clavus

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.

Halx

Can we get some background on this so it doesn't come off as a total complete waste of space?

__________________
You have found this post informative.
-The Administrator
[Don't Feed The Animals]

clavus

Yo. Sorry. Ranting.

I sell machinery for a living. Among my clients there are a number of Mexican companies. They seem to fall into this pattern of dishonesty and ineptitude. I believe it is cultural. It pisses me off.

I figure this thread will either A) start a discussion of about corporate cultures of other countries, or B) die from lack of interest.

Probably "B"

__________________
Ass, gas or grass. Nobody rides for free.

jay-g

Feel better?

Tholo

Well, i feel better from reading it. so thanks.

__________________
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."

Tholo

and to double post instead of edit, you just gotta ask them up front "are you a mexi-CAN or a mexi-CAN'T?"

__________________
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."

skysooner

Yes, I have been to Mexico a bunch of times, and the business aspect is certainly different. I understand how you feel for sure.

viejo gringo

Man, we live with that same thing every day ---we live 5 miles north of the border.

Being late is a Mexican thing---they feel that it is not polite to show up for supper at 6 PM, when invited...6:30 is ok and 7 PM is ok to.....

We go to football games and they don't show up until half time...

They will buy loads of cheap, shiny plastc toys for Christmas...instead of buying just a few really nice things..

...and their writing does not get any better---even if they are writing for the local (gringo) paper....you have to read it with a Mexican accent...

FYI---we heard a very loud explosion at 8:30 this Saturday morning....It was a large gas tank in Nuevo Progreso, Mexico
at a torrtilla factory exploding....4 known dead---70 still trapped in the rubble from the three buildings that came down..

Yea, we have sent rescue teams and large equipment.....the bridge is closed to traffic.----and this explosion was 5 miles south of us.....the ground is very flat and the sound travels for miles...viejo

6 PM update---14 dead, and many still missing...

hunnychile

Our Mexican clients are some of the nicest and most profesional people I've ever dealt with Internationally. But then again we sell wireless antennaes and relays and deal with rather educated individuals...so - sorry you have been dealing with less professional people. Perhaps you are making a gross generalization. Too bad.

__________________
"I need compassion, understanding and chocolate." - NJB