Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Burocracy Networking



Have you had experiences where the attending employees give you answers unbelievable? Unfortunately I have and it's not the best thing in the world, so I'm going to tell you about some activities that I have learnt on the time to not loose my temper and try to get some empathy from this attending people.
The last week I have an appointment at this office where I had an issue to solve. It was really important for me to get the agreements done and to get the follow up activities. With some days in advance I get the appointment and get on time to it.
My surprise was big, when I get to the place and they tell me that they forget to write down my date and the people that has to give me attention wasn't even there. You may imagine my frustration, furthermore my impotence because I really needed my procedure to be attended and without people and appointment I would hardly move on my resolution.

Moreover, the secretaries that were there at the moment, told me that if I could wait for 90minutes, an hour and a half, to see if their boss will get there and show me some attention. I almost yell at them in my annoyment, but I remember that the secretary was not the responsible that the lady was not there, so I have to comfort myself and think.
I just tell them that I have waited for 2 weeks to get the appointment and that it was really frustrating getting the news that they forget it. They ask me to call later so I could reschedule, and of course I get mad again, but I was in the networking mood and ask them: So you are telling me that I was annulled without announcement and now I have to call again to make an appointment? Can you get into your boss's attention what she have done to me and ask her to send me the new appointment?
The secretaries told me that they will do it, but of course, at the end of the day I haven't received my new option, neither a message from the lady that let me down. I wasn't in the mood to ask for a new meeting, and I started to worry, what if I asked for another one and once again they forget to write it down?
The next day I just came into the office, without appointment and until there I haven't presented my true me, I haven't made any anger performance, so when the lady that I have to meet saw me, she apologized and make sure that in that moment she give to me the information I need, so without a new appointment, without an email, and more important without an anger performance the things just happened.
Now I can give you some advise for this type of misunderstandings:
1.- If you have some inconvenient regarding a transaction, and the people you have to address are not responsible for the inconvenience, avoid claiming to them the poor attention. In many occasions it's not the people that is in front of you the one that make a bad decision, do not make them feel bad, it's better that you make them think on how they can help you.
2.- Think really well what you are going to claim, it's better that you ask questions to the people than giving a bad treatment. Sometimes a question make the people to think what is happening to you and the probably do an effort to give you an answer, if you appeal directly maybe they will put a guard and do not  move forward.
3.- If you can, do not claim the people that make the mistake, it is possible that it was without intention. If this is the case, they will probably feel bad to give you that bad service and want to make it better for you by helping with some other aspects.
Have you had some incidents like mine? How do you solve them? Tell us...

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Flavors of the world



The last weekend I had the opportunity to visit with my kids a typical restaurant of Chinese food, at something that Latinos will know as Chinese breakfast.
Everything started on the year 2013 when I had the chance to visit Shanghai and I discover the real and typical Chinese food, not the commercial one, but the original produced by the citizens of that faraway country.
Since my first visit to a restaurant over there, I was impressed by the different way the people over there eat and cooks meals, for example at a breakfast buffet I was expecting to see eggs, hotcakes, fruit, yogurt or granola. But for Chinese people the breakfast could be a three-course meal.
Chino 4
To the point, chatting with a friend he told me that the Chinese breakfast is known as Dim Sum, and that is a real event to get some of it in the different places, because it takes a little long to prepare it.
With this in mind, I decided to look in Internet, as I have told you before in Mexico City you can get almost everything, so I thought that it will be easy to find this type of food, just doing a little research. And for my surprise that I not just find what I was looking for, but a blogger had posted his insights about the 10 best Dim Sum in Mexico City:
So we follow the recommendation and arrive early to the restaurant. Of course it was 9:00am and they didn't have the service. In Chinese culture the food is served early in the morning, but in Mexican culture, not so much, so we have to wait a little for the food to be ready.
Chino
Aligned with this cultural theme I have to tell you that the owners of the restaurant are a family from Hong Kong, so they only speak in their language. It became a little difficult to communicate with them, but they had a waitress that speak Spanish, a Mexican indeed, and she became our interpreter for every explanation.
The experience, really interesting, I didn't know what to ask for, even though some of the dishes I had tasted them before. My friend send me some information by Whatsapp, and I asked for them but I didn't had the opportunity to get the food he told me.
The funniest thing happened when our waitress try to communicate with the Hong Kong family, asking them my food list and the family tell her that they do not know what she was speaking about. At the end the waitress told us, this Chinese people didn't understand your Chinese, you will have to settle with the food that is on the table.
Try knew foreign foods is a real adventure that I highly recommend. I share with you some tips to enjoy the most of the experience:
1.- All the countries have their typical special food, select the food you want to try, and then make a research on the community in your city, the more people from that place living near you , the more possibilities. 
2.- Look for in Internet the possible options that are available in your city, check for dates and days when the service is offered. Here you may find about prices, menu and if you need a previous reservation. If your city has a lot of habitants of the place, you may find reviews and additional suggestions.
3.- Go with a learning attitude, it is possible that you find things you never imagined, sometimes it will be a good surprise, sometimes not so much. The important thing is to get to know different cultures and dishes to expand our knowledge.
Chino 2

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Seize the "Vehicle Restriction"



The environment contingency doesn't ends at Mexico City and I became a victim of the double vehicle restriction. This means that this week I have to leave my car parked in 2 different days of the week, and honestly, I complain, as many others, about this action.
This program is made to bring more air quality to the society and was implemented at Mexico City in the year 1989. In the beginning it was only for the winter season, but the next year it became a permanent action.
Only seven years later, the vehicles with catalytic converter, could "jump" the preventive action and a lot of people in this city decided to pay for upgrade their cars and also to assure that they could move freely every day of the week.
Now, because off the higher levels of pollution in the environment it became necessary to adapt a double measure, so the explanation is, with the regular action the 20% of the cars without catalytic converter were stopped. Now the double of vehicles are stopped and also the ones with catalytic converter. There are a lot of comments about if this actions work or not, but in the meantime, I hope the pollution levels decrease.

In a long term experience, this type of programs, eventually stop working, as I told you in the beginning of this post, its a matter of time when the people get used to buy better cars and less polluting, for example the hybrid or the electric. Bun until today we are far away from getting the better prices at the market and with products that provide the special services the people in this city needs.
So even if I have a lot of prejudgments, I'm about to find out for a bicycle with an electric engine so I can be sure that I can move freely between my house and office in a daily basis. I think this moment will provide networking opportunities and a lot of business for entrepreneurs, just imagine the huge transformation on the people movements, maybe we could do some business.
What do you think?