Romania’s Translation for Carrefour-France, Or the Country of Soap-Movies

Motto: "We live in Romania, and that is a full-time job" - Mircea Badea, TV journalist

I am in Carrefour Baneasa on a Friday morning. This is one of the places where France teaches Romania what retail business at western standards is all about.

There are few shoppers around; most people are at work, and those that can afford not to work are still in bed.

Even so, it is difficult to take a product from the shelves, as shop assistants arrange the merchandise now, instead of having done that in the night shift. Or maybe this is a Carrefour standard to be abided by in France only.

Guys in black suits walk around looking very much like the staff organizing a convention of the ruling party. They do not have walky-talkies, but wear badges instead. I always wondered what the job they are supposed to perform was, but never found an answer.

I also did not manage to understand what the droves of young employees are doing to earn their salaries, as never were they able to give me a competent answer to such questions as: where could I find out the type of batteries a flash-light I bought was running on.

Some of these young employees looked like they were not to be bothered from their conversation on their mobile phones, while others were eager to help but unable to, just the same.

At the stand selling sausages and salamis I get a ticket for standing in line, from a recently automated device. I get number 60, as customer number 52 is being served. And yet only two other people stand in line behind him. Where are the other six customers, I ask? Oh, the machine does not really work, I am told.

The two bottle-blondes behind the counter are as merry as they can come to be. One is having her own godmother as a customer, while the other is shocked into admiration finding out that the other two customers want something special, in the upper-range of prices. She behaves as if it is the first time in her life she was confronted with such a request, way above having Brad Pitt asking her to strip down.

At the cashier’s desk I am confronted with another problem: the screwdriver I want to buy has no bar-code. The young man tells me with a jolly smile on his face that I have to go back and get another screwdriver, this time with a bar-code on it. I give him a stern look and he understands that it says "no way." So he calls over the phone for one of the young employees roaming around the aisles to come at his cashier desk. I wait a long while till a young female arrives.
Her happy mood changes when she learns the call was not about a short flirt, but about work.
She takes the code-less screwdriver with her, never to come back.

I gave up on buying the screwdriver. The young man at the cashier is not concerned.
It is not like he owned the business at Carrefour, is it?

On a box outside the cashier lines stays written that the Carrefour manager is available 24/7 to get the clients’ complaints. The writing is both in Romanian and French.
The loudspeakers announce that customers will be able to meet on Sundays the cast in their favorite soap-operas.

I would like to pass by and give the television stars look. Question is: would other employees come to service Carrefour too.
Germans, that is, not Romanians!