Trust

by Whitney Stradley
A cultural misunderstanding happened in a café in Cagli, Italy. The café process in Italy differs from the restaurant process in the United States. I believe that my cultural misunderstanding occurred because of the counter. The process of ordering food in the United States in an establishment with a counter includes payment at the counter. In Italy, the customer orders at the counter in the café and then sits down and pays upon exit without being reminded by the server. When trying to pay at the counter at a café, I was told to go sit outside and pay upon exit. I then almost forgot to pay upon my exit because of not being reminded. I believe that the cultural misunderstanding was established because of the trust Italian cafés have in their customers. This level of trust in customers is a foreign concept to me. In Italy, one is able to order at a counter and then go sit down and have to remember to pay prior to their departure. This is in my mind, a much more civilized experience and I enjoy the fact that the owner trusts their customers to remember to pay. I can only wonder what this experience would be in the United States and question if the lack of trust everyone has in each other drives the culture to be more cautious and untrusting. Or, if because the society trusts no one, no one trusts themselves as stated by Cardinal de Retz, “a man who doesn’t trust himself can never truly trust anyone else”.