Living in Spain

I´m going to rant a little bit today about something that has been building up.

In the past months, because of construction workers, electricians, plumbers, carpenters, internet suppliers, and many others, I have been expected to be sitting and waiting at my apartment until any one of those people decides to drop by. If there was some sort of communication about when they were going to do so, maybe I wouldn´t be so frustrated at this time. But no. they say, "We´ll stop by tomorrow."

"When?" You say... Whenever they damn well please because even if they tell you "mañana" o "tarde" both of those time spans are pretty subjective in this country. Morning could be anywhere from 8 in the morning till they eat lunch which is sometimes as late as 2:30PM. So I am expected to be waiting for them and drop everything I had to do for that day. And besides, when someone HAS actually told me one specific hour, I´m sitting there waiting and they show up an hour later.

I really don´t know what people who have a "real job" do. My fiance for example could never excuse himself from his job for an entire morning because he had to wait for a delivery man. If they adopted the simple practice of calling ahead of time maybe this problem could be mitigated but apparently the country is so used to it that it continues to happen this way.

I have been privy to more than one occasion where I was told they would be passing by one day and they never actually came. One of these über-professionals still hasn´t come to this day to finish the job that he started after repeated attempts to contact him and repeated promises that he will stop by. It´s incredible.

Anyway... that´s just my frustration after a pretty intense session of kitchen renovation and I´m sure the average person won´t have as many problems but for those of you who are lucky enough to experience any kind of professional behavior, be very thankful!

What was your worst experience in dealing with any type of service? Have you found international customer service/treatment to be above or below your expectations?

Besos from Spain,

Tara