Work-Cations™ and Mexican Customer Service
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He said, “Wouldn’t it be great to take off for someplace warm for a while this winter?”
She said, “I think so too. What do you have in mind?”
He said, “I was thinking of Mexico but if we go I want to stay at least two weeks.”
She said, “I can’t be gone that long, I need to be working.”
He said, “Well so do I but what if we could find a place with an internet connection so we’d stay in touch?”
She said, “That’s great but what about phone service?”
He said, “I’ve got us covered with Magic Jack, I can buy international minutes at low rates…
Before this ends up sounding like a commercial for a phone service or a travel agency, let me tell you that I have written my last two posts from La Paz, Mexico, where we have been staying for the last 17 days. We’ve had a great time. Rather than pretend we were on vacation and sneak peeks at our email everyday and feel guilty we just worked each morning from 7AM to noon and then set off for exploration the rest of the day.
I travel a lot for my work with companies around the US and for the past several years our “vacations” have been used to visit our several children and grandchildren around the country. No complaints of course but this trip was something special, something we’d heard that other people do but had never tried for ourselves. It has worked out brilliantly, so brilliantly in fact that we trademarked the name for future adventures. Just kidding about the trademark but it has been an eye opener to see how relatively easy it has been for both of us to stay up on our work and address some leisure action at the same time. “Work-Cation” We really like the sound of that and it captures the last two plus weeks perfectly because now there will not be that pile up of emails to answer or phone calls to return as we’ve stayed right up to date with everything.
And I need to make special mention of the people of La Paz, Mexico and the surrounding area. I think many people in the US have a very slanted view of the Mexican people based on limited to no first hand experience of what the people of Mexico are like when you meet them in their own country.
From the very first evening we arrived, we were the “fish out of water.” Neither my wife nor I speak Spanish beyond the conventions of “Hola!”, “Gracias!”, “Buenas Noches!” and “Yo no hablo Espanol!,” which I used repeatedly throughout our stay. Our experience of the warmth and customer orientation of the average Mexican citizen began upon our arrival in the airport in San Jose del Cabo and continued until the waiter in the beach side restaurant where we watched the Super Bowl gave me a “fist bump” on our way out the door. We found only a limited number of people who spoke fluent English, but everyone we asked for help would not quit until we had what we needed and this included sign language, drawing pictures and sketching out maps. We stopped people on the street, in stores, in the markets and gas stations and once even in a dark alley. No matter, they acted like all they had to do was help us out.
The extreme example of this was Arturo, an assistant manager at the local Mega supermarket. We met him in the produce department on our first trip into the store and he personally escorted us throughout the store, helped us get acquainted with the location of various items and translated for us when we went to the butcher and deli counters. While we were in La Paz, we made five more trips to the store and each time Arturo noticed we were there and made sure we did not leave without finding everything we had come in for and none of this was because we asked. He insisted on helping us.
It may seem trivial to report in this space on an experience that sounds a bit like a travel log but as someone who spends a lot of time focused on how organizations work, I found this town of 200,000+ to be a working wonder. We noted literally thousands of small businesses, retailers of just about anything who would direct us to competitors down the street or around the corner if they did not have what we were looking for. I wish I could count on the type of customer service I experienced here in Mexico at every turn when I am home to the US.
