Lunch Time Rant: "He Is a Mexican and They Are Usually Good Workers"
Posted: Wednesday, March 04, 2009
by Teresa Ortiz
Freelance writer/Speaker
As a Credit and Collections Manager, I deal with emotional people all day. I am well equipped for it and I love that I have an opportunity to work out arrangements and be a comforting voice. Conversely, I have learned to be a sounding board for personal woes and attacks.
Nevertheless, there are times when what I am hearing hits me the wrong way; take this morning for instance.
It was all I could do NOT to tell this caller that I was "a Mexican", and listen patientlyI'm getting a head of myself. Let me back up and share a snippet of the conversation with you.
Caller: Hi, I just received a bill that I know is not mine. I am sure the guy I recently fired charged to my account without my permission while I was away in Hawaii. He is a Mexican, and they are usually good workers. If I mention this to him, he will just deny it--and to top it off, you billed me twice for it.
Me, a Mexican: O kay, give me a moment to pull up the account and pull the invoiceIt looks like this was a purchase made on February 4 th , signed by "Jose" [Name changed to protect the innocent] was he your employee then?
(Long pause-then laughter)
Caller: Oh' yes. He was my employee then, but why did you bill me twice?
Me, a Mexican: You see, you jumped to conclusions and accused a Mexican man of doing something wrong and also assumed he is a liar. [Laughing as I am speaking to keep it light] What do you have in front of you.but do they both say invoice?. Exactly, one is the original invoice and one is the statement, just as it states in the top left corner. Thank you sir, have a great day.
Why is it that he was so quick to judge? And what did his employee being "a Mexican" have to do with anything? And why did this employee suddenly represent all Mexicans?
My anger is not so much because I happen to be Mexican, but rather it is because of the arrogant attitude of this man. People are known to make fraudulent charges, and I understand that invoices and statements can confuse some individuals, but wouldn't it have been better for him to call with a questionary voice rather than an accusatory one?
As a professional, I had to hold my tongue--which is why I am ranting here.
Hopefully it will encourage all of us to remember to give everyone the benefit of the doubt before we start making accusations. And seriously, why do we have to indicate what race a person is whenever we have a disputeI better stop, or I will start ranting again. Lunch time is over and I need to get back to work.
Adios Moo-cha-chos!
Teresa Ortiz
Nevertheless, there are times when what I am hearing hits me the wrong way; take this morning for instance.
Caller: Hi, I just received a bill that I know is not mine. I am sure the guy I recently fired charged to my account without my permission while I was away in Hawaii. He is a Mexican, and they are usually good workers. If I mention this to him, he will just deny it--and to top it off, you billed me twice for it.
Me, a Mexican: O kay, give me a moment to pull up the account and pull the invoiceIt looks like this was a purchase made on February 4 th , signed by "Jose" [Name changed to protect the innocent] was he your employee then?
(Long pause-then laughter)
Caller: Oh' yes. He was my employee then, but why did you bill me twice?
Me, a Mexican: You see, you jumped to conclusions and accused a Mexican man of doing something wrong and also assumed he is a liar. [Laughing as I am speaking to keep it light] What do you have in front of you.but do they both say invoice?. Exactly, one is the original invoice and one is the statement, just as it states in the top left corner. Thank you sir, have a great day.
Why is it that he was so quick to judge? And what did his employee being "a Mexican" have to do with anything? And why did this employee suddenly represent all Mexicans?
My anger is not so much because I happen to be Mexican, but rather it is because of the arrogant attitude of this man. People are known to make fraudulent charges, and I understand that invoices and statements can confuse some individuals, but wouldn't it have been better for him to call with a questionary voice rather than an accusatory one?
As a professional, I had to hold my tongue--which is why I am ranting here.
Hopefully it will encourage all of us to remember to give everyone the benefit of the doubt before we start making accusations. And seriously, why do we have to indicate what race a person is whenever we have a disputeI better stop, or I will start ranting again. Lunch time is over and I need to get back to work.
Adios Moo-cha-chos!
Teresa Ortiz
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Top-level comments on this article: (7 total)Great, Teresa--not your problem, but the way you wrote it! You made it light and yet let your frustrations out. I was born and raised in the South, where you would think I would have learned racism from day one. I didn't and don't understand still why it is still so rampant. At 16 I fell in love for the first time with "A MEXICAN". He didn't speak a word of English and I, not a word of Spanish. It came to naught--I'll have to tell the story sometime (actually, part of it is in my book "Amos Jakey"). I still remember Melquidez Lopez--my first love. Ah, Memories. You're right, I've got to stop or I may start ranting or worse, rambling.Have a great day. Nice article. You write so well (or is it "good"). Sometimes even my English suffers! ha.SandraHi Sandra,Thanks for the comments! I still haven't had a chance to start the book, but now I am even more excited about it. :-)I usually don't rant, but I think I am bothered by more than this, so it just came out :-)He was just so confident of himself and never once stopped to consider he might be mistaken. This is what got to me.Blessings to you!
Hi TeresaThe way I read your commentary is that the client was praising Mexicans honesty as a general and being negative to this one man who he fired. He said 'Mexican's are usually good workers'. This is high praise isn't it?In the UK, Brits often say what good workers the Polish are.........why?Is it because we hate the Polish?No, it's because the Brits when it comes to tradesmen have a reputation for having very long tea breaks and turning up odd days and often not at all, whereas the Polish have a reputation for being prompt and doing a good days work, skilled labor and so on and so forth.I have no experience of a Polish work force myself and the Brits I hired were actually prompt and efficient, but what I said above reflects a stereotype and one that happens to be very positive for Polish workers.We shouldn't have these stereotypes but they do exist and in the case highlighted above (as I read it) the client was of the opinion that Mexicans are............."good workers"No doubt after realising his error, he returned to that viewpoint.I understand your frustration. :)Hi CB,Thanks so much for reading and taking the time to share your perspective. You are probably right, but I think that was overshadowed by his arrogance. You should have heard the way he spoke to me. He never once considered he might be the one mistaken. This is what bothered me so much.I had to try really hard to not throw that back in his face when explaining that he was mistaken all the way around. Like I told Sandra, something else is on my mind, so this got the best of me when normally it wouldn't have. I think I will be writing about what is really bothering me :-)Thanks again! Blessings to you, TeresaI know Teresa, I used to work with customers and really you need the patience of a saint, this chap is lucky he got one ;)
This reminds me of when I worked for Imperial Oil many years ago. One of our sales reps was Japanese, but because he was born in Canada, had no accent. (no Japanese accent, that is. But us Canadians don't have accents, do we? lol Well, that's another discussion for another time.) Anyways, he was on the phone one day with a potential client who started complaining about his tenant, and how the tenant owed him money and he was not being paid. The person then went on the tell our Japanese sales rep. that the tenant was Oriental, and "well, you know how the Orientals are, they never pay their bills". Our sales rep. ignored the comment and kept his cool. I don't think I could have done that. I commend him for his patience and also you for your professionalism in a time when you would just love to lash out.Hi There! Thanks for sharing your story. It happens all too often. Kudos to your salesmen friend. I had another thing that was funny happen to me kind of like this salesmen. I was born and raised in So. Ca. No mexican accent whatsoever, I don't even know one word of spanish - well the bad words that I learned as a kid..anyway, I was talking with a customer and it was time to give him my name. When I told him my last name, he responded with, I thought you had an accent. Geeze, what if I was a white girl who married a mexican?Crazy stuff.Thanks for getting me going again. :-)Blessings to you! TeresaLike the time a good friend of ours, Lia Chin, had a problem with a little old Chinese lady. Lia grew up across the street from where we once lived, and became like a second daughter to us. She became a Pharmacist and one day a Chinese lady came to her with a question. Now this lady was speaking Cantonese, but Lia, born and raised in Canada does not speak any Cantonese or Mandarin or any Chinese dialect. The lady thought she was being rude because she wouldn't speak to her in Cantonese, so Lia had to get one of her Chinese coworkers, who did speak the language to explain to the lady. As Lia put it, "Please tell this lady that I am not Chinese, I'm Canadian. I just look Chinese."I thought that was a cute response.ha! That is funny. We have that saying around here when we get dirty looks for not speaking Spanish. We just say - hey, we just look brown.
Teresa,Yes, don't let anyone tell you that prejudice is dead. It is alive and well, only hiding with all the PC rhetoric going around. I've written an article on illegal immigration and people said such things as "Why do they have to speak Spanish. I can't understand a thing they say, and that's rude."Once an acquaintance said of my wife, "Oh, did you hear Jeff's marrying a Puerto Rican?" She's Colombian. Another time, someone left a message and said, "Yes, I've called before, but I think I spoke to your nanny." Once again, my wife.Stupidity is alive and well and in full swing. Not much we can do other than give guns to all the smart people, but I think that's illegal.Hi Jeff, you are so right. I can imagine that happening to your wife. Who is the rude one? I love it when I get advertisement in the mail that is written in Spanish.Thanks for sharing! Blessings to you!Teresa
Oh Teresa! Its a nice article. Keep it up.I have heared about you from my hubby Chiradeep. And thanks for writing in our booklet CANDLES. Even I thought of joining this community for His glory after being encouraged by my hubby.God bless you...and looking forward to more of your articles...Hi Asmita, I am so happy to meet you.Thank you so much for the invitation to write for your web-zine. I was blessed to be added to a group of great writers! I am so glad you joined us hear at SW!Love and blessings to you, TeresaTeresa! I want to tell you that 'CANDLES' is not a webzine. We print it bi-monthly. It has a website no doubt, but 1000 copies we print for each issue. ThanksOops, I didn't realize that , I misunderstood Cherideep. Wow! That is wonderful! It is very well done, I shared it with my co-worker's and they were impressed as well. Fun for me is that I was in a magazine all the way in India!Only God good pull off such a thing :-) I am enjoying getting to know a few of my brothers and sisters in Christ.Hugs,Teresa
I have just been reminded, when I was younger, I applied for a Job 'Up North' (UK) and I was told by the potential employer " I hope you have good references because coming from Birmingham (Midlands) you could be a Terrorist"I was very shocked, by his ignorance more than anything else. We were the victims of terrorism NOT the actual terrorists! Anyway needless to say I never got the job. I never responded to the comment. I think when these things happen we got into a state of silent disbelief.That is just crazy, I am sorry that happened to you. I guess like Jeff said, prejudice is alive and well all over the globe. Stupidity all the way around.
I'm sorry that some people are so ignorant, Teresa. Don't let it get you down. I have to deal with the same thing being fat, but I found a way to fight back. I simply lift my shirt and show them my harpoon scars!Ha Ken! I just love you :-) I could so picture you doing that. hee, hee :-)It did frustrate me that I let this get to me, but it is just because I am having a hard time thinking about leaving my kids for 10 days. I am going to try to write about it later today, if I have time before I take off for my trip.Thanks for the encouragement! Have a blessed day, TeresaTeresa, I'm not sure how old your children are but take heart, a happy mummy = happy kids and that's a fact and I'm sure you give your children many more than 10 good quality days a year so enjoy your trip (assuming it's a holiday- apologies if it's something more somber) and promise to bring them sweets and they'll be happy.Hi CB, this is the silly thing; they are 20 and 18. It is a great trip, I am going with my husband to CA for a week and then he stays to work. But this is the first time Art and I are making this trip without them. So its kinda wierd. Its a big family tradition that we all drive to CA together every year or other year.Your words make me smile. Thanks!I understand :)
The trip is a sign that things are changing, your chicks are all grown. Send 'em a postcard and enjoy the break, you deserve it!!Great idea! Thanks a bunch :-) Have a blessed day!
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