Sorry

       On more than one occasion this past weekend, I would have appreciated a "sorry." I didn't need any recompense. All I wanted was an acknowledgement that indeed, my family had been subjected to an inconvenience and someone cared, just a tad.
       The first incident happened in our hotel in Amsterdam, which was called the Best Western Blue Square. It was not called this because it was on Blue Square, I think, but rather because the building itself was, indeed, a blue square. This fact made it easy to find from afar, so I appreciated it. We stayed there two nights, and no one cleaned our room. The hotel was very busy, because apparently everyone in Europe had decided, along with us, that visiting Amsterdam in the freezing cold would be a smart spring break plan. I didn't actually mind that the room wasn't cleaned; it's not like anyone cleans my room at home every day. The only reason that I mentioned the fact at all was that we needed more soap. The lady at the front desk willingly supplied the soap, but she didn't say sorry about the room. I do realize that it wasn't her own personal fault or responsibility, but in her position, I think I would have apologized anyway. In fact, I think I apologized for bothering her about the soap -- just out of habit.
       I didn't think much about that encounter until the second one. We had a 10-hour, 3-train marathon from Amsterdam to Geneva, and on the second train, someone was in our seats. When we compared tickets, we found that we had the same seat numbers. Since they were already sitting there, we found other seats, which worked fine until the people whose seats they were showed up a few stops later. One of the women (the one who was supposed to be in Eric's seat) told us that double-booking happens all the time on German trains, which seems uncharacteristically sloppy for a country I always think of as very organized. At this point, we presented our problem to the conductor. She did find us other seats, and they were in first class, which was very nice. She did not, however, apologize, not even when explaining that yes, we would need to drag our seven suitcases through narrow aisles past irritated Germans all the way from the first car on the train to the last one. Again, clearly it was not this woman's fault that someone had planned for two people to share the same seat. But as a representative of the company, I think she might have tossed off a casual, "sorry about that."
       My husband tells me that I say "sorry" too often, and he is doubtless right. But to me, apologizing is not the same thing as admitting guilt. It's simply showing some concern for another person's inconvenience and sympathizing with their plight. What's so difficult about that?
       The story gets better -- or worse. After we moved to first class, a different conductor showed up and suggested that we relocate (with all our luggage in tow, of course) to a compartment. It was only two cars away, so we said okay. Eric by this time was becoming slightly annoyed at having to hoist the heavy suitcases onto the overhead rack, but he handled it with a smile. Another conductor gave us tiny packets of gummy bears. No one, however, said "sorry." Perhaps they thought that someone else had already handled that part of the job. At one point, a fourth conductor showed up, checked our tickets, and explained that we were in the wrong seats. We counter-explained that we had been told to move here because our correct seats were full. He huffed, said "That's not right" (us? the seat assignments? the situation?), and left, looking disgusted with us.
       Despite Conductor Four, we enjoyed our new seats until Basel, where the German train was transformed invisibly into a Swiss train, with Swiss train conductors. One came to check our tickets, and I explained that we were sitting there because someone was in our real seats, and the German conductor had told us to move here. The Swiss conductor told us that we would have to pay extra, because this was a first-class compartment. My initial thought was that he was joking. He was not. Eric, in a very rare moment of almost losing his temper, told this new conductor that we had dragged our suitcases all over the train because someone made a mistake with our booking, and he didn't think we should have to pay extra for the inconvenience. The conductor did not say "sorry." He said that on a Swiss train, if you have second class tickets, you have to pay extra to sit in first class, even if there are no second class seats. Eric was about ready to move into an even more rare moment of actually losing his temper. It turns out, though, that I have recently had extensive experience with the phenomenon of rigid Swiss-ness. The Swiss have good hearts, but they cannot think outside the box. If there is a rule, they must follow it. They cannot be flexible. They do not have that gene. I may have mentioned before that I have some sympathy with this black-and-white view of the world, being a bit rigid myself. I told the conductor that we understood the rule, but would it be possible for us to just stay in our seats until the next stop, when we would be getting off anyway? After all, they usually don't kick people off trains until the next stop. He couldn't break the rule, but he was just able to give us the 20 minutes we needed to finish our trip. It was all he could do to allow us those 20 minutes, though. His parting words were: "But just until Olten. After that . . . ." Good thing we didn't need anything after that.