Those who know me know that I am always going to fight for my rights.
When we went to Vietnam, we had a very bad experience in Hanoi with a tourist agency with which we contracted the excursions to Sapa and Ha Long Bay. There, I got tired of complaining. What was amazing to me is that everyone who was on the Sapa tour had the same experience and complained when they talked to me, but none of them had done anything with their respective agencies. Also, I had to complain to the hotel because the room was disgusting and the window was broken, and it was freezing.
In Hue I also had to fight in a restaurant because they wanted to charge us for 2 starters instead of one. Therefore, we arrived in Hoi An tired of everyone trying to scam us because we were tourists.
We had said that we were never going to eat again in a place that had music and that was the first thing we did. Hunger betrayed us and we went into the first restaurant we found that had Vietnamese techno blasting and a table full of drunks. How did we even think to sit down?
The waitress had four-inch fingernails, clenched her teeth, and spoke no English. The juice I ordered was terrible, so I tried it and left it whole. Diego, despite my warnings not to order more western food in Vietnam (he had ordered a hamburger in Hue, it was disgusting and overpriced), he ordered a “sirloin steak with fries”.
They brought him a micro piece of meat on lettuce and no potatoes. Diego would have eaten that crap, paid and then found another place to eat for real. I told Diego not to eat it and to ask for the fries.
The waitress told us that there were no potatoes and when we told her that we would not eat that, she said that the potatoes would arrive in 5 minutes. I told Diego that if the potatoes were not there at that time, we would leave everything on the table and leave.
So, we did, we went to where the waitress was very happy having dinner, we told her that we would pay for the beer because it was the only thing we had consumed, and that we were leaving. The girl tried to charge us the full bill, but we turned around and left. But on alert, in case the drunks of the other table wanted to hit us.
We went down the same street and found a wonderful restaurant where we ate the rest of the days of our stay. So, Diego was happy with the decision we had made, and he agreed with me while he gluttonously ate a pancake with caramelized apple.
If we pay for something, we have the right to complain. If in a restaurant they give you a dish that is bad, or you ask to change it or you don’t eat it and you don’t pay for it. If in a hotel they put you in a room that does not adapt to what you have seen on the web, you complain, and they must solve the problem.
The easiest thing for most people is to settle since nobody likes confrontations. There are also people who do not say anything and then put the negative review and with that, they are satisfied.
Living in Spain taught me to report everything: the negligent doctor, the bank that does not work properly, the company that sends me advertising without my authorization, etc. Instead, most Spaniards do nothing but “complain at the bar”.
One day I took a Venezuelan friend to a typical paella place, we went to the Palmar area, which is supposed to be the best. The first thing is that the bread was cold, the paella was oily, and the coffees were cold. Think that for a tiny loaf they charge you 3 euros. The truth is that I did not call the waiter to complain, but I gave them a bad review on Google and TripAdvisor. I should have told the waiter because you also must give the restaurant a chance to fix the situation. If they try to solve the problem, they may not deserve such a bad review.
I did not complain that day because I think that, by inertia, we tend to passivity and conformism.
My boyfriend’s father told us that Bankia had tricked him into setting up an investment fund, which resulted in him losing almost 1,000 euros. When I told him to file a complaint with the Bank of Spain, he replied that “people have to live on something”.
Once with my dad in Venezuela, we were in a restaurant, and we found an insect in one of the dishes. We told the waiter, and he took the dish without giving importance to the matter. The logical thing would be that either they give you free food or they invite you something to correct the mistake. Since they did nothing, we left. The incredible thing is that the restaurant was full, and my dad lamented that the rest of the people, even if they were treated badly or the food was bad, kept coming back to the restaurant and for that reason, nothing got better.
Unfortunately, most people behave that way, that’s why we have the world we have.
Just as I get fired if I do my job poorly, we must demand that others do their jobs well; to the restaurant that serves the food as it should, that the hotel is clean, that the bank does not cheat me, that the insurance company does not raise my fee every year, etc. Perhaps the confrontation or making a claim result in a greater expenditure of energy, but I am satisfied that I am exercising my rights and that they are not going to rob me.