Customer Service? We don't need no customer service!

At a cocktail party a few weeks ago I fell in with another American expat, complaining about the German way of doing things. (Its so much more fun to complain than to praise, don't you think?) I was mentioning some difficulties we've been having with our internet and with the German DMV. She's lived here for several years and said to me, "What did you expect? Service? It doesn't exist here!"

Because in America the attitude is "we'll do anything to get your money." When I worked as a lowly front desk attendant at a gym the training was very specific. If a customer has a problem and you can't solve it personally, you call over the person who can and explain the customer's problem so they don't have to repeat his/herself. This goes up the chain of command until we find the person who can fix the problem.

It has been astonishing to Ryan and I that we could walk into a bank and try to open an account, basically saying "here, take our money" and an employee would elect not to help us on seemingly arbitrary grounds. In England, one bank employee checked one manual, couldn't figure out what kind of ID we needed to show to open a bank account and gave up completely. Basically told us "I don't know if you can open a bank account here. Sorry and goodbye."

But I digress. Over the last month or so I have written two formal letters of complaint: one to the Berlin driver's license office and one to Vodafone. Good practice in German, at any rate. Here are the unbelievable sagas:

VODAFONE
I've already written about the waiting period to get your internet installed, but the other day mine stopped working entirely. After 3 hours of trying every trick I know of, Ryan got home and tried every trick he knew. Then I resigned myself to calling the dreaded customer service line.

Calling a customer service line in a foreign language is about the worst punishment I can devise. Not only do you get the random disconnect after being on hold for 20 minutes (listening to the same 1 minute of some terrible pop song on a loop!) but then you get some disgruntled call center employee who assumes you're calling because you didn't plug your computer in or some bull like that. Not only that but even though my German has gotten pretty good I find myself saying "Wie bitte?" (excuse me?) several times at which the employee sighs exasperatedly and repeats himself even faster. I have taken to saying right off the bat "Before we begin, I am not a native speaker of German. Please speak slowly and clearly."

Anyway, the customer service guy tells me the issue is with my computer and offers to send a technician. But, he says, if the problem is my computer and not the connection, I will be charged minimally €40 for the visit. The technician comes the next morning between 8:30-11:00, which of course, means 11:00. He spends 30 minutes plugging random devices into the wall. He somehow fixes the issue then asked me "What are you studying, beautiful?" as he gestured at Ryan's engineering books. For all this I'm supposed to pay €64, and so I wrote a letter of complaint (with the help of my lovely teacher, Julianna).

Today a got a call on the house phone, which is fairly unusual. Another fast-speaking customer service rep asking me about my letter. She was speaking quickly and using some legalese I couldn't get the full meaning of, but from what I got, they haven't charged me yet and don't want to. But she's not in charge of that and if they do end up charging me I should send them a letter and they will pay me back.

About an hour later I got another call from Vodafone. I was expecting some other news about my letter but instead got "Thank you for being our customer. Vodafone has some new exciting offers. But first, let me ask, are you happy with your Vodafone service?"


HOW TO GET A DRIVER'S LICENSE
Ryan applied in March at the appropriate office in Berlin, where we lived at the time. He was told to come back with a translation of his driver's license and an eye test. At the time I could hardly speak any German but even I could have translated his driver's license. It says only his name, address, the state in which it was issued, his eye color, hair color, height, weight, and birth date. But he needed an OFFICIAL translation, and so he went to the ADAC (the German AAA). They told him he did NOT need a translation, and recommended him to an eye doctor for his vision test. He took the vision test (€10) back to the Berlin office. He paid €50 and was told he'd receive the license in a few months.

In July Ryan became worried, because we were moving to Frankfurt. I arranged to have our mail forwarded and he called the office and asked them to forward his application to the Frankfurt office. In August he called the Frankfurt office and they had not received anything. He called the Berlin office, they promised to send the application right away. Two weeks went by. Ryan called the Berlin office and they confirmed that they had sent the application. So he went to the Frankfurt office but they had still not received anything. An employee asked for Ryan's receipt and promised to track down the application. Nothing happened. Ryan called the Berlin office again and asked to what address they had sent his application. It was, of course, the wrong one. The only copy had been sent to a wrong address because some Berlin employee hadn't bothered to Google the Frankfurt office. Ryan went back to the Frankfurt office and mentioned the Berlin fiasco, asking to reapply. The employee was convinced the application was somewhere in the mail room, Ryan assured him it was not. After some arguing, the employee told him, in that case you will need an eye test and a translation of your driver's license. Ryan said that the ADAC told him he did NOT need a translation. But the employee insisted.

So Ryan called the ADAC in Frankfurt and the translator (the only OFFICIAL translator in Frankfurt) said "Come down anytime, it should only take a few minutes." So Ryan stopped by two days later. The translator had left for a vacation. For two weeks. After two weeks, Ryan called again to confirm she was back. He went down the next day. She was out sick. Ryan called again and eventually the official translator was found. She took 5 minutes to type out the official translation, €50 please. Ryan took the translation, his forwarded eye test results, and went back to the Frankfurt office. He was determined not to even mention Berlin because every time he did, another delay took place.

Ryan went back to the office yesterday and turned in his new application. The employee looked at his name and said "Ryan Strange? But I already have an application for you." And out of his desk he took Ryan's Berlin application, postmarked August. Then he told Ryan he did NOT need a translation of his driver's license, and said "I don't have a receipt of payment for Berlin, so I'll need you to pay €50. If you find a receipt from Berlin, someone will gladly refund your money." Now Ryan will wait a few weeks and supposedly receive a driver's license.
(I don't want to hear any complaining about the DMV, no matter how long you wait in line, at least it doesn't take you 10 months to get a driving license.)

Hallelujah

The great Strange Financial Crisis of 2009 has finally been resolved. It turns out the problem was someone dumb in the HR department, not the bank. In the meantime, beer, groceries, washing machine, and IKEA. Oh yes.

A Week of Perpetual Incompetence

Two Sundays ago we were invited to a nice dinner with a family and another couple from church. We were all Americans save for one German, and we got on the subject of German professionalism. I complemented the country, pointing out how seriously people take their jobs, and with such pride. German products are generally known for their high quality, which I attribute to the fact that Germans generally have one career for life. There is no waitressing to pay for tuition, no second job to make ends meet. If you are a bank teller or a garbage man, its because you chose that career, trained for it, and will have it for the rest of your life. There is an incentive to be good at what you do.

But that teaches me for stereotyping, even in a positive sense. Ryan and I have been battling a variety of companies this last week who display a stunning array of incompetencies.

Friday we were due a visit from Deutsche Telekom, the company that owns all the internet connections in the country. Although we have our internet from Vodafone, DT has to come and set up the connection. We had to wait 16 days for this appointment, and after the technician left, it didn't work. Several phone calls later, I was given the answer "maybe it will just start working over the weekend." Right. I love it when electronic gadgets fix themselves.

Surprise surprise, still broken on Monday. And meanwhile Ryan's company still hadn't gotten our reimbursements back to us and our bank account was dwindling quickly. Monday Ryan set out to tackle that problem while I spent more time on the phone to Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom, each of whom denied the internet problem was their fault. After going back and forth with them for several hours, I was told to wait until noon on Tuesday, then maybe it would work. The logic here is stunning.

Tuesday afternoon I ring Vodafone again and they promise to send a Vodafone technician...tomorrow. I explain that I've been waiting since Friday and before that for two weeks, but "nothing can be done today." Ryan managed to get the email of his HR person's supervisor in Canada who is very apologetic about his expense report and promises to send the money herself immediately. Then surprisingly, a Vodafone technician shows up at 6pm. He tells me Deutsche Telekom has made a mistake and he will get another technician out tomorrow. He also fixes one of my electrical sockets, which was nice of him.

Wednesday morning the internet miraculously works. HR tells Ryan the money should be in our account today. All is right in the universe!? Not quite. Deutsche Telekom still wants to send a technician out and I spend a few phone calls explaining we don't need a technician anymore. And the money doesn't show up in our bank account. Ryan investigates further and comes to discover that Deutsche Bank has mysteriously removed his name from our account, and that's why we can't receive his salary. I spend some time on the phone with Deutsche Bank, then rush down to the nearest branch (3 subway stops away) and they have just closed, because its Wednesday, and that's the day it arbitrarily closes 2 hours early. Blech.

So today I'm off to correct that situation, as soon as the bank opens at the lazy hour of 10. Its been a bit of a stressful week to say the least, but I'm hoping that these things won't be a problem in the future. I'll probably get a new bank account since this isn't the first time that Deutsche Bank has screwed up our account. And luckily we won't have to deal with Deutsche Telekom or Vodafone much in the future since we are now installed. That is a good incentive not to move. There has been a big row in the finance department at Ryan's company's headquarters over the expense report and that situation has been worked out. So there is hope that our experience with German companies will go back to being smooth and delightful.

Bank Balance Blues

My mother used to get up and make us breakfast every morning. Pancakes, omelets, grits, and oatmeal (not the microwave kind), anything we wanted. Except junk cereal. So that became all we wanted. Sleepovers were paradise if there were Fruity Pebbles, Cookie crisp, or any other cereal composed of mostly of marshmallows or named after a candy.

My family, while not wealthy, was better off than many of my classmates. We bought our school clothes at JC Penny's or L.L. Bean, or any other place where my mother was assured of quality. My classmates shopped at K-Mart, and that was all I wanted.

And so growing up I felt a bit distant from my peers, with their blue-collar parents, conversations about Hamburger Helper and TV dinners; it was a world I was completely ignorant of. In a contest for toughness or street cred I clearly lost.

The funny thing about adulthood is that in so many ways you get what you ask for. For the last year and a half I've worked minimum wage, counted every penny, sought cost over quality, brainstormed creative things to do with ground beef; and I quickly realized the allure of these things was all in my childish imagination.

But don't think I'm really blue collar, or that I've earned any street cred. I won't be poor forever, just for another few days.

This Little Light of Mine

The plan was to buy lighting fixtures at IKEA and Ryan would put them up that night. It’s good to be married to an electrical engineer at times like this, right? Wandering around IKEA at 9:00 we were seized by laughter at our current situation. We decided to give up and live in the IKEA. When that wore off we decided that instead of ceiling fixtures we would each buy a reading lamp, and a few spares for guests, and just carry them around the flat, plugging them in as needed. They were cheap. Then Ryan stopped laughing and suggested floor lamps.

I told him I hate floor lamps. I do. When pressed I can’t really explain. They are convenient, sure, but I don’t like cleaning around them. I don’t like that they take up floor space when they could just dangle above us. But Ryan’s fancy use of logic won out and we bought the second cheapest one. The first cheapest had a small reading-lamp light extension about midway up that bent to various angles. I was admiring it when Ryan said “You like the erection lamp?” After that there was no way I could look at it without giggling. What can I say? I’m very immature. So we bought the other model, sans erection.

It was a good thing we did, because at that late hour neither of us could bear the idea of trying to decipher the IKEA picto-instructions. Tuesday I discovered that none of our furniture, no matter how it was dangerously stacked, could reach our high ceilings. Wednesday was spent in a state of despair that we would never have lighting, and would lug our floor lamp from room to room for all eternity. Ryan suggested that I call the Hausmeister and ask him to do it. Herr Kube offered to drop off a ladder the next day, but didn’t volunteer any further help. As Ryan left for work Thursday morning he hollered something about the circuit breaker, and I asked him what the hell he was talking about. He looked incredulous, how have I survived this long without knowing about ground wires and circuit breakers? He gave me a quick spiel and told me not to electrocute myself.

It took me about 40 minutes to figure out the first fixture, during which time I got an eye full of plaster dust and almost fell off the ladder, but after that they got progressively easier. And as long as we don’t have an earthquake, they’ll probably stay in the ceiling just fine. But just in case don’t stand directly underneath them.

Selling off the Heirlooms....

So, been a bit quiet lately. We're chilling at the in-laws until Ryan's job training in Vancouver next week. What have we been up to? Well, at the Stranges, the rule is board games. We have mastered 6 new games, including a new version of the card classic, golf.

While playing said games I've been indulging in cookies and American candies too much. Almost can't fit into the "skinny jeans" I got for Christmas. Oh well, it tends to fall off in Europe seeing as I walk 5 miles a day and live in a 5th floor walk-up.

But the main business at hand is selling off wedding presents. No, not the one you gave us, of course. Sadly there is no cheap way to move overseas. When we originally moved it was only for 16 months, but now it might be 3 years, and as kind as my in-laws are, I don't think they want to eternally store a room full of wedding gifts. So we've had to prioritize. We've bubble wrapped our favorite breakables for carry-on, and we've got a massive box for Ryan's bike.

But somethings have got to go. Surprisingly most department stores take returns nearly 2 years after the wedding. Unfortunately, most of our gifts come from Target who has recently changed its return policy from reasonable to ultra-screw. I love Target's stuff, but it makes no sense to register there anymore, as its virtually impossible to return gifts sans receipt. Thus I've taken to Craigslisting, and have made out okay so far. Now if only the exchange rate would fluctuate this way a little....

Pro-Life....?

Today I went to the Doctor's to get my birth control prescription renewed. This is the hassle about moving so often, you have to visit the Dr. and get a new prescription in each country. In Germany, as in the U.S., they charge for birth control. Most insurance companies in both countries do not cover it (although many cover Viagra). Personally I think this is crazy.

There are many problems with the National Health Service in the UK, but at least they've figured out contraception. There is a high rate of teen and unwanted pregnancies so they've made contraception FREE to all women. Isn't this a no-brainer?

Whether you are pro-life or pro-choice, (or like most people, somewhat confused and in the middle) I think we can all agree that there needs to be a reduction in abortions. The easiest way to do this is through contraception. Pregnancy and childbirth are expensive for insurance companies, hospitals, and ultimately the government. You'd think that we'd all have a vested interest in making sure that every woman who wants contraception has access to it.

And what's crazier, as you've probably seen, John McCain won't even discuss it! And just yesterday the Bush administration opted to cut off birth control help to women in Africa.

It is a serious problem when politicians turn a blind eye to the futures of young women. When the pill was made available 50 years ago, it freed women to pursue their goals and fight for equality. But these options are still being denied to many and that's something we should not stand for.

Budapest, part 2

We arrived in Budapest Friday evening, checked into our shared apartment, and set out to peruse the neighborhood and scout some dinner. The first two places our guidebook recommended were closed-down, but we ended up in the courtyard of an artist's colony with large trees and candles. It was gorgeous. After dinner we walked along the Danube through the very touristy and over-priced Belvaros neighborhood. We witnessed many drunk Americans and Brits eating at Cuban/Mexican/etc margarita bars. Why would you go to Eastern Europe to eat ala North America? Bad move!

The next morning Ryan woke me up with his muttering. I planned 90% of this trip, doing my usual printed an itinerary with our sight-seeing destinations clearly google mapped. I had also taken care of estimating costs and getting the necessary Hungarian money from the bank. Normally, banks charge the least commission when changing money, but our new bank (Deutsche Bank) this was not the case! Their commission was almost 20% and Ryan had begun to worry that we wouldn't have enough money to do everything we wanted on the trip.

I pause at this point, reflecting on the fact that this was our one-year anniversary trip, and at this point in the game I should take Ryan's financial worries with a grain of salt. He tends to get worked up about these things until I get worked up and then come back and say "oh its not really bad at all" as if he simply enjoys worrying.

So, momentarily freaked out, I slashed at the itinerary, removing the walking tour, concert, and other expensive items and replacing them with free museums and picnicing. And the next day when Ryan realized he had overestimated any money glitches, I wasn't disappointed. (I might have slugged him, but the free things we did were great)

We breakfasted at McDonalds (not our first choice but Hungarian cafes don't open before 10 and we starve by then!) and hit the Hungarian National Museum (history), the Great Market Hall (picnic supplies), and walked across the colossal Danube over to Buda and the Castle District.

This district is atop a hill and walled-in. Very touristy, but I love these old city centers. Rough Guide redeemed itself with a walking tour through the old sites and up to the castle. Inside are three museums: Military History, National Gallery, and Budapest History. We hit the almost free National Gallery, and on our way out ran into some belly dancers passing out fliers in Hungarian. I couldn't read the flier, but it figured it was a belly-dancing show and was only 500 Forints (about 2 euros) so dragged Ryan to find it. It turned out to be some kind of Renaissance Fair/battle reenactment that we'd normally never go for, but hey we're in Hungary, so we sat in the grass and spent 40 minutes watching the Hungarians defeat the Turks.

We ate picnic supper at Fisherman's Bastion (see photo) which has beautiful views of the city, split a bottle of red wine from the market and Ryan dragged me back across the river a bit tipsy.

Blech, banks!

One of the first things you should do when moving to a foreign country is to open a bank account. Otherwise, you will spend all your money in ATM/currency exchanging fees. But opening a bank account in another country is practically impossible.

Firstly, you will enter the bank, and start waving your arms around to attract the attention of the bored employees. When you've snared one, she will give you a long list of documents to bring to the bank. You will not know what most of these are. But after several hours of research and running back and forth between various government offices, you will have assembled all but one. You think "they don't really need document X, I've got all of the other 99 documents." WRONG! When we moved to England, this document was proof that I lived with my husband. Our friend Corrynn had to legally prove that she was single to get a bank account in Amsterdam.

But, after more government building hopscotch and pleading with the bank manager, you will get an appointment to open your bank account. At the Postbank in Munich, I got 5 minutes with a harried clerk who didn't fill out my form correctly and lost my original documents. They will tell you to look for your new ATM card and pin number in the mail in 5-7 business days. It will not arrive. You will go back to the bank and ask about it. They will offer to resend your card in 5-7 business days. And so on, and so on, into eternity.

I have just spent 2 months waiting for my ATM card for my Postbank account. Finally, I was fed up. I went and closed my account yesterday (having never actually used it) and opened a new one at Deutsche Bank. My DB card should arrive in 9 business days or less. I was feeling fairly confident that the employees at DB will be more responsible than those at PostBank, but when I checked the mail today, my PostBank ATM card finally arrived! No pin number, of course. So, I now have an ATM card for a closed account, a new account with no money in it or card for it, and we are still keeping our money in a jar.

Maybe I should start my own bank for foreigners. I will require no documents. You will give me your money and I will put it in a jar. When you come ask me for it, I will give it back to you. And I will charge no fees.

Slave for a Month

To my faithful readers: I apologize for August's pitiful lack of postings. Some of you know about the crazy hours I've been working since August started. I suppose it would be unprofessional to spend an entire blog bitching about the family that I recently worked for, so I will make a few general, hopefully helpful, observations.

1. I don't know if I can contribute my experiences to cultural differences, the fact that these people were filthy filthy rich, or that they are just not very nice, but the fact is, they did not treat me respectfully.

Over the last several years I have worked for nearly a dozen families on a part-time basis, and there was always the understanding that my job was to play with, care for, and keep their children from danger. NOT to clean their whole house, wait on them, or iron their underwear.

I can't say they were entirely inconsiderate. There were very random occassions of consideration. For example, on one day at the beach I wasn't given time to eat lunch, yet the mother brought me over a child's hat because she was worried "about my wrinkles." But by and large her perception of me was rather one-dimensional. I was NANNY, not regular person with a house and husband and grocery list of her own.

2. Other than being treated lesser, there were a lot of difficulties with the children. I can make friends with nearly any kid, and am pretty good at keeping them entertained and out of trouble. But these kids were trapped in a vicious cycle of never seeing their parents, being spoiled and not disciplined when they saw them, behaving terribly as non-disciplined children will do, and thus being undesirable for their parents to spend time with. I feel very sorry for families like this, they don't seem to understand how good their relationship could be if they worked at it.

The upside of this stressful, over-worked, month is that I made some really good money. And they are now back at their primary residence and I no longer have to work for them. In September I start my next job with a much more grounded family, and I am really looking forward to that.

In a rich man's world....

Sorry for the ABBA quote. We saw it Friday night (I loved it, Ryan laughed a few times). Money has been on my mind recently, as I've struggled through mounds of confusion and German paperwork to get a new account here. Plus, our landlord was a month late getting our deposit back on our place in Newcastle leading us to within inches of overdrawing our account. Thank God, it has all come through.

Before we were married, when we were living off Ryan's engineer salary and our parents' generosity (ok we're still living a bit off our parents' generosity) money seemed so different to me. Ryan bought me $200 jeans for our anniversary, we went out to a fancy restaurant at least once a month. He had a car. Now, it's a splurge to buy a packet of new socks.

When I was in college I looked around in disgust at all the people who seemed to waste money willy-nilly on fancy cars and etc. I knew that money wasn't important to me and that I would be just fine living as a starving artist. But the ideals and the reality are quite different.

I'm happy. Money can't bring you that. Though it can bring you convenience. And fun. I still have fun, but its different fun. Probably being broke has encouraged us to be more creative. And more than that, my eyes have been opened to how wasteful I was.

It's funny, my boss is a strict Buddhist, who told me one of the 3 great evils is greed. Then in the same breath she tells me that she's building a 3rd vacation home in Switzerland. Well, there are hypocrites in every belief, espeically when it comes to money. Nobody wants to take Jesus' command to give all you own to the poor literally.

I do worry that when Ryan graduates and we have money again, I will become tied down to my possessions. I've seen a lot of married couples who stay in miserable jobs because their spouse wants a new car or a fancy house. And that's not worth it to me.

Like Ben Folds says "...being poor was not such a drag in hindsight." While I am jealous of people we know who are married with a dog, a house, and a car, I know that what we're doing is an incredible opportunity. And the further we delay all that car/house/major purchase stuff, the further we delay all the monthly payments that seem to enslave so many.

Updates Galore

So we still don’t have internet in our apartment, so these will have to be uploaded in batches as I take the laptop down to the internet café.

Anyway, we’ve had a lovely Sunday. This weekend marked the beginning of Euro 2008, and as I type Poland and Germany are playing. Our street, normally quiet, erupts every few minutes in cheers and gasps, all of us sitting in our tall apartment buildings watching the game with the windows open. It’s pretty much over at this point, Deutschland up 2-0. Hordes of German guys are singing some fussball fight song and hugging in the streets.

I should mention our neighborhood. Ryan’s internship hunt hinged on the fact that he wanted to go into industry and not research. He finds industry not only more interesting, but more lucrative. However, after turning down a research position based on its low salary he accepted an offer in Munich only to find out they intended to pay him even less. We were pretty bummed until they offered to throw in an apartment in the trendy Schwabing district. This is certainly the fanciest place we’ve lived in since we’ve been married. We don’t have roommates, we don’t have holes in the wall, we don’t have broken appliances, and our bathroom is even warm!

The only trouble with living in a swanky neighborhood is that all the shops are similarly swanky. There’s an amazing organic grocery store across the road, but we can’t afford to shop there. There are boutiques and salons all over the place, but we’ll have to trek a-ways to get to a 2nd hand shop or a cheap barbers. Not that I’m complaining. We have an elevator. And a dining table. And our stovetop is very responsive.

The job interview I had this evening went pretty well. They aren’t paying per hour though, which can be dodgy when nannying as the adults have less incentive to return home on time. We can get by on what they’re offering, especially with our free apartment, but after September we’ll be moving again, as the company’s lease is up. At least it will only be a taxi ride away. Well, our Munich vacation is over, back to budgeting.

Unemployment Blues

I haven't been posting much lately because my life's kind of boring right now. I have spent the last 3.5 weeks job-hunting to no avail. I had an offer from a maid service, but it was only 6-12 hours a week, which is not enough to cover groceries, let alone make a dent in living expenses. I've also been interviewed by an education temp agency, which could be sweet, but for now I'm waiting for my background check to clear and then hoping they'll actually call with work for me. (Other temp agencies haven't been great about this.) In the meantime I'm applying for every entry-level job I come across: retail, secretarial, home care, child care, Subway Sandwich Artist (a girl can dream, can't she?), and etc.

Basically the job market sucks here. It seems to move at a snail's pace, and my resume's a bit scattered. If I can get an interview I can generally land a job due to my ability to intuit what people want to hear, but on paper I'm not ideal. I graduated university 11 months ago and have since then failed to work a full-time, non-min-wage job, and also not been in a single job for more than 4 months. These suits just don't get my current gypsy lifestyle.

We were hoping through some loophole I'd qualify for unemployment, but there are some problems. I can't collect in the UK because I'm not a citizen. I can't collect in Washington because I wasn't laid off, and I could collect in Montana if I had earned taxable income in that state during the last year. I did have a part-time nanny job over the summer, but the money was under the table and thus I didn't pay taxes on it. So no dough.

So say a prayer to Cajetan for me, the patron saint of deadbeats.

I also have a hard time opening my eyes underwater.

Spoiled

Ah to be young and tactless, like my new coworker Vicky. She is 16, so I should give her a break, but really. Yesterday I asked her innocently how her day was. She mentioned a bit of a shopping spree. I wasn't really interested, but she began to catalogue all her purchases. There was a time, perhaps I would've been excited to hear such things, but hearing some teen rattle on about blowing all her cash on trendy accessories while I spend all my money on "essential items" is a little annoying.

What was most cloying was her insistence on gabbing about cell phones. "What kind of phone do you have? I have two cell phones. One's from my boyfriend and the other is a brand new blah blah. I used to have a different one, but I 'walked into a wall' with it. Well that's what I told my dad. Actually I threw it at a friend, cause I was mad, and he stomped on it and cracked the screen, so I made my dad buy me a new one."

Of course this kind of chit chat is not endearing. Maybe when she grows up a bit she'll realize this. But an interesting article on the BBC yesterday (see below) talked about a greater danger of such a materialistic outlook. Apparently people living in "selfish capitalist" countries (as opposed to "unselfish capitalist") are at greater risk of mental illness. While Oliver James does not define "selfish capitalist" in the article, I think one can get his drift. Both America and England are countries where keeping up appearances through the guise of material possessions is often given much more weight than the kind of person you are.

And at a cost. " ...studies show that 23% of Americans, Britons, Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians - all English-speaking "selfish capitalist" nations - suffered mental ill-health in the past 12 months. But only 11.5% of Germans, Italians, French, Belgians, Spaniards and Dutch experienced mental problems."

I also wonder at the promised cure-all in acquisition. Although we are skeptical about commercials and say to ourselves we know putting on an ipod won't make us dance around in musical glee, you can't doubt that these messages affect us. (i.e. I have all this stuff, why aren't I happier?)

Check out the article. What do you think? Why are Americans, Britons, and the like so depressed?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7189947.stm