Contemporary Stories- Dealing with Adversity Nordic Experts

Contemporary Stories- Dealing with Adversity

Nordic Experts

I have been a member of this health club downtown for about ten, maybe twelve years, discounting the nineties.

However, before it was even “born” I used to enjoy the pool and the sauna of the Bucharest hotel, as far back as 1995.

When it opened under a new, Swedish banner, I thought that this would be so much better, that it will feel like…well, Sweden.

Only it did not!

Yes, they had a Nordic manager, apparently the sun of the owner.

He was so helpless, it almost invited a disgruntled customer, such as the undersigned to feel sorry for him.

A small Jacuzzi indoors failed to function.

In fact, for weeks it has been surrounded by…construction panels no less.

When this fixing operation took forever, I went in to ask the super skilled specialist, brought in from the Nordic paradise to teach the natives what is what:

Look, it is taking forever

We miss a part

Well, what about DHL, UPS and the rest?

…

They will bring anything in a matter of a couple of days, if it is coming from Papua New Guinea…

I think he responded with some nonsense here

To top the aforementioned problem, one of the two saunas did not work and the other seemed overflowing at all times

Clients had to wait outside to use it or just forget about it and go home because…

Employees were inside, occupying the few places!!

Can you beat that?!

When I went to the Big Expert from the Fjords, he said:

Yes, we have a policy

Customers do not have space in the sauna

We allow our staff to use the sauna and facilities

However, we cannot use it anymore

It is for off peak hours

Yeah, right, as if they look at the watch and say…oh, I cannot do it now

That “manager „was so useless and annoying that he even kept an aquarium in his window at the first floor.

Everybody could see it from the pool and enjoy the horror…

There were no visible fish.

That is because the water had not been changed in – who knows- maybe sixteen months (?)

For me, that was the epitome of lousy, arrogant, stupid management:

Consider this:

This man could summon a janitor to clean that shitty thing

He could also place it under the desk, in order to save his customers the pleasure of seeing a bowl of dirt, right there, above their heads, as a symbol of the “cleanliness of his operation”.

Finally, he should have given up on a recipient with dead fish, since he obviously did not care a hoot about them.

The next “management guru” to arrive from the civilized and advanced North in order to share with the barbarians his knowledge was in the same mold.

The fact that he was –probably still is- gay, did not import on his abilities, in fact, knowing his orientation I expected more.

Alas, I was again gravely disappointed.

He was superior and distant- which is the manner of most of the Nordics I have met, in fact, I am even thinking of the protagonist of last year’s smash hit- The Square.

I will only mention this:

At one point, when sitting on one of the three reed armchairs they had had around the pool, I noticed a foul smell.

-          What the hell is that?

Sniffing around I was relieved to find it was not some fingers on my foot, about to fall off and putrefy the air before doing so…

It was the reef chair, putrid and smelling like a corpse…well, maybe I am exaggerating…a little bit

When I told Manager Number 2 from the Exquisite, Formidable, Outstanding and Glorious Sweden…

We will change the furniture, with the same smug attitude, like he was somehow a paid customer in my shop and I attacked him with some fetid, foul instrument or couch

You think he changed the rotten things?

Like hell he did, he just had them intoxicating the clients for some more months and only then did he decide to throw the garbage away…without any replacements.

Armand Asante