Tourists fined for making coffee

[tomblover]

Look. As someone who works in hospitality myself, I'm not the slightest bit sorry for these people.

I don't know enough about Venice that I would have a valid perspective on if there's some ulterior, financial motive to the fines - and I don't care, anyway, because if you're enough of an idiot to break out a coffee machine in the middle of a crowded ****ing tourist hotspot, you deserve to be treated like one.

950€ is a lot, but really only compared to the handful of Euros these people probably thought they were saving. It's like, people go on holiday - and suddenly they've lost every sense of what it means to have some ****ing manners.

I've seen, you know - and I guess this is a universal thing when you work in any service industry, but - people well into their middle ages, acting as if it was their first time leaving the house unchaperoned.

It's almost performative. Like, I feel entitled to your time and space - so now I'm going to go out of my way to be an idiot, because it's like watching a monkey trying to fit a square peg in a circular hole, and I've got nothing better going on in my life.

One time, I had to sit through a good five minutes of this decrepit Austrian woman yelling at me because she was dissatisfied with a lot of the shops out here being having short opening hours on Sundays. This was, I assure you, my fault.

(nb. I obviously ****ing told her that this was something to be aware of beforehand)

I ended up giving her my best Miss Universe smile, apologizing that she felt that way over my inability to force whatever ****ing shops she wanted to go to, open - and bid her a good day of rest. She was still talking as I was walking away from her.

...

On a broader scale, though, you can't do the receptionist thing and insult someone to their face, but in such a way that they can't get mad at you for it. Bring forth the exorbitant fines, then.