3 ms·
Just as a counter-anecdote to "c'est impossible", when I was young and naive I went on a cycle tour from La Rochelle to Toulouse, thinking I could just book a t
by frereubu 5y ago
Just as a counter-anecdote to "c'est impossible", when I was young and naive I went on a cycle tour from La Rochelle to Toulouse, thinking I could just book a train ticket with a bike from Toulouse to Paris and put my bike in the luggage carriage as you could at the time in the UK. In fact, technically, you had to take apart and box your bike before they'd allow you to put it on board. I arrived on the platform with my bike and spoke to the guard who told me what the rule was, looked up and down the mostly empty platform, and gestured towards the guard's van. Sometimes you get a Gallic shrug rather than "c'est impossible". (The difference may also be to do with Paris vs the rest of France, as tends to be the case with capital cities vs everywhere else in a country).
- throwaway894345 5y agoThanks for the counter-anecdote. I certainly don't think that all French employees are difficult, but the distribution of difficult employees certainly seems to vary from country to country. FWIW, I was studying in Rennes, not Paris, although I had bad customer service experiences in both locations.
- _Wintermute 5y agoMy experience from living in Paris is that "non, c'est pas possible" isn't "no, that's against the rules", it's more of a "that sounds like it requires effort on my part, please go away". One of my first experiences when moving there was before I got my travel card and was using the paper tickets, but all the ticket accepting machines on a metro entrance where closed. I asked a staff member what to do, he looked up and down the barriers and just shrugged and said "jump".
- throwaway894345 5y ago> My experience from living in Paris is that "non, c'est pas possible" isn't "no, that's against the rules", it's more of a "that sounds like it requires effort on my part, please go away". This captures my experience as well.