JERUSALEM — So I went to the neighborhood supermarket to purchase a bottle of Coke. There were no individual bottles on the shelf — only six-packs of the them.
I asked a nearby stockboy if there were any individual bottles left. He walked to the shelf, glanced at the bottles, and then pointed to a six-pack box. “Just take one from there,” he said with a shrug as he walked away. So I did — and left the opened, now-five-pack box on the shelf.
I recently wrote about the frustrations involved with the lack of customer-service in Israeli banks and telephone companies. But this latest event made me realize something: It is not merely, as I wrote, that Israelis are generally cheap. It’s that they just don’t care about rules. As I wrote in a prior post in my Letters from Israel series, Israeli society is becoming increasing fractured and Israelis are becoming more self-centered. As a recent Jerusalem Post article notes, many — if not most — Israeli bars, pubs, and clubs openly flout the smoking ban that was passed a few years ago. There is little respect for the rules — or the law.
When I went to the cashier with the bottle of Coke, the price came to NIS 3.96. “Four shekels,” she told me. I was not surprised. Whenever someone purchases something and the price is just below or above a round number, the clerk will just round it off. If it is NIS 18.97 or 19.03, he will just take nineteen shekels. If it is under nineteen, he will usually not give change unless the customer demands it. If it is over nineteen, he will not mind taking a little loss.
The only reason I can surmise is that the clerks care so little that they don’t want to be bothered making change for such a small amount. After all, Israelis are a blunt and quick people — they hate wasting time in anything. They seem not to care about what the managers or owners will think. It must drive their accountants crazy!
