The Argentine "personality"

kre8ivelyXposed

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Hello All,

Just had another odd, "argentine" experience and was wondering if others find it common. First, let me preface it by saying that I have a long experience with Argentina and speak castellano fluently so there should really be no problem with "misunderstanding" based on communication.

I will try to keep this short and sweet. Recently, I had an experience with an Argentine "strong acquaintance" and "friend" in which we agreed that she would help me out in a relatively minor business transaction because I would not be in Argentina to take care of it myself. We worked out the specifics, and everything was a "Go" until the night before when she wrote me an email and said that "No, she could not do it now because the other person involved was a person "desconocido" (stranger) and not possibly "de confianza" (trustworthy)." I was absolutely shocked because there was just nothing really that was being done here that was really "shady" at all as I had given my friend full permission to inspect all of the merchandise and documents prior to the transaction to make sure there was nothing "funny" going on here. Now, everything is "off" and no one is happy. And, in my opinion, all because of some kind of "irrational fear".

I will say that I believe these kinds of "irrational fears" and lack of confidence in other people is one of the primary reasons why Argentina continually stays in the bottom of the list of countries and even individuals to do business with. Am I overreacting here? Again, I am not new to this country at all but I am still just astounded at the lack of "clear thinking" sometimes!!

Thanks for letting me vent!
 
I think you are wrong and being a female I hate to admit to it, but it is something somewhat common among Agentine women. I don{t know why though. Sorry to hear ( this is why most of my friends are men )
 
In my experience that is a huge deal here. If you have a business you never let someone who is not family, or muy de confianza, handle the cash or run the register. It's cultural, just like my family in small town Alabama - they'll give you food off of their plate, a place to sleep and even work on the farm if you need, but no one runs the register except family. It looks like, in this case, she was accepting goods on your behalf. In that case she would be responsible for the merchandise and would need to work with someone else (she didn't know) who is delivering? I don't know all of the details but it looks like you inadvertantly put her in a tight spot.

As for your extrapolation about why Argentina is "at the bottom of the list" - I'd say that's a huge generalization about a country and population. Argentina isn't anywhere near "the bottom of the list" and there are Argentines who are extremely trustworthy and there are thieves as well - like any other population.
 
In my experience, people here expect something to go wrong...they will get robbed, and everyone is out to screw them over. They expect it. (maybe because it does happen often) Even friends...even people you have dealt with for years are paranoid that everybody is out to get them. Trust is strange here.
 
GS_Dirtboy said:
As for your extrapolation about why Argentina is "at the bottom of the list" - I'd say that's a huge generalization about a country and population. Argentina isn't anywhere near "the bottom of the list" and there are Argentines who are extremely trustworthy and there are thieves as well - like any other population.

I know what i'm about to say sounds like a total generalization and blanket statement... but since moving to BA I've developed the belief that the proportion of thieves to trustworthy people is higher here than [other] places... I came to believe this when I first read the "Che Boludo" slang dictionary and saw how many words they had come up with to describe someone screwing someone else over. I've only lived in five other countries besides Argentina but I've noticed that it's kind of a 'thing' here to cheat people or get away with something- (viveza criolla, etc. I think that's where the mistrust comes from!
 
Argentines do tend to be flaky... ;)

But, when they need money and you pay them after goods delivered, they tend to respond to that. ;) I'm not sure what type of business arrangement you had with this friend. Could she have pulled out because she didn't think she was going to get compensated? What exactly could she have been afraid of? Perhaps she was simply afraid of doing something wrong if she wasn't used to this type of work.

It's not just women (though mostly women)... they will come up with all sorts of schemes or possible scenarios of how things could go bad or how someone is trying to pull one over on them - especially if it sounds too good (or decent :rolleyes:) to be true. The sad truth is that they have reason to distrust.
 
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