A PLEASANT SURPRISE

This month, I want to share two anec­dotes from my na­tive coun­try that made me re­flect on cul­tural quirks and, sur­pris­ingly, left me op­ti­mistic.

It all started with a trip to cel­e­brate my mother’s 88th birth­day in early De­cem­ber. Since she lives alone in shel­tered ac­com­mo­da­tion, we al­ways book a nearby hotel. Usu­ally, we stay at a Pre­mier Inn, but prices this year were in­ex­plic­a­bly high. Look­ing for al­ter­na­tives, I found a pub with ac­com­mo­da­tion that seemed rea­son­ably priced and had good on­line re­views.

We ar­rived at the pub around 10 pm after spend­ing the day with my mother. Though not overly crowded, the pub had an un­set­tling, mildly ag­gres­sive at­mos­phere. De­spite my reser­va­tions, like a good Brit I or­dered a pint for my­self and my son be­fore re­treat­ing to our room.

The prob­lems started as soon as we stepped in­side. The air was thick with ar­ti­fi­cial fresh­ener or clean­ing prod­ucts, trig­ger­ing al­ler­gies al­most im­me­di­ately. Worse, the win­dows were nailed shut, leav­ing the room un­ven­ti­lated. Un­able to sleep, at around 1 am I de­cided we had to leave to find al­ter­na­tive ac­com­mo­da­tion. With no op­tions avail­able at that hour, I ended up wak­ing my el­derly mother and sleep­ing on her sofa, while my son re­turned to en­dure the night at the pub.

Other is­sues com­pounded our dis­com­fort: the next-door guest loudly talked on the phone and played his TV late into the night; the room, lo­cated above a busy main road, lacked sound­proof­ing, leav­ing us dis­turbed by traf­fic and po­lice / emer­gency ve­hi­cle sirens (re­mem­ber this is Man­ches­ter we’re talk­ing about); the shower of­fered luke­warm water at best; and the wardrobe rail col­lapsed under the weight of a sin­gle shirt.

For all of these rea­sons, we were forced to find other ac­com­mo­da­tion for our sec­ond night (much more costly than I would nor­mally pay due to the ur­gent book­ing). I there­fore re­quested that the pub re­fund me for the one night. To my great sur­prise, the pub land­lord went to great lengths to con­tact me (I didn’t want to talk to him on the phone and was try­ing to re­solve the issue via Book­ing.com, but they won’t allow you to put emails in the chat, so he had to re­peat­edly in­sist that I call to give him my email for my bank de­tails for the re­fund), and then pro­ceeded to re­fund me for both nights, while of­fer­ing a pro­fuse apol­ogy.

The sec­ond anec­dote came later in De­cem­ber when I or­dered a dart­board as a Christ­mas gift for my son and my­self. Play­ing darts is a great way to take a break from work/study­ing at home. Take my word for it. The board, shipped from the UK at sig­nif­i­cant extra cost due to Brexit, ar­rived with a large stain on the bulls­eye. Dis­ap­pointed, I emailed the com­pany, ex­plain­ing that re­turn­ing it was im­prac­ti­cal due to pro­hib­i­tive im­port tar­iffs. To my as­ton­ish­ment, they im­me­di­ately sent a re­place­ment at no charge, in­clud­ing the tar­iffs.

A re­fund and an apol­ogy? A costly re­place­ment sent with no ques­tions asked? What was this par­al­lel uni­verse I had stum­bled across? My dis­il­lu­sion­ment with my na­tive cul­ture is in se­vere dan­ger of being re­placed by one of op­ti­mism in 2025 if it’s not care­ful.

Opin­ion