Shopping Nightmare

Today I have been given a great gift. My friend is allowing me to use his wireless internet card OVERNIGHT! I am so blessed! The main reason for the long time gap between posts is my limited access to the internet. I have been writing blogs off and on over the past week but have just been given the possibility of posting them today. :) I love copy and paste!

Anyway, I want to share an experience I had at an American style shopping center in Kampala. Rachelann and I had needed to stop by a higher end shopping mall to purchase some things (like phones) and some other things that could not be easily purchased in Jinja. As it turns out this shopping center (which will remain nameless) was so "Western" that walking into it gave the illusion of walking into a Wal-mart.

So I walk over to the electronics section and send Javonta off to look at Playstation 2 games while I peruse the phone selections. I was surprised to see all the phones locked behind a glass case with only a small sign next to each one that gave a vague description of each phone. This wasn't such a big problem for me since I figured that I was in Africa and I had to shift my expectations of retail venues. This shifting of expectations however was tested to the extreme however when I encountered the retail sales clerk.

After looking at the phones I turned around and made my way to the customer service desk. There was one lady there, she looked like a young adult. She was clearly tired and clearly did not want me asking her any questions. She never greeted me and when I asked her a question about the phone, she rolled her eyes. Okay, she's tired... so what... get over it. Well okay, yeah, but then what happens is even more interesting. I ask her if I could see one of the phones so I can look at it and perhaps even see the box it comes in so I can read the technical specs for the phone. The sales clerk quickly tells me that this is not possible and that I must BUY the phone I think I want and that she would go in the back to retrieve it. She continued to explain that once she had retrieved the phone I could look at it and then if I didn't like it she would refund me the money right there on the spot.

My problem however was that I wanted to look at more than one phone and I also thought that even though she was tired, it would be a bigger inconvenience for her to have to run back and forth to get different phones. I tried to explain this to her but was met with a look that communicated "stupid foreigner, just follow the policy and then leave me alone."

So I complied. I bought the phone with only seeing it in the glass case. She went in the back and brought it out. I opened the box and began reading the technical specs. After about thirty seconds, the girl's manager who was now standing next to us spoke something in Luganda to my friend and translator. Asking for the translation, my translator quickly replied - "hurry up". I sighed and finished my looking. In the meantime I noticed that the sales clerk had gotten impatient and tired of my apparent stalling and put her head down on her hands while she waited. I decided to go ahead and take it as well as two more phones to which the sales clerk looked like she wanted to kill me for suggesting such a seemingly difficult task. She went in the back and brought out two more phones.

At no point during our exchange did she smile, greet me or even thank me for doing business. When I asked her if the phone was a good one, she said it was. I then asked her if she had ever owned this phone or knew anyone who had. She said no. So much for consumer reports.

My translator then told me that we needed to buy SIM cards to make the phones work. I asked the clerk for SIM cards and she said that they were sold at the other end of the electronics department. I turned just in time to see the two clerks who ran that section of the department on their way out the door. I called out to them that I wanted to buy SIM cards but they said they were leaving because they were tired. I turned and asked the impatient clerk what time they closed. She said 8. I noticed the time was 7.

Now I worked at Home Depot for eight years. We were constantly taught to employ excellent customer service. Had any of us acted like this we would have been fired immediately. Now I have been trying to give her the benefit of the doubt. She is working in a westernized shopping environment and the westerners who shop didn't seem all too friendly this particular night. Maybe they give her crap all the time and so she is just burned out and sick of it. Maybe her home life sucks. I don't know and I really don't want to make excuses for her. I just know that my attempt at "love your neighbor" was greatly stretched.

But it was also a great learning opportunity for me as well since I can't control my circumstances. I need to be able to love everyone in whatever process they are in. And by the grace of God, I will. I forgave her quickly and I am now able to laugh at this situation. It is pretty funny when I look back on it. But this type of customer service seems to be the norm here in Uganda. In many other retail environments, many of the Ugandans I have met don't seem to be focused on "customer's first." I am still learning to shift my expectations regarding Uganda. I have a lot of "should be like X" conversations in my mind, especially about something that was so ingrained into me from a business point of view.

But, live and learn. We did end up getting what we needed. Even though prices here are considerably higher, I did learn that I can get most anything here in the capital city.