The coffee was unusually bitter at the café the other day. I surmised that the new trainee barista had messed something up. I told the manager, who apologized and made sure I got another coffee (which was good), reassuring me it would not happen again.
It was the third day that there was a long line at the neighborhood supermarket’s checkout counters. It was obvious they were short-staffed. I asked for the manager and complained. The next day, everything was fixed.
When they didn’t allow me into a Hindu temple in Kathmandu, Nepal, holding the heavy door shut because the gatekeepers told me only Hindus were allowed in – despite my insistence that I too “was a Hindu” (and a Christian and a Buddhist, for that matter, since I study and learn from all religions) – I went to the police to report it. They came with me to help me get in, but the temple caretakers still declined even with police escort! Returning to the police station, a very annoyed and apologetic chief of police, with whom I had finally become friends, helped me file a complaint to send to the higher authorities to change the temple’s anti-tourist policy.
When, after entering a Zen monastery with a famous garden outside Tokyo, I discovered there was construction and scaffolding all around the temple, I complained that they should not let in visitors because the whole place was a construction site and I asked for my money back. When the monk in charge declined, I found his superior, who consented. After receiving my refund, I gave it back to the monastery as a donation, emphasizing that I had “made a scene” not for the money but as a matter of principle: The temple ought to have been closed during renovations. …