JAN SCHWALBE is disappointed. When the Swiss writer toured the United States in the 1980s he was delighted by the excellent service he received from staff at a certain chain of restaurants he visited on his coast to coast tour. On returning to the US to live and work two years ago, however, he found things had changed for the worse.
'It is just terrible. Absolutely awful - it used to be so good,' he complains. 'Now when I go into the stores the staff are rude and the service is slow. I would only go to that chain because I found I could trust them. I can't now.'
For Schwalbe, the exacting bureau chief of the Finanz Und Wirtschaft financial newspaper, this decline has tempered his opinion of the country. 'It's not just in those restaurants, it's the same everywhere,' he says.
Schwalbe is not the only one lamenting the decline of manners in the US: according to the results of a recent study, Americans are too. Turning on its head the wholesome image that America seeks to project abroad, a nationwide survey of the country's manners has found its residents are rude and getting ruder. In stores, on the road and on the phone, Americans are becoming more boorish, less considerate and basically downright unpleasant, according to a study by civic rights and educational research organisation Public Agenda.
'We don't usually study these sorts of things, but the impression we've got from conducting completely unrelated surveys is that there is a great deal of discontent with the manners of both children and adults all over America,' says Public Agenda spokesman Rick Remington.
'From what we've picked up from people we've spoken to over the years, we've realised the rudeness issue is a very big one for many people. It's obviously something they are concerned about because this survey involves a 25-minute telephone questionnaire - you'd have to have strong feelings on the subject to agree to do one of those.'