Argentina Thoughts and Comparisons I

One thing that I've learned about myself is that despite my efforts at not acting like a money grubbing capitalist, I am at least a serious consumer. That is, I spend a lot of time shopping, looking for the best prices, and paying attention to service and business practices. I believe that these instincts have not only been ingrained in me by my family, but also by having been raised in the United States. We are quite obviously a nation of serious consumers. Many of us spend our lives shopping. We are experts at uncovering the best deals. Businesses live by the motto that the customer is always right. Add to this that all the businesses of the world are competing for our business and the result is that our populous has become a mass of super consumers with a huge sense of entitlement. Shift focus thousands of miles to the South beyond the equator and the picture changes substantially.

In Argentina, people are far less consumer oriented than in the US. In AR, convenience seems to be the most important factor to consumers. If they can have something delivered to them or if they only have to walk a block away, that is best. Consumers here aren't as obsessed with price comparisons and are less likely to travel long distances for quality, service, and price than in the US. Further, business owners cater less to consumers. Many businesses aren't concerned if they upset a consumer or if that consumer never returns to do business with them. That is, the idea of repeat business is mostly foreign to the average AR business owner or employee in a business. Instead, they are concerned with both maintaining a sense of control over the consumer and in the money they can make on a particular day, not in the future.

As a result, my sense of good business practice as well as consumer entitlement chafes against AR businesses daily. It is one of my most frustrating and continual forms of culture shock. Let me provide a few examples.....

1. Less than a block away from my apartment there is a locutorio or internet cafe and call center. In the past I used this business very regularly when my internet wasn't working or when I needed to make a phone call and didn't want to use my cell. It got to the point that I knew the guy operating the place and was there on a very regular basis. Regardless of the fact that I was a regular paying client, the operator of the locutorio always seemd annoyed that I was walking through the door to give him business.

One day, after weeks of using this locutorio consistently, I stopped in to call my internet service provider for the umpteenth time to have my internet connection corrected. In the middle of my call, the phone simply stopped working and I was cut off from the Fibertel technician with whom I was talking through my internet problem. I quickly told the operator of the locutorio who walked silently over to the phone, checked the connection and quickly concluded that the phones weren't working for whatever reason. At that point, I shrugged and got up and began to leave the store. Before I could make it out of the building, the operator had blocked the doorway and was demanding payment. I responded that I couldn't pay because I hadn't received a service. My short conversation was cut off and therefore there was no reason I should pay for that. The operator shot back that I had been on the phone for 4 minutes and that I had to pay for it. I responded that you can't charge customers if you aren't providing the full service for which they are paying. But the operator insisted that I pay. He would not be persuaded. I then resorted to another form of logic. Look, I said, I live close to here and I'm here many times per week. If you make me pay today, I will never come back and I will tell everyone I know to avoid this locutorio. I will instead go to the locutorio down the street and give them my business. The unchanged look on his face told me that he couldn't care less. He wanted his money right there and then. He was worried about the day, the moment, and not my future repeat business. Upon realizing that he was immune to my business lesson, I said, ok, I'll pay you this 50 centavos today, but I will never come back here again. This is unfair, bad business, and I will tell all of my friends in the neighborhood not to come here. In response, the operator practically shouted, it is fair!! He didn't care about the fact that he would lose my and perhaps others business. All he cared about was that I had called him unjust or unfair....

2. There is a green grocery right next to the front door of my apartment building. In the past, I used this fruit stand a few times per week. The prices were pretty good and it was oh so convenient. One day, however, I realized I was being charged significantly different prices for the same items I had paid less for the previous day. On top of that, there were no signs advertising prices.... so they could basically charge whatever they wanted. To make matters worse, the operator would not allow me to pay in bills but instead insisted that I pay with monedas or coins (there is a shortage of these in BA). Now, if I were this guy, the son of the owner, I would do everything I could to treat the people who lived right next to my fruit stand well. These are the people most likely to do business in my establishment. Instead, he was messing with me, kind of taking advantage of me to the point that I decided that I didn't want to deal with him again unless it was just so convenient that I couldn't avoid it. The fact is that there are at least 5 other places in a one block radius where I can get the same products. As a result, I have never been back to the fruit stand right next to the front door of my apartment and if I can help it, I won't return.

These are only two examples but I could go on and on and I haven't yet been here for 7 months total. Some folks here and among my family have suggested that at least here the small business owners have a sense of control over their clients instead of in the U.S. where most small businesses have been run out of town by Walmart and other super centers. And while I agree to some extent, my opinion is that you go into business mainly for one reason-to make money. So, if you are going to act as if you don't want money or aren't interested in concepts like repeat business, you shouldn't be in the business world. You should do something more idealistic like become a teacher or professor or nurse or doctor.. But if you really want to make money, then you should swallow your pride and adhere to good business practices so you can do as well as possible. Here, however, there are plenty of businesses that just aren't interested in treating consumers well, obtaining repeat business, having their businesses recommended to others, returning calls, providing good service, being polite, and at the end of the day, in making money. The attitude of these businesses is that you will do business on their terms or you can take a hike.

And many consumers here don't seem to demand to be treated well. They will continue to frequent stores and businesses near to them because they have accepted this type of attitude from business owners and because it is convenient. There isn't as great a sense of consumer entitlement or control here and as a result, consumers can only shrug their shoulders when they are mistreated. There seem to be very few opportunities for recourse to punish poor business practices and not enough people hold businesses accountable for their poor treatment for it to make a difference.

I will say, however, that those businesses here that do offer consistently low prices as well as good service and treatment are always busy. So, there are enough consumers here willing to go out of their way to get the best price, quality, and service. In my opinion, however, there are not enough consumers of this nature to ensure that businesses change their ways. The culture is still one of accepting mistreatment and not holding businesses accountable.

If you talk to Argentines who have never spent a significant amount of time in another country, they will almost without a doubt defend their country until their last breath. They don't like foreigners, especially folks from the states, talking badly about their country. They are very prideful and so when I bring up issues like this, I am met with defensivess and hurt feelings. However, if you talk to someone who has lived in the states for a significant period of time and who has another perspective and can be more objective, it is possible to have a more sincere and frank discussion of why these differences exist.

The boss of my English teaching gig is one such guy. He spent over a year going to high school in Orlando, Florida. Upon having the aforementioned discussion with him, he completely agreed and seemed relieved to have met someone else who understands this. He believes that this attitude stems from something larger and asserts that Argentines don't have a sense of investment in the future. He believes that most want to leave the country to go back to Europe from whence they came and so, on the whole, the culture has never focused on the future of Argentina, but is instead more concerned about the present. He told me that many Argentines see themselves as Italian or Spanish, but not as Argentine (despite their apparent fervent pride in their country). As a result, people are not willing to accept a sense of community or functional patriotism or nationalism or a sense of bettering the country or creating a future here so that their children and childrens' children have a future here. Instead, they are interested in the moment, a momentary gain, enough to get through the day, with the future always being about getting away from Argentina (whether consciously or subconsciously, whether they have actual plans or not). He believes that this lack of concern or investment in the future permeates all aspects of life in AR, from the way people drive on the streets, to the way they litter freely, to the way they conduct business and treat each other. It is a sense of continual frustration to him. He sighted for instance that as part of his translation business, he often receives work from both US and Argentine employers. He says that US employers always pay him because they want to have a long term business relationship and they value his good service. On the other hand, in AR, businesses are much more likely to pay him once, but never again, knowing that if they mistreat him, they can simply move on to the next translator with whom they will do the same thing. That is, they are not interested in treating other people fairly, but instead want a momentary profit and are not as concerned about maintaining a long term relationship.

Argentina's relationshp with national pride seems to be related mostly to soccer and other sports. People here speak badly to each other about the country but foreigners are prohibited from doing so. In that sense, the country is like an abusive father: You talk bad about him all the time, but if someone else says something bad, they can take a hike. By the same token, Argentine's don't seem terribly interested in changing their behavior. Right now, it is every man for himself. And if one person tries to start acting differently, they are taken advantage of by everyone else and so they learn that in order to survive, they must act hard as well. The challenge for me is to not change my own behavior in the face of all this. I would like to be able to continue trusting people and to accept my sense of the way in which businesses ought to treat their clients. Maybe I'm holding onto an unncessary sense of consumer entitlement, but for me, it just makes sense....