Another click passed and she came back. Her lips were still pursed, but she looked me in the eye, just like the jurors do when they’re going to find you not guilty. A wave of joy swept over me. I wasn’t going to the guillotine after all.
‘OK, I’ll change it,’ she said. ‘But this is totally exceptional. Don’t do it again.’
‘Ah, c’est super, merci,’ I said. ‘I really don’t know how it happened.’
She slowly wrote something on the ticket in red ink, presumably her reasons for agreeing to this exceptional exchange. Another minute clicked by, but I kept my mouth shut. She was in control now, she knew when the train was due in, she would get the job done in time.
‘Give me your credit card,’ she said. I hesitated for a moment, wondering why. ‘I have to credit you with ten euros,’ she added, ‘because this new ticket is less expensive.’
‘Oh.’ I handed over the credit card, and watched her print out a new Saint Brieuc–Paris ticket and a credit-card refund slip for ten euros.
‘I’ve reimbursed the full price of your original ticket and issued a new one for just the Saint Brieuc–Paris leg. It was the only way to do it,’ she said. ‘Voilà.’
She handed over my double prize. My honest mistake had earned me ten euros.
‘C’est très gentil,’ I said. ‘Merci beaucoup.’ I wished her a bonne semaine (good week) and rushed off to get my TGV.
I wondered why she’d done this for me. No doubt my innocent mistake and my apologetic nature had counted in my favour. And my tacit refusal to give in and accept my fate had been a key factor, too.
On top of this, I’m sure that the woman got a kick out of the knowledge that she held my fate in her hands. Her decision would affect my journey and my mood. She had the power to make or break my day. And, like most French counter assistants I have met, she used her power benevolently. They only take the opportunity to annoy you if they dislike you personally, so it’s best not to give them the chance. Play the lost innocent, stay polite and apologetic, and they’ll take pity on you. Tell them that their system is absurd, though, and they’ll use all its absurd power against you.
Again, as at the Pommery cellar, the vital thing was not to get annoyed at the initial ‘no’ in response to my request, a feat that becomes almost impossible when you reach . . .
Level Three
TRY TO DRIVE THE CUSTOMER MAD
The most frequent examples of this happen when there are two or more people serving at the same time, in a tourist office, bank, car-hire place or shop.
One customer inadvertently causes a problem. Let’s say someone wants to do an unusual transaction at the bank. Approximately three seconds after the problem has arisen, all the counter assistants have stopped serving their customers and are gathered at the window where the non-standard-transaction dilemma has cropped up.
I’ve lost out at this stage of the game many times in the past, and almost always because I rose to the bait too soon, or misjudged the placing of the moral onus (which can be as painful as it sounds). The worst case of misplaced onus that I have suffered in France was when my mobile phone wouldn’t recharge, and I took it into the local phone shop for a diagnosis.
There were three sales people on duty, and no obvious queuing system – it was first come, first served, but only if you stuck up for yourself. All three sales assistants were busy, and there was one person in front of me.
One of the assistants was annoying me intensely by discussing her customer’s scarf – ‘Elle est belle, where did you get it?’, ‘It was made by a friend of mine’, ‘Oh, yes, does she sell them?’, ‘No, but she ought to, don’t you think?’, ‘Yes, and if she decides to go into business, let me know, won’t you?’. Nyaarrgh.
But it was no use wading in and asking whether one customer’s scarf was more important to the phone shop than another customer’s phone. Truth be told, I was a bit scared of the answer I’d get. Anyway, after a couple of minutes, two of the assistants – including the potential scarf-buyer – miraculously became free at the same time.
One of them asked how he could help the man ahead of me, who said he wanted to take out a new subscription. Scarf Woman half-turned to me, her service-giver’s automatic smile on her face. But as she did so, she glanced across at the man who wanted the subscription, and then, as I stepped forward with phone out-thrust, she suddenly veered away from me and joined the two men in front of a computer. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t even exist.
For a few seconds I stood there watching the three of them bending over the screen as if it was showing the next day’s lottery results. If the scarf affair hadn’t already annoyed me, I might have waited a couple more minutes to judge the situation, but I let my frustration out.
‘Excuse me interrupting,’ I said with as much fake politeness as I could muster, ‘but does it really need two of you to deal with one person?’
‘Yes, it does, actually,’ Scarf Woman told me sternly. ‘My colleague is a trainee and needs help with new accounts.’
‘Ah, sorry,’ I said, thinking ‘Oh merde, I’ve had it now.’
In a way it wasn’t my fault. A good sales person would have told me that she’d get to me as soon as she’d helped out her trainee.
