Why I don't like Finland, pt. II

Part deux is here for you already! Can you imagine.

The other thing I don't like here is people. I mean I like being close to my family and friends here, they're nice and friendly and all that. But other people I don't like. You know, just randomers you come accross on the street. I will obviously generalise here but I hope you'll forgive me (if there's anybody out there reading anyway).

What I found odd when moving to London was how lots of people seemed to think that Londoners somehow lacked good manners. I mostly found people in London just as polite as people in Birmingham or Manchester and always more polite than in Finland.

To start off with, people are shit at small talk. That's fair enough and I can't really complain because I don't do small talk either. But if someone leads me I can small talk too. People are also pretty clique-y - breaking into groups of people can be pretty damn hard even if you already know someone in there. Obviously this is the case elsewhere too, but I find that when you're a "stranger" to a group I find them less accomodating here. However, I had a chat with a friend who lives in Helsinki about this, and she said she thinks this might just be a regional defect, not a nationwide thing.

Also, only a handful of people hold the door open for you. Even fewer will say thanks if you do so for them. It's little things like that - a sort of general lack of politeness that makes me miss London. And here's the story that sparked me to start up this series of posts. Are you sitting comfortably? Here goes:

I did a big food shop the other day and obviously forgot one important thing (burger buns, if you must know) because it wasn't on the shopping list. As I'd already left the supermarket I figured I'd just go to a smaller one on my way home, and I did. I found my buns pretty effortlessly in the store (a KKK Supermarket FYI, although I believe they're now just called K Supermarkets). The shop was a bit bigger than your average Aldi or Lidl. I got to the tills and there was only one till open at the time so I joined to queue like a good citizen would. The queue grew bigger though and a lady came to open the next till too. As I made a move towards the newly opened till an older man (I'd say in his fifties) rushed his trolley over from behind me and got into position to start off loading his trolley.

I was slightly baffled and asked him if I could go first since I only had that one bag of buns to pay for (I didn't mention that I was also in the queue before him, because I'm not petty like that) and his response completely blindsighted me. 'No way!' was his answer to me. It completely threw me off, at first I though maybe he was joking but after a short silence he continued saying how he'd waited for so long he wouldn't wait any longer now. (Again, I was in the queue before him so I had actually been waiting for longer than he had.) I was so surprised at his reply that I just didn't know how to react. So I didn't really say anything. And then I felt sorry for the lady (presumably his wife) who was with him. She apologised to me saying how he's such an impatient one etc. etc. And I said to her it's fine, I'm not actually in a hurry, I was just wondering. And she said they're not in a hurry either. Oh well.

I paid for my buns eventually and ended up leaving the parking area before they did anyway, not that it matters. I'm just baffled, because I can't imagine myself ever responding like that if someone asked me if they could go first in a case like that. Even if I was in a hurry and therefore had a good reason of saying no to someone, I'd feel inclined to explain that I'm in a hurry and all that. I've been going through the incident in my head over and over and I just don't understand how someone could be so rude like that. It's not that I couldn't take no for an answer, and like I said I wasn't in a hurry and to be honest I'm not completely sure why I even asked to go first (I think it was probably because he rushed up there from behind me the way he did that made me do it), but I just can't get my head around the way he said no. There.

Now while that was a single incident and obviously could've happened anywhere in the world, it didn't, it happened here and put together with the general lack of politeness around here it is thus added to reasons why I don't like Finland.