Shopping, the Hard Way

In some areas, Nicaragua remains far behind the first world and, sadly, customer service is one of them. In Managua the other day, I walked into in a kitchenware store to buy a few utensils. A sales clerk immediately attached herself to me and shadowed me around the store as I picked out the items I wanted, taking each one from my hands and placing them at the check out desk.

Within a few minutes I was finished and stood in front of the cashier with my cash in hand. Then I watched as my purchases were examined, an invoice created on a computer and printed in triplicate, my items were checked against the invoice by the cashier, who then handed the invoice to another staff member who checked each of my items against the invoice before carefully wrapping them and placing them in a bag, while another cashier went to find the cash box so that they could make change for me. By the time I finally got out the door, paying for my purchases had eaten up twenty minutes. I was the only customer in the store at the time. God only knows what happens when they are busy.