Why doesn't McDonalds have all of their items listed on their menu board? All they have are the various combo's and a banner for the deal of the day. Is it a secret that they sell items "a la carte?" What about if you just want some fries or an ice cream? They don't even have the soda prices listed for the various sizes. It "gets my goat" because the service is sloooowwwww enough (and this is a fast food place) without having to ask for the price of things while other people are waiting on line. I hardly ever go there, but when I do, the service drives me crazy. For some reason, I have become accostomed to the lax service on most restaurants here, and I don't mind (unless I am (or the kids are) really hungry) that a meal that takes it's sweet time, but I just can't stand it at the "fast food" places.
I agree with that! I never get the combos because they're so expensive. At McDonald's I always order 3 cheeseburgers, and they'll always look at me like I'm insane... then ask if I want some sort of combo. Each small cheeseburger is only $15 pesos. However, I wouldn't recommend ordering a la carte burgers at Burger King. It's ridiculously expensive if you don't get some sort of combo deal. Luckily they have their $35 (??) deal or something. I've never had a problem with slow service at a fast food place here myself (I count myself lucky), but I do hate the long lines! I wouldn't blame it on the preparation itself bein slow, so much as the fact that they only open up 1 register even though they have 3 or 4 available.
Pocodinero, 1. Bienvenidos a Mexico. 2. Getting in line behind anyone with children is deadly. The parents have no clue what the kids want in advance so, once the clerk asks for the order, they question the children until a decision is made. Then, when to toys come, they ask to see all 92 toys that are part of the meal deal and the kids get to choose from all of them. 3. Finally the parent has to ask a dozen or so questions, as if they have never, ever been in a fast food restuarant. Maybe they are asking about the ala carte items not on the menu. Jaja. 4. BUT, back in the states my friend Cheap, I mean Thrifty, Tom loves to go to Wendy's. He always orders two of the five $.99 items that are available, and one of his two is always the "side salad." After a couple of minutes to pick one more from the remaining four, he orders a cup of water, asks for the senior citizen's discount, extra salad dressing, extra croutons and sliced almonds (which are offered on d $4 salad. The extra stuff goes in his briefcase and then to his home. Gotta love him though. Just would hate to be behind him in line, so I always go first.
My new Cuban neighbors "get my goat." Typical pain in the #sses. Block my driveway when there is plenty of space in front of their own house, keep a doberman locked up in the yard that barks like crazy (at all hours) when anything moves within his site and they let him out only when they don't have any money to feed him, so he roams around knocking over gabage cans and ripping into the bags for food. Life was nice and peaceful before these guys moved in. hopefully they won't stay too long. Oh, I forgot to mention the loud music they have the need to sing along with.
Banks Dealing with banks, here, gets my goat. My bank cannot go through the processes they seem to need to follow, internally, to correct names, addresses, and other important details in an account, once the erroneous information gets entered into the system. I've gone, on two different occasions, to request that our names (joint account) be corrected, as they are both wrongly spelled, and to correct the address, also wrongly stated. Twice the person solely responsible for the management of the account has taken the information, and promised to take the measures required to correct the names. The last time he told us it would be "about a month" before the changes appeared, as it wasn't easy to make this happen. Looks like he was right, except about the time: the last notice I got from the bank still contained the errors, four months later! I'm going to go complain again, but I don't have a lot of confidence in the outcome. The bank is ScotiaBank. The account is a fideicomiso.
Wow, where to start... I'm not bothered by the driving at all. I am bothered by all the damn topes randomly spread across 60km highways, many with very little warning. I'm pretty sure I've had my Explorer airborne at least 3X LOL What gets my goat though is... The constant lying, even when its not necessary. The constant attempts at taking advantage of the gringos, in large and small ways. It is pervasive in the culture from Oxxo clerks to the highest levels. The lack of organization and systems in business, government and everything else. Just the pervasive lackadaisical, lazy, "I'll worry about it tomorrow" attitude. I'm really not trying to run down Mexico, but living here, it is patently obvious to me why this country is in the shape it is in, and likely always will be. Also, having spent a lot of time in Colombia and Peru, there is a HUGE difference between South and Central America. My girlfriend (Peruvian) doesn't think most Mexicans deserve to call themselves Latino.
Bruce: The "I'll do it tomorrow" is not laziness, it's part of the "time is fluid" culture here. They don't see much of a difference between doing something right now and doing it a week from now. Once you learn to go with the flow, it starts to make sense. (It was very frustrating when I first moved here, though.) I would say Mexicans are some of the hardest working people I know. Not the most efficient workers, but certainly very hard working. And what I used to think was lying turns out to be their way of being polite... it's a very "read between the lines" culture. Mexicans do not like to talk about anything unpleasant. Instead of saying something negative, they will give a polite explanation while using many subleties that aren't always detectable to foreigners. This is an art I still haven't mastered after 7 years in Mexico.
As a business owner, the difference is blatantly obvious to me. Whether it is lazieness or apathy, it affects my bottom line. I know some hard working Mexicans and I know some that don't get 1 hours work done in an 8 hour day. That's really not much different than anywhere else, though. In my experience though, I will not agree with the generalized statement that Mexicans are some of the hardest working people. I appreciate this insight and I understand what you are saying. Regardless, if you tell me you are going to have task A accomplished by 9:30am the next day and the entire day or even week passes without task A being accomplished, it is a lie. This happens routinely. I'm a simple guy. If you tell me you're going to do something by a date fixed, I expect it done. In Mexico, these kind of beliefs are Utopian.
