During my time here in CH, I have probably been told off or barked at by half the Swiss population except for the customs and police officers. They have always been very polite, even whey fined me.

Years ago there was a very rude and unfriendly customs officer. Once he stopped me at Maslianico because the inside 5% of my tyre was worn down, the other 95% was fine, bad tracking. Sunday afternoon he was extremely unfriendly and downright rude, insisting I call a garage of which he gave me the number. I refused and went back into Italy and entered at Ponte Chiasso without problem, though with nervous trepidation, and replaced the tyre and had the tracking done next day.


The Italians wondered what happened and let me in no problem and told me they always see him giving grief to people. I later discovered via a friend who is a customs offer at Stabio (though they do move around) that he was taken away from border control and given a desk job till his retirement!

There is of course also the possibility of cultural difference.

In many cultures/countries being professional and serious can come of as being rude or angry.

Or people who smile and are friendly are not taken seriously, not trusted, and looked at as inferior.

Agreeable being (mis)interpreted as pushover or weak? Nooooooo...

I kinda miss North American pleasantness in services and people jobs.

I certainly don't.

Tom

Absolutely!

It can be so draining interacting with people who are customer facing workers here.

At least now with automatic checkout, I can go about my cheery day!

Same thing with Customs (so I don't derail the thread). Automated Customs whenever possible! Although there are countries where the customs agents are cheery and friendly.

Actually I find it rather embarrassing that people have to beg for a living wage.

It happened similar to me at the border with Germany (konstanz) however it was the Swiss guy...
I tried English and he kept screeming, then I switched to Italian and French asking why he was screaming.
He stopped, asked my permit, passport and released me...

Maybe they have issues...

When we moved back from the U.K. to Switzerland we entered driving a van with a U.K. plate. My husband, who is Swiss was driving, but the border guard understandable assumed he was British and started talking to him in English. My husband answered in Swiss German... the guard didn’t get it and replied in English still. This continued hubby speaking SG & guard replying in English.... whilst his colleague behind him was in stitches listening to it all.

Probably the first place they'd search for it.

When the officer starts wearing the surgical gloves

In a few cases I had to interact with Swiss customs I have concluded that they must've been selected for their low IQ accompanied by huge chip on their shoulder. They were almost in all cases rude, abusive and needlessly aggressive.
In contrast Swiss police interactions were always polite and professional.
During German border lock down I stopped at pedestrian bridge over Rhine and asked one of the policewomen if she has any idea when the border might be reopened. Lo and behold a customs guy jumped out of his tiny office and started aggressively lecturing me that if I dared to break the law what sort of penalties I would incur. I just turned my back to him and continued to talk to policewoman which enraged that meathead even more. Good times...

all german sounds like that to me.

of course they did. have you seen the average italian car tyre?

...particularly when you drive a high-end car with a central europe license plate, and you are southern europe national with a B resident permit....
I came to Switzerland, profiting from a Friday business meeting, to go skiing over a long weekend, driving a top-series A4 with 350 HP with Slovakian license plate (a company car), dressed on my best LV clothes. Problem started when I didn't fit the profile... as I was neither Slovak nor Russian... but Spanish. I think that they used ALL of the GC-MS machines because - upon wearing the surgical gloves- they almost wiped clean my car with test swabs for drugs
I think they were more nervous than rude. Having worked for the pharma industry, and for Perkin Elmer (manufacturer of the GC-MS), I couldn't stop smiling the whole time!

No wonder, you should really change to something decent.

not good enough for a new rich?
true, true, too much bling bling. I am sure that was the reason why they stopped me, and not the license plate

I'm very much fashion agnostic beyond the names of the most famous labels. I thought the sarcasm is obvious, but perhaps that's because I'm not into fashion at all. Anyway, it was meant in jest