I’m not very good at following through with promises
A friend suggested I title my next blog post as above after a late night in the office led to a confusion of communication I’m not sure I fully understand. I’m going to oblige, attempting to shrug off the hostility that sentence invokes, because follow-through, or the lack thereof, is a huge part of the Foreigner In Mexico experience and probably deserves some blogtemplation.
I should start by admitting that I am hardly Little Miss Carved in Stone when it comes to plans. The reason for this is quite simple: I am often more tired than anyone realizes. I don’t think it’s normal, either, though I haven’t a clue what the problem is (I’m a horrible sleeper – could that be it?). However, were the world as I, the Great Wall would be the Half-Completed But Well-Intended Wall and Martin Luther King Jr. would have orated, “I have a dream! Can we talk about it in a bit?”
The average Mexican in general has a similar lack of follow-through, though it’s for a very cultural reason: they just cannot say no, nor do they tend to care particularly about where the little hand and the big hand are. Life is rather laissez-faire here, with things getting done most of the time but rarely as the clenched foreigner had envisioned them to unfold.
I give you an example.
Yesterday was my new job’s client development event, for which I had gone door to door in this luxury skyscraper inviting our new neighbours to our office housewarming. We sent out invites by email – Cocktail! Free food! We’d love to meet you! – to about 80 people, 38 of which RSVP’d that they’d see us there. By 5 o’clock, the official start time, no one had arrived. By 6 o’clock, midway through, there were maybe six people there. By 8 o’clock, an hour past the scheduled end time, there were four.
(The office staff, however, not wanting to see good food and wine go to waste, did a truly excellent job at scoffing back catering and alcohol for 60 people…)
The woman in charge of the event – a Canadian – was apoplectic at how abysmally the event had failed. I myself was baffled by the degree of Mexican amiable acceptance: you have to say yes even to a passive email? No one else was particularly surprised or bothered as long as the wine kept flowing.
I give you another example.
This past week, my incredible friend Rebeca took me and visiting Scottish lovely Marj down to Acapulco for a long weekend. To temper the cost of the five-star beachside resort, she also invited five other Mexican sundry friends and family.
Our second morning there, Marj and I had gotten up early enough to sup in the hotel restaurant. The six Mexicans, however, feeling a hankering for sopes (little soft tortilla disks with meat and beans and cheese), piled into their vehicles to “go next door quickly” while the palefaces readied themselves for an afternoon in the city. The crew returned just under four hours later, as the afternoon starting to fade away, to find a very overheated Canadian sullenly waiting for a taxi, screw ‘em, grumble grumble.
And a third example, delving back into the bitterness archives a little…
When I was just forming the idea of moving to Mexico, I realized very early on that I would not be capable of doing such a rash thing without some semblance of a rock to land on on the other side. To this end, I invested a great deal of time and money (including two separate visits to Mexico in the space of three months) communicating with a university that had expressed interest in hiring me for the September 2006 semester. My last visit here prior to my move, they showed me my tentative schedule and what would be my office. They shook my hand and said, “Welcome aboard!” They mentioned a couple paperwork things that would need to be done when I arrived in July.
And when I arrived in July? Nothing. No one even remembered me. A few people provided contradictory information on how I would go about doing the requisite paperwork, usually involving calling some third person who was never ever there. Eventually they stopped returning my calls entirely, leaving me in tears in the livingroom over what they hell was I supposed to do now.
Rude!, cry the foreigners. Unprofessional! Unreliable! If you don’t want to buy our products, don’t say you will! If you don’t want to warm our offices, warn us so we don’t order food for you! If you don’t want to hire me, don’t offer me a job! Gah! Gah! Gah!
I’m sure many Mexicans are comparably ruffled by the blunt rudeness and anal retentive timekeeping of foreigners. Certainly the sope-fuelled Mexicans returning mid-afternoon thought little of what to me had been a major transgression, with five of the six (the thoughtful Beka excepted) opting to just ignore the red-faced, puffed up foreigner altogether. I suppose rudeness is entirely subjective, based on personal sensitivities and mores: I was hostile at having had to wait for four hours; they were hostile that I was being so uptight while we were on holiday. And the university? I have no doubt that my increasingly frantic and numerous phone messages caused some hard feelings on their end.
That sound you hear is cultures clashing.
It does therefore cause mild confusion, if I may delve into the personal here for a moment, and if I may beg the tolerance of the friend in question who will likely someday read this, as to why the confusion yesterday evening resulted in the rather aggrieved suggestion that I title my next blog post after my own piteous lack of follow-through. Even if I had forgotten or neglected to call, isn’t “que sera, sera” the Mexican way of doing things?
But no venting at my friend’s expense, as the lesson is that we all must tread very carefully when dealing with other’s expectations. A Canadian can be late and a Mexican can be annoyed, entirely selfless and shockingly selfish can coexist in the same action, two people’s views on what a holiday to Acapulco should entail can vary dramatically. It’s going to happen and it’s going to be ugly – the challenge is to shrug and accept it.
Or, as Evangelina just quipped to me, “We have two jobs: to get angry and to stop being angry.”
I should start by admitting that I am hardly Little Miss Carved in Stone when it comes to plans. The reason for this is quite simple: I am often more tired than anyone realizes. I don’t think it’s normal, either, though I haven’t a clue what the problem is (I’m a horrible sleeper – could that be it?). However, were the world as I, the Great Wall would be the Half-Completed But Well-Intended Wall and Martin Luther King Jr. would have orated, “I have a dream! Can we talk about it in a bit?”
The average Mexican in general has a similar lack of follow-through, though it’s for a very cultural reason: they just cannot say no, nor do they tend to care particularly about where the little hand and the big hand are. Life is rather laissez-faire here, with things getting done most of the time but rarely as the clenched foreigner had envisioned them to unfold.
I give you an example.
Yesterday was my new job’s client development event, for which I had gone door to door in this luxury skyscraper inviting our new neighbours to our office housewarming. We sent out invites by email – Cocktail! Free food! We’d love to meet you! – to about 80 people, 38 of which RSVP’d that they’d see us there. By 5 o’clock, the official start time, no one had arrived. By 6 o’clock, midway through, there were maybe six people there. By 8 o’clock, an hour past the scheduled end time, there were four.
(The office staff, however, not wanting to see good food and wine go to waste, did a truly excellent job at scoffing back catering and alcohol for 60 people…)
The woman in charge of the event – a Canadian – was apoplectic at how abysmally the event had failed. I myself was baffled by the degree of Mexican amiable acceptance: you have to say yes even to a passive email? No one else was particularly surprised or bothered as long as the wine kept flowing.
I give you another example.
This past week, my incredible friend Rebeca took me and visiting Scottish lovely Marj down to Acapulco for a long weekend. To temper the cost of the five-star beachside resort, she also invited five other Mexican sundry friends and family.
Our second morning there, Marj and I had gotten up early enough to sup in the hotel restaurant. The six Mexicans, however, feeling a hankering for sopes (little soft tortilla disks with meat and beans and cheese), piled into their vehicles to “go next door quickly” while the palefaces readied themselves for an afternoon in the city. The crew returned just under four hours later, as the afternoon starting to fade away, to find a very overheated Canadian sullenly waiting for a taxi, screw ‘em, grumble grumble.
And a third example, delving back into the bitterness archives a little…
When I was just forming the idea of moving to Mexico, I realized very early on that I would not be capable of doing such a rash thing without some semblance of a rock to land on on the other side. To this end, I invested a great deal of time and money (including two separate visits to Mexico in the space of three months) communicating with a university that had expressed interest in hiring me for the September 2006 semester. My last visit here prior to my move, they showed me my tentative schedule and what would be my office. They shook my hand and said, “Welcome aboard!” They mentioned a couple paperwork things that would need to be done when I arrived in July.
And when I arrived in July? Nothing. No one even remembered me. A few people provided contradictory information on how I would go about doing the requisite paperwork, usually involving calling some third person who was never ever there. Eventually they stopped returning my calls entirely, leaving me in tears in the livingroom over what they hell was I supposed to do now.
Rude!, cry the foreigners. Unprofessional! Unreliable! If you don’t want to buy our products, don’t say you will! If you don’t want to warm our offices, warn us so we don’t order food for you! If you don’t want to hire me, don’t offer me a job! Gah! Gah! Gah!
I’m sure many Mexicans are comparably ruffled by the blunt rudeness and anal retentive timekeeping of foreigners. Certainly the sope-fuelled Mexicans returning mid-afternoon thought little of what to me had been a major transgression, with five of the six (the thoughtful Beka excepted) opting to just ignore the red-faced, puffed up foreigner altogether. I suppose rudeness is entirely subjective, based on personal sensitivities and mores: I was hostile at having had to wait for four hours; they were hostile that I was being so uptight while we were on holiday. And the university? I have no doubt that my increasingly frantic and numerous phone messages caused some hard feelings on their end.
That sound you hear is cultures clashing.
It does therefore cause mild confusion, if I may delve into the personal here for a moment, and if I may beg the tolerance of the friend in question who will likely someday read this, as to why the confusion yesterday evening resulted in the rather aggrieved suggestion that I title my next blog post after my own piteous lack of follow-through. Even if I had forgotten or neglected to call, isn’t “que sera, sera” the Mexican way of doing things?
But no venting at my friend’s expense, as the lesson is that we all must tread very carefully when dealing with other’s expectations. A Canadian can be late and a Mexican can be annoyed, entirely selfless and shockingly selfish can coexist in the same action, two people’s views on what a holiday to Acapulco should entail can vary dramatically. It’s going to happen and it’s going to be ugly – the challenge is to shrug and accept it.
Or, as Evangelina just quipped to me, “We have two jobs: to get angry and to stop being angry.”
Comments
I have spent the last couple of days (off and on, don't worry!) reading your blog and just had to tell you how much I love your attitude...you have an incredible talent for writing.
I'm an American in Mazatlan, retired early and loving it. Our son and his wife live in D.F.
Anyway, thank you.
Nancy
You exhibit an amazing ability to see things as others, often quite unlike you, see them.
That's not only unusual, it's going to help you avoid all manners of nervous conditions that arise from the mistaken belief that we can control what is, effectively, out of our control.
You seem like a great lady . . . and a very, very wise person!
Best,
Bill