The Rudeness Factor

Last weekend, while I was walking around Budapest with my friend, we got into a discussion about the attitude of the people in Budapest. She had just finished eating at a restaurant and told me that the waiter was downright rude to her and the rest of the people she was eating with. He did not smile and grumbled under his breath in Magyar as he took their orders. When my friend asked him if they had done somthing to offend him, or if he was having a bad day, he was evasive of her questions, and refused to respond with anything but a confused "no."

This incident illuminates some of the major differences between the Western and Eastern European attitudes toward the service industry. Most Eastern European cultures do not understand or feel obligated to follow the Western adage of "service with a smile." Many of the Slavic cultures with which I am familiar regard stoicisim in higher standing, choosing instead to serve customers with a professional air of emotional neutrality. This lack of manufactured friendliness is often misinterpreted by westerners as "rudeness."

The waiter's grumbling was, in my experience, unprofessional by any standard of measurement. This type of attitude does seem alarmingly common in the fast-paced metropolis of Budapest, which I have heard spoken of as the New York of the East. In other former Soviet Bloc countires, from Romania to Albania, my business was greated with compotent service.
While my specific knowledge of Hungarian culture is not as complete as that of some other Eastern European countries, I am relatively sure that his was not the only cultural infraction committed here. I did not feel it necessary to inform my friend that her questions as to the details of her server's day were likely to have been considered just as impertinent by the waiter as his grumbling was to them. He was just getting paid to serve food; how dare a total stranger start asking him about his personal life?

Even being born and raised in the Western world, the idea of false friendliness on the part of company representatives has never made sense to me. As this entire set of behavior is mandated by the employers of these workers, such displays of welcoming emotion are meaningless. The experience of my friend shows that outright rudeness is always negative in any culture. However, I still believe that the West has much to learn from the East in this case. It is not fair to require employees to project a attitude of joy regarding mundane tasks, nor is it necessary for the customers to respond as if they believe it is genuine.