Allison M. Shapira

Saturday, January 28, 2006

Passage to Israel and Italy







We just bought tickets to Israel and Italy for February, and as a result we are waiting with eager anticipation for our trip.

The highlight of planning the trip has been calling the Olympics in Torino and ordering tickets for the Men's Cross Snowboarding Event, in italiano: Tante grazie a Lei, Signora...

I haven't been to Italy in over 5 years, and I simply cannot wait to visit my old town and see my good friends. Here are a few pictures of my time in Italy from 1998-1999.
Ma Signora, questo libro e' in inglese. Vado a prendere uno in italiano per Lei.

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Photos of the Day



I took these photos at home using "eletric votives" that were left over from the wedding. They cast a beautiful blue light.

To take the pictures, I turned off the camera's flash function and rested the camera on a dresser so it would focus.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Dunkin Donuts Faux Pas

We witnessed an example of terrible customer service at the Dunkin Donuts near Route 2 in Cambridge on Sunday morning.

All six of us walked in to get breakfast before driving up north to go snowboarding. Hua ordered a breakfast sandwich first, and while the rest of us ordered, he put salt and pepper on his sandwich while standing near us at the counter.

A worker named Rado came up, look at him sternly, and shouted, "You don't do this here!!! We have tables!" and pointed at the seating area behind us.

I looked at him and responded, "You mean: 'Could you please move to the tables?'" implying that he should have asked more nicely.

He looked at me and shouted: "I don't speak English!" to which I responded "So we won't come back here again." He said "fine" and went in the back of the store to brood.

Another friend of ours, Jared, asked to speak to Rado and explained politely that he was offended that Rado was so rude to us, and that we would be back to talk to the manager of the store.

At that, Rado responded "OK. It is my fault. I apologize," in a very unapologetic sort of way.

Interesting - Rado disproved himself as a non-English speaker. The word "apologize" is not your standard first-year English word, while "please" is one of the first words everybody uses.

As a business owner, I think I would ensure that each and every worker knew how to speak to employees in a polite way. There are rude people in every culture, and they act rudely no matter what language they are speaking.

There is no room for such rude language, either body language, tonality, or verbage, in the service industry. Yes, it really is that black and white.