"That's the Way We Live in Slovakia"

In today's post I must refer to the actual name of the country where I am located.

Two days ago, after a long work day, I went to Tesco, the British-owned supermarket, to buy milk.

As I stood in line, I notice a large, tall, beefy skinhead munching on a roll. He was two or three people in front of me.

He looked like he was in a bad mood.

The fact is that such characters are commonplace at the entrance to Tesco in the center of Bratislava. They hang around at the front entrance or just inside the front door.

What are they doing there? At busy times of the day they certainly add to congestion. They certainly don't make the store look "upscale". After all, they are, plainly spoken, gangsters.

How can Tesco, a British company, allow this? Would Tesco allow this to happen at one of its stores in London or Manchester?

When the large man got to the cash register, there was an argument. I don't know what exactly happened, but I know that the older lady working behind the cash register had to chase after him to get 20 Crowns from him (approximately? almost half a Euro?)

Since she was much smaller than him, I was surprised. Also, he was very rude, even threatening.

He stood there along with two other men, just hanging out in the front entrance.

I commented to the person in front of me in line "I don't understand why there always have to be gangsters hanging around at the front entrance."

One of the men heard me, and confronted me, "What don't you understand?"

I told him I was a foreigner and did not understand Slovak well. At that point he cursed me in the most vulgar manner in English. I returned the compliment in Spanish.

Another skinhead glared at me, threateningly.

A woman said to me, "Now you see how we live in Slovakia."

Indeed, foreign companies like Tesco make a good bit of money here. They also have responsibilities. Do they fulfill their responsibilities, or is their exclusive concern profit? Would Tesco allow gangsters to hang out in their stores in England and threaten customers there? Are Slovaks lesser customers than residents of the UK?

(Incidentally, a colleague who regularly visits the Ukraine told me that she has seen exactly such incidents there.)

I recall a self-proclaimed Oxford graduate who I met when he had just come to Bratislava to publish a glossy magazine, a free magazine mostly full of advertisements, whose articles seem more like free advertising for local businesses... but which always includes a commentary written by the editor himself.... I asked him if it weren't necessary to pay a bribe to run his business. He suggested that "bribe" was an over-used word. He preferred to speak of "business expenses".

That's how people live in Slovakia. They wait in lines and keep their mouths shut lest they be brutalized by a gangster. There's money to be made here. But by whom? And how much do ordinary people really benefit? In any case, I would say without hesitation that Tesco is not behaving like a good citizen when it allows unsavory characters to hang around.

In a previous entry I also pointed out local reports that Tesco has found a loophole around the 40 hour work week... a way to have people work overtime without receiving overtime pay...

Shame.

Hanba.