What would Karl Marx say?

For seven years in the States I never saw a garbage truck. Not even once. Not in Tennessee. Not in New York City. Not even in rural Pennsylvania. I think I might have heard them once. But it could have been something else. Yet, every morning I woke up to a clean street and empty garbage containers.

Bulgaria is sort of the opposite. I see the garbage truck every morning on my way to work. I hold my nose as I slide by it. You can't simply walk by. The truck blocks city traffic for extended periods of time and no honking or cursing could make the workers move faster. Rather, they take their time, yell at impatient drivers, catcall pretty girls on their way to school and chitchat with old people walking their dogs in the morning. They also leave a trail of trash behind themselves as they move on with their day.

This sums up the American and the Bulgarian service systems so well, I thought this morning. In the States, that's precisely how things are done: people provide you with a service. It is their job, to make YOUR life easier, more comfortable and as enjoyable as possible. They don't rub it in your face and mostly do it throught the back door (literally, enter throught the back door). They simply do it. Garbage is taken out, streets are cleaned, stores are stocked and so on. Quality of service varies, of course, but that goes without saying. Most of the time, however, you do feel like you live in an Elf World, where tiny little helpers come out of their hiding at night, take care of business and let you kick back and enjoy it.

In Bulgaria, we like to do that kind of thing in the brightness of daylight where more people can witness the miracle that is your labor. Not only do we collect the garbage. We make an event out of it. Not only do we stock your restaurant. We bring the ingredients in plastic bags through the main entrance as you mix your wosabi with your soy sauce. Classy, no?

I really really really love the comfort of American living. I love the fact that things just somehow seem to be taken care of. But I get a huge kick of how in Bulgaria every little detail of your daily existence happens right before your eyes. You recognize not only the person who sells your paper. You recognize the person who brings your paper to the newsstand. You not only know your favorite bartender by name but you also know the name of the guy from the nextdoor grocery store who breaks your bartender's change. You enjoy good food, good drinks, good music but you also know exactly how all of the above comes to you and witness the labor that goes into all of it firsthand. And then, when you are not quite happy with the quality of the service you get, you can still tolerate it because you know that there's an actual person with an actual life and actual problems standing behind it.

Marx would have a field day if he were to come back from the grave and land in Bulgaria. Alienation has yet to come to our part of the world. :)