Why Can't You Just Say, "I'm Sorry"?

I have to admit that last week wasn't the best week I have had, and I could probably even go so far as to say it was one of the worst in a while, and definitely the worst since the new year. I won't go into detail, but it has a lot to do with work.  The thing about things not going well at work is that frustration tends to spill into home life.  That never goes well for me, because Diep doesn't console, at least not me.  She often explains to me how I was the architect of my own woes.

Anyway, given my frame of mind, it made it even harder for me to be understanding when I got home to see a memorandum from the apartment management explaining that the pool maintenance was done, stating that it was on time with the time frame spelled out in the previous memo; however, they were unable to fill the pool with water due to an issue with the Hanoi Water Supply Company.  It wouldn't be so bad except we had informed the apartment management that we were going to have a pool party for Megan on Saturday; AND the fact that the complex had all of February and March to do pool maintenance.  They decided to put it off until the weather was good.  Rather than focus on their failure to make the pool available on the weekend, they took the tact of saying the maintenance was done on time.  A simple apology would have been much better.

So, after that piece of bad news, Diep and I went to the Hanoi Club to eat dinner. Diep got the chicken curry and rice, and it looked very good when it got out on the table.  The only thing is, the chicken was practically raw on the inside.  Diep had the waitress take it away to cook it some more, but it just went down hill from there. After five minutes, the waitress brought the dish back out, but it was still not cooked as well as it should have been.  That, on top of the waitress explaining that it was cooked well... just the drumstick was too big to cook all the way through.  This was a poor attempt at skirting bad preparation and potential bio hazard.

I feel Americans are much better at apologizing.  It would be easy to say they apologize, but don't really mean it; but they usually do and show it by putting their money where their mouth is.  I have been on the bad end of much less serious inconveniences in stateside restaurants and had meals comped for me.  This was not at my suggestion, but rather the discretion of the manager who, on his/her own came out to deal with the infraction.

I am not sure when so-called high end service providers in Hanoi will learn that an important part of customer service is accepting when you have made a mistake and showing that you really want to make it right.