supercard". You're left trying to clamber out of a pile of produce while also hastily proffering your payment, such is the evident impatience of the cashier to see the back of you.
6. And of course, no sooner have you paid and been handed your receipt (often without a "thank you", let alone "do you want some help with packing") but they swing one of those bars that divides the conveyor - like they used to have in the UK before they discovered customer service - and the next customer's produce is being fired down the belt, with you still in the way floundering to hastily gather your purchases into a bag. In the UK, the cashier will wait patiently (often smiling like a simpleton) while you finish packing the last of your purchases, before cheerily bidding you a lovely day and warmly welcoming the next customer as though serving them is the sole reason for the cashier having been placed on this Earth in a garish orange and blue blouse and deposited atop a slightly wobbly-seated swivel chair.

Driving
1. Swiss drivers don't use indicators (the bastards). This is particularly noticeable on roundabouts where a different rule applies to the UK - you don't indicate in advance of a roundabout, only when you are on it AND about to turn off. The result is that you pretty much have to guess whether vehicles are going to turn off or come straight for you, which adds to the excitement of the roundabout experience, but also to the likelihood of accidents...
2. Swiss motorways (at least in our part of the country) only have two lanes and very short slip roads. This means that cars in the slow lane often have to pull into the fast lane to let cars join the motorway. The absence of indication makes this a particularly annoying experience, as do the Audi and BMW drivers whose inalienable and exclusive right it is to permanently occupy the fast lane, a right they enforce by driving so close to anyone who dares to enter 'their' lane that you can see the whites of their eyes in the rear-view mirror.

Everything's so damn expensive
1. EVERYTHING
2. Is
3. SO
4. Damn
5. Expensive. ...Everything. Damn.

Obsession with 'noise'
Our washing machine cannot be used during the hours of 11:00 and 13:00 because this is the time of day that old people an children sleep. In fact, the power to the machine is centrally switched off at these times. Every Day. This is crazy on a number of levels:
1. This assumes that all children and all elderly people sleep between these times, which may be true of Swiss children and old people who are doubtless genetically conditioned to conform to this regulation, but certainy isn't true for The Bug.
2. The building has been designed and prewired so that the power to all washing machines in every apartment can be centrally controlled (by the noise police, presumably). That's serious enforcement of rules and surely an unnecessary complication of the job of architects and electricians?
3. This also suggests a certain lack of trust in citizens that they would not obey the rules - which is surprising as the Swiss are such sticklers for conformity, they make the massed ranks of North Korean soldiers on parade day look like dropout yoofs hanging around housing estates drinking cider when they should be in class.
4. Another indication of noise intolerance is the official letters posted by the 'Regie' (kind of like a cross between an estate agent and the Gestapo) in the foyer area of our building periodically warning tenants that vacuum cleaning has been heard on Sundays (heaven forbid!). These letters include a polite, but unmistakable warning that such heinous crimes against sensitive Swiss eardrums (I don't think this is for the benefit of children and the elderly, unless they are expected to sleep the whole day through on Sundays) will be severly punished. I suppose, to be fair, this is not such a hardship and does make for nice quiet Sundays, but it just goes to show how dogmatically obsessive the Swiss can be about 'regulations'.

Stupid opening hours
This works well when combined with the shite customer service in terms of escalating the irritation levels of British expats in Switzerland:
1. Swiss shops are closed, or at best miserably understaffed, at any time that it would be most convenient for customers to use them - many supermarkets close at 5:30pm meaning that it's virtually impossible for a working person to do a shop during the week, and you can forget about going to the post office or bank during your lunch break as they'll be closed. Oh, and like those lazy part-timers in France, lunch here apparently takes about 3 hours...
2. Such is the failure of Swiss shopkeepers to grasp the concept of optimising commercial potential, that some shops and restaurants are even closed on Saturdays. This, coupled with the stupid closing times of supermarkets on weekdays, makes shopping in those shops that are open on Saturdays an unmitigated nightmare, such is the throng of people taking advantage of the slim window of opportunity to get some food in.
3. Switzerland is closed on Sundays. At first this was annoying, accustomed as we were from the UK to being able to do our weekly shop, or visits to garden centres on Sundays. But we've come to really appreciate this as it now means we're more inclined to spend time doing more pleasurable things.

There are other things that are mildly irritating about Switzerland - for example, the worrying conservatism that has resulted in the 'minarets ban' (although our Canton was one of few to vote against the measure), and the strange milk-labelling system (full-fat or 'drink'... eh?) - but as I said above, generally we think this is a pretty good place. The next post should hopefully explain why...