We had an incident with our car that caused us to test the generosity of Austrians... not every Austrian... but those in the motor trade... more particularly, those delivering and fitting car tyres. From our experience, car tyre operators in Austria are more generous than those in Australia... a big call... but you be the judge.
Yesterday, we did the Ice Caves and set out at 3 pm for St. Johann to reach our night's accommodation. We cleared the motorway section of the trip and we were making our way up a mountain when we struck a severe thunderstorm. Visibility was an issue... we slowed down. The wind was an issue... the road was strewn with leaves ripped off the trees. Coming around a corner, we heard a slight crunch... a little bump... and thought we had hit a glancing blow to a rock that had rolled into the middle of the road.
We continued on... went through a tunnel that bought us out on the other side of the mountain. In the tunnel, cars were double parked blocking traffic flow coming towards us. We thought these Austrian drivers must be bits of wimps... the storm was bad... but not bad enough to run and hide in a tunnel. When we exited the tunnel, we saw the reason for their caution... hail stones the size of peach seeds lay over the meadows... we had missed the worst of the storm on our side of the mountain. As we reached the top of the mountain, the car's steering started to pull to the right... noises from the wheel became louder... and we made a quick entry into a convenient bus bay. We have this roadside assist service that came with the purchase of the car... we phoned them... they were so nice... but the expert advice was, "you have a flat tyre... change it yourself." It was getting dark... but the rain started to ease... we didn't even know if the car had a spare tyre... it did... as well as the fluro jacket and the warning triangle. Half way through the job, the local constabulary came up... wound down the window and conversed to us in German. We put our thumb in the air... smiled and said, "OK"... which caused the policeman to wind up his window and look further for villains, or people needing his help.
Now for the tests of generosity! Today, we wanted to have a reliable spare tyre on board before proceeding with our travels. Our landlady gave us detailed instructions to guide us to her tyre man. He took the sick tyre... and told us he would try to patch it... or replace it..."Come back in two hours." We had a bite of breakfast... walked around the pretty town of St. Johann... even had time to take a photo inside their church... we went back to the landlady's tyre man... the tyre was 'kaput'... and he wasn't able to source a new (or second hand) tyre of the correct size. "How much do we owe you for your work"... Nothing! He recommended another few tyre places for us to try... and off we went. We tried two other distributors of tyres in St. Johann... each spent over ten minutes analysing our problem and trying to deliver a solution... still with no result... but we were amazed by their generosity in giving their time and their happy and cheerful manner.
To conclude the saga of the tyre replacement, we went to the next town... everything was closed down for lunch... Austria has picked up a couple of questionable habits from their Tyrol cousins (Italians). The young man having lunch outside the workshop came over, pulled the sick tyre from our boot and said he was 95% sure his shop could replace the tyre. We came back after lunch... left the tyre with them and went exploring for an hour. When we arrived back, the foreman was most embarrassed... he had ordered in the wrong tyre type... he needed another 30 minutes to solve our problem. We waited... read our books... and after 30 minutes..." Yes... we have replaced your tyre. We would like you to pay the cost of €125." Given the time and trouble they had gone to, we would have gladly paid twice that amount. Where was the tyre sourced? They bought it up from St. Johann... the town we had searched high and low without success.
So far (early days) there is not much about Austria not to like. Its GDP per capita is the highest in Europe (or one of the highest). My opinion is the prime explanation of their prosperity is that everyone... just about nearly everyone... behaves in a manner that makes the system work. I have been intrigued by the concentration on the face of staff going about their jobs... not a sign of boredom... rather an excitement in delivering top quality, using work systems that are well thought-out... and employing concentrated effort. If Australia is to compete with this lot... we need to get staff excited about their work... even staff employed in supposedly low skill jobs like flipping hamburgers or cleaning hotel rooms.
That's my rant for the day!
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