American Small Businesses Flex Big Muscles; Public Servants Confused Of Their Role; You Know You're Back Home When...

Heard this story on the Howie Carr show (here's the article) on our drive into Massachusetts.

We tried to find some Ever so humble pie in Cape Cod but to no avail. I love pie and always look out for some new ones.

I have to say, on what planet do you live to allow someone with an EBT to buy luxury foods like pie? Milk I get. Eggs I get. Fruits and vegetables I get. Cereal I get. But anything beyond that shouldn't be allowed. Nor do I think it's all that hard to enforce.

Small business are making (conservative) news ever since Obama's dumb, convoluted speech. They, well some anyway, seem to be prepared to no longer stay silent.

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A few months ago I had a conversation with someone who is a "chef" at the STM. We talked about customer service and how public servants are no different than any worker in that they face all sorts of tough situations with the public.

Though I didn't say so, I disagree with this wholeheartedly. Once you become a public servant (I presume of free will), you serve the public. You do not have the right to expect to be treated like gold but you do have to treat the public as such. It may be unfair but that's what being a public servant is.

Here in Quebec, the quality of our services are mediocre at best (and there's been improvement in recent years. I always found it amusing hearing the head of any public service say. "we strive to ensure our service is of high quality." How about you hire good people to start with?). I loath having to call any of our departments. Yes, there are some great servants that are polite and helpful but for the most part, they remain petty, impatient and condescending.

Personally. I can't tolerate being spoken to rudely on any level. Let alone some indoctrinated 20-something person making ignorant off the cuff remarks...but I won't get into that.

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You know you're back home in Quebec when the second you cross the border you have to deal with impolite drivers speeding, cutting and changing lanes on solid lines, driving in the left lane driving well below the speed limit (a disease I saw in Massachusetts), and speeding up in slow traffic so as to not let people in a lane. It's who we are.

As for service as a whole, I don't think there's much of a debate in stating they're superiour at offering quality service (mostly on the retail side. I think Quebec does well with restaurants in comparison to the Americans) to Canadians. It's almost a black and white thing with me.