Big City Mentality Vs. Not So Big City Mentality

Has anyone but me noticed the HUGE difference between the working mentality of people in a rural/small town area and a large city? I have many, many examples I could relate since taking this job in Baltimore, but this is what happened this morning that has me perturbed.

I was out yesterday; a fax that I had been waiting for came in. It was a quotation for some service work that we contract every year. When I found the fax on my desk this morning, the cover page was there, but nothing else. It was supposed to be a two page fax. 50% of my fax was missing.

I went to the receptionist to get help tracking down the missing page. As soon as I mentioned the problem to her, the security guard at his desk started snickering and rolling his eyes. That told me this would probably be a challenge.

Being ignored after the first inquiry, I tried once again to divert her attention from the all consuming Google search she was doing for mascara. I asked nicely if the page was still in her inbox. She calmly told me “I don’t know.” So I asked if she remembered it coming in. She said “I don’t know.” I asked if the missing page could have gotten mixed up with another fax. She said “I don’t know.” I asked if she could remember where, if any, another fax could have been delivered so I could check on a possible mix-up. She looks up finally, still one eye on the Google search, one eye toward me (an amazing feat I assure you) and slowly and snottily says “I don’t know.”

You get the direction this is going. Miss ‘I don’t know’ has nothing to do all day but answer phones, gab on her cell phone to friends, take 27 smoke breaks, lose 50% of peoples faxes and ignore me when I ask for help. The only answer I got from her was that 2 faxes came in yesterday. I can see where it would be hard to remember such a large number. All 2 of those faxes must have kept her very busy taking them to the mailboxes. The poor woman probably burned at least 2 calories walking from the fax machine to the mail boxes 20 feet away.

This kind of ‘don’t bother me attitude’ is rampant in this city. My last job was in an area where the people were from smaller communities and were much nicer, more helpful and if they couldn’t help you, they would at least try. That’s just not the status quo here. Here it’s just a ‘leave me alone unless you can help me’ way of life. I’m glad I’m only a visitor to this world. I’d hate to turn into one of these aliens.