What kind of personality must you have when you work in a hospitable environment? Or when you have direct contact with customers, guests, patients, passengers and visitors? Here a story from exciting Nepalgunj, Nepal.

Compliments

It doesn’t matter what kind of work you do in Nepal, but you just have to do your job. Nobody gives you a compliment, and no one thanks you for what you do. You just do your job.

In the meanwhile the people around me here laugh respectfully about my ‘dantebad’ or ‘thank you’.

Eye contact

But do you get any response from guests at your hotel or your restaurant in Nepal? Sure. In a positive way a guest makes several humming noises and some hand gestures, meaning ‘I want another drink’, ‘I want something to eat’, or ‘I want the bill.’ In a negative way a guest makes his self clear with a loud voice, for example when he’s not getting his meal refilled for the third time with extra rice, sauce, or chiabatti. A friendly word or a minimum form of eye contact is out of the question.

Thank you…

You can probably imagine my discomfort when I said “thank you” to a modest Nepali waiter in a restaurant, as he reacted on a retracted way. I asked my companions, who ate their meals at lightning speed with their hands, what I did wrong. Their answer was simple: “You said: thank you.”

Dantebad

And that was the problem. You say thank you if someone has done something special for you. But are you just doing your work, don’t expect any thank you’s or kind words. In the meanwhile the people around me here laugh respectfully about my ‘dantebad’ or ‘thank you’. But you really must have a strong personality, working in a hospitable environment in Nepal. In that way Europe is a paradise on earth.

Dantebad and warm greetings,
Robert Bosma

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