rational geekery

Having spent the day shopping with Mrs. tyger, I have decided to give a few pointers to retailers in the ‘New Russia.’ After all, Britain is the birthplace of capitalism.

First, one should not presume each and every customer is a potential criminal. Now, to the ordinary westerner, the sight of lockers at the entrance to a clothes store would be quite strange. After all, a boutique is not a train station, nor is it a swimming bath. You see, these lockers are not to store your newly procured shopping, so you can save your feet during a busy day trudging the streets, no, it’s nothing so benign. The reason these shops have lockers at their entrance is because they will not allow shoppers into their store with other bags.

So you cannot buy a shirt in Naf-Naf and simply enter Mexx next door, without the rigmarole of storing your newly purchased garment in one of their numerous safety deposit boxes. This is unnecessary hassle. Shops in Britain that did such a thing would quickly find themselves out of business. Capiche?

Secondly. Nothing is worse than harrying a customer who has a garment in their hands. Whenever Mrs. tyger picked up a garment to try on, it was quickly spirited away to the changing room, because being only customers, we’re not to be trusted to hold an item of clothing without stuffing it up our shirts and making a run for it. Note, that not only did all the clothes have security tags; a huge goon, dressed in unfashionable security attire, manned the door. In developed capitalist countries, sometimes we will hold clothes, only to reject them at another rail if we find something better (I understand to communists the concept of choice may be alien). The above conduct will simply mean you will not see this customer at the changing room, and subsequently, you will not see this customer at the cash register neither.

While we’re still on the subject of clothes boutiques, I must also add that an ‘assistant’ entering a changing room while someone is dressing is absolutely inexcusable. I had already paid for Mrs. tyger’s new trousers, which she was putting on to wear for the rest of the day, and this had been carefully explained to the ‘assistant.’ However, when said assistant heard the tearing of tags (was Mrs. tyger supposed to wear her trousers in the street with price tags hanging out of them?), she barged into the cubicle demanding to know what was going on?

Unbelievable.

Also, and this will be my last gripe. When in a bookshop I ask where the Angliysky section is (bearing in mind they have maybe 20-books max), I expect more than a cursory point to where the books are, when they reside at the other side of the bookstore. I was barely wiser for asking.

This is not to say all the service in Russia has been discourteous, unhelpful, and insulting, no, in a Russian restaurant at the end of the day we had the most delightful red-headed waitress, who even had the patience and infinite kindness, to suffer my dreadful attempts to order in Russian. Naturally we left an ample tip, and we shall probably return. You see? This is how capitalism works.