Indifference

The open market euro-dollar exchange rate makes everything euro roughly 10% more. By the time you pay fees on exchange transactions, that premium is around 15%.  For Americans traveling in the EU a benefit comes in the form of the refund one receives when paying the VAT or value added tax when buying consumer goods – clothes, jewelry and that, can’t live without, object d’art.  The trick is you have to assemble an inconvenient amount of paper work. On your way out of the country, you have to remember to get all of this paperwork stamped by a custom agent.  Officially you have to present all of these items to the customs agent.  However, many of these agents will accept the fact that you packed them in your checked luggage before you sought to get the customs stamp on all that paper work. 

I travel to Italy often, however; I tend not to buy much and thus, do not go through this process. 

This trip, however, I did have an item which I wanted to declare and receive a refund.  I assembled the aforementioned paperwork and presented it to the agent after packing it, of course, in my checked luggage.  This agent refused to stamp my paper work without visually inspecting my purchase.  I explained to him that I had deposited many dollars exchanged into euros into his country and that the government he represented had benefited greatly from my visitations to hotels, bars, restaurants etc. etc.  He displayed a level of indifference that sadly is a common occurrence.  I cannot say this level of indifference is the sole province of people in uniform, but it is a common occurrence.  People in positions of temporary power often take advantage of their ephemeral ownership of power to make things challenging for those of us who do not have that momentary authority.  Needless to say, this negative experience created a somewhat sour note to an otherwise lovely journey.

I have thought about this over the last few days and reflected on how indifference effects the process of building relationships.  Relationship building is a methodology of incorporating big successes with the incremental glue of our humanity.  Solid relationships are built progressively.  We all have the opportunity of improving the interchange between people in the way we handle our phased building efforts. 

Think of the interactions with government and those empowered to help or prevent us from obtaining the necessary documents or permission needed to conduct our lives in a world filled with bureaucratic requirements.  Think about the time you exchanged an item that did not work or you just did not like – think about your interactions with all sorts of people in uniform.  Those that allowed you to abide by the rules as if they were suggestions rather than requirements.  My customs agent forgot that at that moment he and he alone represented his country and how it wanted to be presented to the world.

Building relationships is an iterative process.  One can focus on the bigger issues in that process, but like many things it is the smaller issues that can slow that process down when not done properly.  Like the customs agent, he may not think of me as important nor his actions critical, but in that moment he represented his country and his indifference was a bad representation.  Likewise, one’s indifference to the unimportant part of a relationship is the issue that will be remembered.

Maybe he had a bad morning or received bad news but from my perspective this customs agent rather than strict adherence to code should have paid attention to the….

Pirate Hector Barbossa in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl: When referring to the Pirate’s Code:

“The code is more what you’d call “guidelines” than actual rules.”