SWEDEN: Luxurious Telephoning

When a telephone operator refuses to give out the time, when she refuses even to repeat the number given her, but, instead, chirps pertly, "Thank you"—is she giving "good service"?

The citizens of Sweden do not think so. Their lives are passed in a land where "service" is not advertised but given. From a Swedish telephone operator is expected the sort of unstinted satisfaction which a Swedish housemaid gives by shining the family shoes every day, doing the household wash and energetically scrubbing such members of the family as may deign to take a...

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