IL Postcard

Anger Management, Mexico Style

Date: 07/05/2008 Author: Dan Prescher

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Read more about moving to Mexico in International Living Postcards—your daily escape

Yesterday, I didn’t get the bed I ordered. Tomorrow, I won’t get the customer service I'm looking for.

But you can’t always get what you want down here in Merida. You get what you need.

Yesterday afternoon, Suzan and I took delivery of a beautiful new king-size mattress and two twin-size box springs for it to perch on.

But as these things often go in Mexico, we discovered 10 minutes after the delivery truck left that only one of the boxes was ours. The other one, although the same brand, didn’t match in color or fabric.

A quick phone call to the local Sears customer service number resulted in Suzan trying desperately for half an hour to help the customer service representative fill in all the necessary times, dates, names, and SKU numbers on his complaint forms.

Notice that I didn’t say the customer service rep spent half an hour trying desperately to solve our problem.

In much of Latin America, Mexico included, it’s not the job of service reps, clerks, salespeople, and other functionaries to solve your problems.

Their job is to properly fill out and file paperwork. It’s a bureaucratic holdover from colonial times, I suspect, and it is neither charming nor colorful. It is frustrating.

Here is what will happen...tomorrow, Suzan and I will go to the Sears store and talk to someone in person. Whoever we talk to will ask us for all the information we gave the customer service rep on the phone. He’ll peck at a computer terminal for a while, make a couple of phone calls, and wait for his supervisor to show up.

While he waits, he’ll discuss the situation with the salespeople on the floor who have all wandered over to listen in and see what the excitement is about.

When his supervisor shows up, he’ll tell him the entire story again. Then the supervisor will peck at the computer terminal for a while, make a few phone calls, and ask us again for all the information we just gave the first guy. He’ll make another phone call or two, talk to the first guy for a while, and leave.

The first guy will then tell us our box spring will arrive a week from next Friday because they have to order a new one from the warehouse, and the warehouse is in Mexico City.

Writing this, I just got mad all over again...and that got Suzan’s attention. After reading this over my shoulder, she said, "Wow, life here in Mexico really sucks, doesn’t it? Ready to move back to the States?"

That’s one of the things I like best about her. She has perspective.

She reminds me again that I brought the First-World instant-gratification bug here with me—one of the biggest life-in-the-fast-lane infections I’d hoped to leave behind.

And with their filing and talking, talking and filing...the locals are actually trying their best to cure me.

"No," I said. "Let’s not move back to the States today. Let’s go to the beach for lunch instead."

I feel better already.

Best regards,

Dan Prescher
Publisher, International Living

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