Trust Issues

On the very last day of orientation we had a much-awaited workshop on business practices in Mexico and how to handle business-interactions with our colleagues, clients and bosses. There were several helpful key takeaways like:

• There is no seperation between home and work. It is perfectly normal and acceptable to take a personal call during a business meeting and taking care of your kid or parent is a perfectly acceptable reason for missing work. No judgement.
• Meeting agendas are a nicety at best..don't ever expect that you will follow it or even consider the fact that you will finish early
• If someone pauses for a "quick" interruption, it is probably everything but "quick" so fire up the Angry Birds on your phone

And then, the most intriguing of all:

• Without trust, there is no business deal. Many business deals are made over several meals or drinks to establish a personal bond.

Our speaker, the Senior Advisor at Manatt Jones Global Strategies, John Bruton, followed this up with a strong statement that I've spent the past couple of weeks exploring.

"Mexicans have Trust Issues"

The conversation delved into the history of trust issues in Mexico which date back to the days of the Aztecs when misplaced trust led to their downfall in the hands of the Spanish. He gave the example of the Mexican government. Mexicans are aware and accept the fact that there government is corrupt. Many don't expect anything from them. Not protection, education, economic development, healthcare..nothing. They know that if they need something, the government and their cronies (like the police) are not exactly a reliable resource. 

Still, I've started thinking about some of my experiences with trust in Mexico City and it becomes a complex issue marked by contradictions, confusion and just overall shambles...

My very first street food item. I got a weird look from the tamale man for paying him BEFORE I ate it.

For example, when you order food from a street cart, you can literally eat half of their inventory and not pay till you're done. You keep ordering, they keep serving, and no money is exchanged until the very end. This is obviously normal at a sit-down restaurant but at a street cart where your customer can just scurry away..it seems like a weird place to trust folks willy-nilly. But they do. In fact, the first time I ate a street tamale, I paid for it immediately after the man handed it to me, and he looked like I was such an incredible inconvenience. It was like he wanted to serve all the customers first and THEN receive their payments along with compliments of the food.

It is likely all these people eating haven't paid yet (pic from Grantourismo Travels) 

And THEN the story of all stories about trust in Mexico City happened when I was on the prowl for apartments. My roomie and I were supposed to meet with a  landlady to sign the final contract one evening after work. I was feeling sick (I thought it was gonna be my first taste of Montezuma's Revenge), tired and then I got lost and was an hour and a half late. Needless to say, by the time I got there, I just wanted to sign the damn thing and go home. We were there for another hour and a half, going over every single detail with this woman from a ridiculous $5,000 peso deposit for the phone to the difference betwen a pipe bursting and a light bulb breaking (the difference being we pay for maintenance and not infrastructure issues).

After all that, after a month of apartment hunting, we signed the contract. We were supposed to be done. BUT NOOO. The next day, this lady comes out with some new mess about giving her copies of our visas, our payment contracts, our Fulbright letters and recommendation letters (oh, and an extra month's worth of rent). Mind you, we had already signed the contract. You are no longer legally allowed to demand anything else except what was specified in the contract. Still, to make sure our landlady trusted us, we put together these elaborate packets. The day after, our friends Mexican dad called her up to ask why she was being so insistent and make all these new demands after we'd signed the contract. Her answer:

         She thought I looked untrustworthy and didn´t feel comfortable with me living in her building.

Pause. WHAT?! I cried. It was actually my first time crying here. I wanted to write an entire blog post about  my first time crying because I figured it'd have something to do with getting lost, getting sick, or getting scared and thus somewhat interesting. But no, they were tears of anger and frustration. I was offended, but mostly, I was annoyed. Annoyed because I highly doubt any human landlord would pull some crap about your "untrustworthy face" to deny you an apartment. I'm sure they'd say they found another tenant, that it was no longer available and even go as far as saying the damn thing burnt down before making you run around in circles, insulting you and leaving you apartment-less. I see no benefit in doing that, but hey, some people aren't cost-benefit analysis types.

Was it cause I'm an American? (turns out people think we're entitled), Because I was texting on my phone? (this was a real example she used to prove I was untrustworthy), Because I looked annoyed and exhausted? Who knows. I got over it. I have a much better apartment now and it gave me more evidence that trust is a bit of a complex concept here.

Obviously, trust-building is difficult everywhere but that word: confianza, I've never heard it as much as I have here. There is no confianza in the government, there is confianza in the folks that lunch at the street carts, people recommend things by saying son de confianza (they're trustworthy) and so on..

It will be a topic I continue to explore. Oh oh, Trust Issues...

Every time I think of this lack of clarity on the concept of trust, I sing the chorus of this song. Not because it has anything to do with the subject but simply because it's called Trust Issues and because I've found myself having some Drake withdrawals here..