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clavus · 04-09-2004, 02:44 PM

An open letter to Mexican businessmen -

Gentlemen,

I work with people from all over the world – Guatemala, Costa Rica, Canada, China, India, Pakistan, Russia, Dubai, Canada, Australia, England, Germany, South Africa, etc. In my experience, you people are the most unprofessional, idiots I have ever encountered.

Don’t try to feed me that line about how I just worked with a few bad guys, and I’m painting you all with the same broad brush. No. I’ve worked with a whole goddamn lot of you over the last ten years, and I’ve only encountered one (1) person who didn’t make me what to beat him to death with a 2x4.

So listen up, amigos. Follow my advice, and maybe we can have a better working relationship.

1) Spell my name right.
I know my last name is a mouthful to the average American, and it is a god-damn linguistic abomination in Spanish. But you don’t have to pronounce it when you send me an email. For the love of God, if you are going to copy it straight off our website, don’t change the spelling to make it easier to mispronounce! People from Iran spell my name right, and we don’t even have the same alphabet. Colombians, Costa Ricans and Hondurans spell it just fine, so it isn’t a Latin American thing. What the Hell is wrong with you people? Highlight, copy, paste!

2) Be on time
No doubt, the US border is a bitch. Navigating the bureaucratic Hell that is INS can cause delays. I’m down with that. I’m even sympathetic. But you guys must operate on a totally different system of time and dates than the rest of the world. When we are scheduled to meet at 3:00PM on the 12th, do not show up at 7:00AM on the 6th and demand an audience.

3) Clean machinery does not equal good machinery
What is it with your fixation on mechanical cleanliness? I get this from other folks in Latin America too, but you guys are the worst. Cleanliness may be next to godliness, but not necessarily in manufacturing. Let’s say I have two machines. Machine A is 40 year old piece of crap with a new coat of paint and shiny, oily, beat-up gears. Machine B is a five-year old runner. It produces at four times the speed as Machine A, and will last ten times longer, but the grime from daily use is evident. Every goddamn last one of you people will pay more money for Machine A. Why? WHY?! WWWHHHHHHHY?????!!!!

4) Have a shred of integrity.
Keep your promises. Honor your contracts. Most of you seem have some sort of perverse sense of pride in being able to fuck over other people. You want to know why I demand 100% payment up front from you? You want to know why I’m inflexible on my terms? It’s because every time I’ve given you guys an inch, you take me for a mile. More than one of you has given me a slick grin and told me that it is just the way Mexican’s do business. Well, amigo, I don’t do things that way. My word means something. I’d like to treat you as if yours meant something too.

5) Don’t waste my time.
I can’t count the number of times you bastards have demanded technical details, photos, shipping and installation proposals for machinery which you have no intention of buying. Do not make me provide you exhaustive details on a million-dollar machine when you are shopping for a ten-thousand-dollar machine. Maybe this is some sort of national pastime for you, but it pisses me off.

04-09-2004, 02:44 PM	#1 (permalink)
clavus pow! Location: NorCal	Working with people in Mexico An open letter to Mexican businessmen - Gentlemen, I work with people from all over the world – Guatemala, Costa Rica, Canada, China, India, Pakistan, Russia, Dubai, Canada, Australia, England, Germany, South Africa, etc. In my experience, you people are the most unprofessional, idiots I have ever encountered. Don’t try to feed me that line about how I just worked with a few bad guys, and I’m painting you all with the same broad brush. No. I’ve worked with a whole goddamn lot of you over the last ten years, and I’ve only encountered one (1) person who didn’t make me what to beat him to death with a 2x4. So listen up, amigos. Follow my advice, and maybe we can have a better working relationship. 1) Spell my name right. I know my last name is a mouthful to the average American, and it is a god-damn linguistic abomination in Spanish. But you don’t have to pronounce it when you send me an email. For the love of God, if you are going to copy it straight off our website, don’t change the spelling to make it easier to mispronounce! People from Iran spell my name right, and we don’t even have the same alphabet. Colombians, Costa Ricans and Hondurans spell it just fine, so it isn’t a Latin American thing. What the Hell is wrong with you people? Highlight, copy, paste! 2) Be on time No doubt, the US border is a bitch. Navigating the bureaucratic Hell that is INS can cause delays. I’m down with that. I’m even sympathetic. But you guys must operate on a totally different system of time and dates than the rest of the world. When we are scheduled to meet at 3:00PM on the 12th, do not show up at 7:00AM on the 6th and demand an audience. 3) Clean machinery does not equal good machinery What is it with your fixation on mechanical cleanliness? I get this from other folks in Latin America too, but you guys are the worst. Cleanliness may be next to godliness, but not necessarily in manufacturing. Let’s say I have two machines. Machine A is 40 year old piece of crap with a new coat of paint and shiny, oily, beat-up gears. Machine B is a five-year old runner. It produces at four times the speed as Machine A, and will last ten times longer, but the grime from daily use is evident. Every goddamn last one of you people will pay more money for Machine A. Why? WHY?! WWWHHHHHHHY?????!!!! 4) Have a shred of integrity. Keep your promises. Honor your contracts. Most of you seem have some sort of perverse sense of pride in being able to fuck over other people. You want to know why I demand 100% payment up front from you? You want to know why I’m inflexible on my terms? It’s because every time I’ve given you guys an inch, you take me for a mile. More than one of you has given me a slick grin and told me that it is just the way Mexican’s do business. Well, amigo, I don’t do things that way. My word means something. I’d like to treat you as if yours meant something too. 5) Don’t waste my time. I can’t count the number of times you bastards have demanded technical details, photos, shipping and installation proposals for machinery which you have no intention of buying. Do not make me provide you exhaustive details on a million-dollar machine when you are shopping for a ten-thousand-dollar machine. Maybe this is some sort of national pastime for you, but it pisses me off. __________________ Ass, gas or grass. Nobody rides for free.