Meltdown at the Movies

A few Fridays ago I decided to take my Cinemark coupon for a 1600 peso movie and treat myself to a little matinee. My summer teaching schedule is really light and I knew the following weeks were going to be a whirlwind with having all of my family visitors here. I've seen "Meet the Fockers" playing over and over again on TV recently so I chose "Little Fockers."
After living in a place that's sunny every day, it's really easy for me to say that I have no desire to go back and live in the Chicago climate again, that is until I saw the opening scene of the movie with the Chicago skyline and Lake Michigan and then suddenly it becomes the best city in the world to me all over again.
Anyway, despite the title of this post, I didn't have a meltdown over missing Chicago or anything like that...
When I arrived I knew something was amiss since there were no movie titles or times listed up on the board and the only thing visible was the Windows Home Edition screen saver floating and bouncing around. It was the middle of the day and there was only a handful of people waiting, and waiting patiently they were not. There seemed to be 3 teenage girls running the show, and after about 15 minutes the natives were incredibly restless, demanding managers and wanting the problem solved immediately. It was obviously a problem with the computer system, and without it they were unable to sell tickets at that exact moment, and were waiting for a supervisor to come help them implement the old-school paper ticket process.
As this scene unfolded around me, I started to think about how people at home would have reacted under the same circumstances, and decided that they would have behaved even worse. The funniest part was even in all of my "gringa-ness", the women standing around me in line just kept talking to me, imploring me to to participate and chime in about how ridiculous it was, how could they not have a supervisor there, how are the movies going to start on time, why don't they have a backup system for emergencies such as this, blah blah blah.
My favorite part was when the women in front of me pointed to her watch to tell me "she said the supervisor would be here in 5 minutes, and it's been 6..."
When the supervisor finally arrived, he came out and explained that they would be using a paper tickets and that we should form 2 lines depending on what movie we wanted to see, and that's when all hell broke lose. People were yelling and getting out of line to approach the ticket counter and I just stood there with a stupid smile on my face laughing to myself at how upset everyone was over this.
I calmly walked up to the window, bought my cheap ticket to Little Fockers, and made my way to the kettle corn line. In the end, the movie started 30 minutes later than it was supposed to, not enough to even come close to ruining my day.

Another woman's experience at the car dealership

If you've ever purchased a new car, then you might know that as your car depreciates, you periodically get offers from the dealer from whom you purchased the car asking you to trade it back to them and upgrade to a new car.  At first glance this idea seemed a bit ridiculous to me, but the last letter that I received was requesting to buy back my car and wasn't requiring me to buy a new one.  Enter my plan to easily unload my car before my move to Chile without having to do anything at all.  They appraise it, write me a check and I'm on my merry way. I had a great experience with the used car buyer M., who was nice enough to offer to let me use my car for the next couple of weeks until I was ready to leave the country and told me I could drop it off on a Tuesday or a Saturday (when he works) and he would cut me a check.  Fast forward to the next week and the follow-up call comes from one of the nice ladies at the dealership and she inquires about my experience and I tell her that I'd like to make an appointment with M. to drop off my car on Saturday and get my check.  My car registration was expiring on the 31st and I'm leaving town on Tuesday for Idaho so I thought I was being extra crafty when devising this plan.

I arrange for my friend A. to pick me up after I complete my transaction, collect my extra keys, dig up the car title, and I'm off.  Upon arrival, I quickly scan the office and don't see M. and immediately have a sinking feeling in my stomach.  I'm approached by a salesman on the floor who offers to help and I explain that I have an appointment with M. at 10:45.  He tells me that M. is not here today and that I'll have to come back on Tuesday.  I politely explain that someone from his place of employment called ME to set up this appointment and ask why they would do that on a day that M. is obviously not in attendance.  He brushes me off and says that there is nothing he can do, M. is the used car buyer and that I can return on Tuesday or Saturday.  Again, I politely explain that on both Tuesday AND Saturday I will out of town for a wedding and the following Tuesday is the day before I MOVE TO SOUTH AMERICA, and that there is no way I would take the chance of just popping in again and having him not be there they day before I get on the plane for Chile.  After I get another "I don't know what to tell you ma'am" speech, I collect my thoughts, take a deep breath, and ask to speak to the manager instead of sprinting out the door and starting to kick all the brand-new cars on their lot.

My lovely salesman proceeds to enter the manager's office, (while I'm still within earshot mind you) and say who knows what, because I hear the manager say, "Well you just tell her she can wait like everyone else and that we're here to sell cars not buy them!"  At this point I'm ready to run out and key the cars that I have recently kicked, but again I sit there and collect my hot-headed self and decide that in this situation, for me to get what I want, I have to ignore that comment and play all nicey-nice since all I really want is my check.  The manager comes out, I very politely explain my deal with M. and he says that all he has to do is give him a quick call to verify this.  REALLY?  Was that so difficult?  I'm pretty sure Mr. Salesman just decided to treat me like garbage since he knew he wasn't going to sell me a car and proceeded to approach his manager like I was some finger-waving crazy lady who was going to give him hell!

I don't have my check yet, but (fingers crossed) I'm supposed to pick it up tomorrow afternoon.  As I sat back and pondered this whole experience, I decided that it was a great pre-Chile lesson in having to remain calm, cool, and collected and not react too emotionally in a situation.  I'm sure I'll have many experiences where I'm misunderstood, talked down to, or less than satisfied with customer service.  For this reason I'm trying to follow this mantra and in every situation, no matter how it evolves, think about what it is I want or need and how to get it, and hope that I can achieve my goal without too many tears or too much yelling.