Friday, January 30, 2009

The Country that Cried Wolf

As you may or may not have guessed from my last post, I was pretty excited about yesterday's strike. I'm intrigued by occasional pandemonium (as long as it doesn't affect me personally, let's be clear) and the office tardiness alone caused by pre-strike festivities on Tuesday and Wednesday had me really looking forward to the full on strike yesterday.

Well. I'm very disappointed in France.

When I woke up yesterday and turned on the news radio, I was delighted to find that even they were on strike, playing French oldies instead of news. Cool! But then when I got to work, all the interns were already there. And Melina too, who had been stuck for 2 1/2 hours trying to get to the office the day before. In fact, EVERYONE was there by 10am, and not a single person had any difficulty getting to work. Later Frenchy sent me a link to Le Monde. 75% - 95% normal service on all trains, aside from RER A and B.

LAME!

The Spanish truck driver strike this summer was way more impressive, and way more disruptive. (No mail, no Fedex, no food deliveries to grocery stores... etc, for two weeks!) So was the Spanish baggage handler strike that caused 24 hours of airline pandemonium back in 2006. I was so prepared to be impressed by French striking capabilities, but I'm really disappointed. Reminds me why I normally don't get excited for things in general - I hate disappointment!

3 comments:

Being and Quirkiness said...

French strikes: bad memories. I left Paris for Barcelona, still here! :)

NoellieBellie said...

Haha, we swapped places! Enjoy BCN!

Being and Quirkiness said...

thanks N. best of luck. :)