Day 338: Shopping in Olystyn
36yearsago.com
Vienna 1971—A Student Journal
A year of music, study, travel, sightseeing &
friends.
Day
338 — Shopping in Olystyn
05-Jul-1972
(Wed.)
TRANSCRIPT
POLAND
Went to Olystyn. Mostly for shopping.
Big city. Went to just about every store in town.
Compared to us, really lacking in goods. Hard to get
many things. Quality doesn’t seem to be the best and
prices are high.
There is absolutely no service. You wait in a line
forever. No incentive. Or, fear of loss. The people
don’t care about satisfying the customer. Buying the
goods doesn’t matter to them.
Mary Ann wanted to buy a blouse for Danusa. Not one
store had anything, or hardly anything, in her size.
I bought a few gifts.
The train—commuting—is nice, for once.
REFLECTIONS
Shopping
in Olytsyn. Today
looks like a shopping day and looks to be a bust.
There were items in stores, but not a whole lot of
variety, especially compared to the variety we had in
the west. If they had an item, it may not be in the
right size. Or there was a lack of variety in its
features. That was communism—it just didn’t provide
very much to its citizens. Just the basics. Customer
service? None. Why, because the people working in
stores were probably “politically” connected and
likely had no fear of losing their jobs. No
incentives. The customer didn’t matter. Thank
goodness things have changed for the better.
My
mother-on-law. A note on
how the above scenario affects a person relates to my
wife’s mother. When my mother-in-law first came to
this country (10 years ago), and we took her
shopping, she almost had a heart attack when in
stores like CostCo, ShopRite, Sears, or Macys. If she
tried on clothes or shoes, and they weren’t quite the
right size, she continued to struggle to make the
item fit. Why? That’s how they had to do it in her
country. We would say, get another style in your
right size and she would say no—it’s a bit tight but
it fits. Scarcity causes people to take what they can
get. That’s how she grew up and lived—with scarcity.
The good news—today, it’s better in Ukraine. The
other good news—her character and work ethic are
incredible. She is extremely hard working and she
doesn’t waste anything. We can learn something from
her as well.
John
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