Amsterdam

I got back from Amsterdam last night. It was a good trip, several things struck me about the place, one was the different way that they serve beer over there, most people use half pint glasses and they don’t fill them up! The public transport was spot on; it was easy to use and seemed to run on time. I’m sure there are plenty of people who would claim that this was because a state run system can be more focused on service rather than revenue, this is wrong of course because the only real way to maximise revenue is to maximise service, but that’s not the point, the real point is that Amsterdam isn’t very big, and the transport system is massive, it must be running under capacity somewhere near all the time, obviously I haven’t seen the accounts for the system, but my guess is that it is close to running at a loss if it isn’t already, I only remember seeing one full tram for the entire trip. This of course is where state funded services can compete in ventures that private firms can’t, but such a system is a waste of resources, by allocating transport to the areas that are in the most demand and reducing the services to areas where they are less used, efficiency is increased.

The other thing that struck me was the lack of customer service, in several bars and food shops I stood at the counter for several minutes while the attendant either did a few menial jobs that should be done when there is nothing else to do or else they just chatted to the other staff, the attitude seemed to be that the establishment was doing the customer the favour. I was also shocked when one night we went into a place to buy some chips (fries), after having to call the guy over to give him my order (after already having waited for several minutes at the counter with my money in my hand) we ordered our chips, he asked us to take a seat because the chips would take 4 or 5 minutes to cook, this seemed reasonable so we sat down and waited. 5 or 6 minutes passed and we realised that if we weren’t served soon we would miss the last tram back to our hotel, so my friend went up to the counter to ask how long our order would be, after being asked to sit down again he explained that we would be late for our tram, at that point the guy got out a bag of uncooked chips and started to cook them, they only then took about a minute or so to be ready and we left. Clearly this guy was not bothered at all about completing our order and was happy just to wait until he could be bothered; this kind of attitude seemed prevalent all over the city. Because of this it is no wonder that Amsterdam is no longer the economic powerhouse it was in the 17th century, it has long since lost the entrepreneurial vigour that is needed to keep a country moving forward.

I had a wonderful trip though and can thoroughly recommend visiting the place to anyone, there’s something for everyone there and I’m sure it wont be too long before I’m back there again myself.