Recently I was having a bad day. My daughter was sick so I had to go to the pharmacy to pick up some medicine and stop by the post to mail two items I’d sold on ebay. And I was already running late for work in the morning! So I arrive at the post office and when it’s my turn I go up to the window and place my two packages on the counter and slide one towards the clerk.

I was surprised when he pushed it back out and asked what was going on! I said, “Obviously I have two packages I’d like to mail.”

So what did I do wrong? This approach probably would have worked in the US, although it wouldn’t have been the most pleasant experience. But why didn’t it work in France? The French have standards for politeness, and as old-fashioned, ironic, or even hypocritical as they may sound, they must be followed. (I saw hypocritical because the guy who expects you to greet him with a Bonjour Monsieur wouldn’t think twice about parking in front of your garage door or letting is dog poop on your doorstep. But that’s another article.)

The first thing to do is to always greet someone: Bonjour Monsieur (Good day Sir). The rest differs depending on the situation but I’ve found that starting out by phrasing the situation as a problem tends to work best. Then you follow up by explaining how the person can help you with your problem. This tends to work very well because 20% of the french workforce is composed of
fonctionnaires (government employees), for whom power is one of the few perks of the job.

So a more efficient scenario would have been:

• “Hello, I have these packages that I need to mail.” (stating the problem)
• “I’m not sure which forms I need, would you mind helping me with the necessary forms please?” (asking for their help)

My experience, when using this approach, is that the French really do want to help. The problem is sometimes I forget to use it. Which reminds me, once, not long after I arrived in France, I was at the cafeteria at work. When it was my turn I said want I wanted and the server replied “Bonjour Monsieur“. “Excusez-moi, bonjour” (“Excuse me, Good day”) I replied. And then he happily gave me what I had requested. He needed that bit of respect, and once he got it, I got a good portion of what I wanted.

And if you’re not a French speaker, even just a few little words in French will seal the deal. Just make the effort. No matter how badly you butcher their language, they will still appreciate the effort.

Well it is in France at least. I kind of forget this fact, because not many people use the post office (“La Poste“) for their banking needs. And La Poste is trying to increase their business in this aspect. But why would a post office be a bank? Well I asked this question once to one of my (former) coworkers, who had to find a post office whenever he needed to get lunch money out of the ATM (yes La Poste has ATMs in France). He said that many people live in rural areas where there aren’t any banks and so La Poste took on this role. Ok, that made sense. And after some googling, I found out that it went back to the early 1800’s when La Poste started offering something like a postal money order in the US. Then in the 1900’s they offered accounts to make transferring money easier. So if you think about it, it’s only logical that a post office would offer banking services!

And in January 2006, a company was created to make all this more official (and privatized), La Banque Postale (“The Postal Bank”)!

So today I go to La Poste to mail a package and there’s like 15-20 people in line. Pretty common for a Saturday morning actually. So after waiting about 5 minutes the woman at the front goes to withdrawl money. The man behind the counter hollers out that there are no withdrawls today because the machine is en panne (broken)! This woman wasn’t the only one getting upset, apparently several people in line were there to get their money! She asked “Well how am I supposed to get my money?” “The ATM outside” was the man’s answer. And with that, the number of people in front of me was suddenly reduced by 50%!

So back home at lunch, I asked my wife’s family why La Poste is a bank and who would go there? I got a variety of responses, like “They’ll take anyone, even the homeless”.

I think this postal bank has a big challenge ahead of itself. The idea of waiting in long lines only to be told the machine is broken isn’t going to be attracting customers away from the large, more serious banks in France. However their fees are supposed to be less than the big banks (banks are expensive in France, but that will be another article).

After months of debating and hours of thinking, I decided to carry on with my idea for a website about living in France. And usually, more specifically, living in Paris. “Paris n’est pas la France” (“Paris isn’t France”) as my non-native Parisians like to remind me.

So why did I hesitate? Well first off, there are already a ton of blogs written by Americans and English about France. And I hate to do something that is “so done”. However, as I started reading them, I realized that they were quite different from the subjects I’ve got bouncing around in my head trying to get out. I’m not quite sure how to explain it, but I just felt I had something more to contribute.

One of the first web pages I wrote on the subject, back in 2000, was how to get a job in France. Or more specifically, how I got a job in France. That page became popular and soon I was answering people’s questions about moving here. I’ve already met one such person for lunch, he succeeded in coming to France.

To see what this site is all about, see the About page. And if you have any comments, suggestions, or ideas for future topics, please let me know.