Shouting at the wall

Reason #550 why it is frustrating to run an English speaking library in Korea:  Having to delegate some of my more unpleasant duties

Here's what I mean: This morning, the internet didn't work at our Carroll branch.  Our commercial internet is run by an outside company, so I had to ask one of my staff to contact them.  After a short conversation, he came back and told me that the company suggested that we restart the router, and if it didn't work they would stop by tomorrow.  They do not do work at Camp Carroll on Fridays, they said.  As anyone who works in a library with public internet knows, this is not an answer my staff can give to our patrons.

Koreans by and large get exceptional customer service, but they do not demand it.  It made one of my employees very uncomfortable to ask for a return on an item I bought in error.  At this point in our internet saga, I would normally put on my manager pants and muscle the company into fulfilling their duty.  Instead, I had to ask my employee to call back and be pushy for me.  I hated putting him outside of his comfort zone to do my job, but he was gracious about it.  Lo and behold, a few phone calls later and we got a repairman.

Living in a country where I do not speak the native language makes me feel impotent.  Ironic, since I do wear the manager pants for the first time in my life.  Much has been written about the power of language; I am not in the mood to wax philosophical nor do I have anything brilliant to add to this conversation.  But yes, words are a weapon I wield competently in my own world, and without them, I am disarmed.  Rats.