In Latin America, you’ll often notice that plenty of folks down here put in the minimal amount of work possible.
There’s a funny meme here that I saw on Facebook last night that reminded me of this topic.
Of course, people in the comment section had their own takes on it.
Most found it funny and left it at that.
Others tried to make it more political on either side of the aisle.
Some saying that “well, if you paid us more, we’d do a better job.”
Others mentioning how “the same type of people who would behave like this are the ones bitching about low salaries (implying that they shouldn’t complain for such low quality work they give).”
Personally, I get both sides of the aisle.
In the meme above, obviously the theoretical worker involved could’ve just moved the branch slightly. It would’ve have been much effort and obviously you aren’t going to be paid double the salary for slight effort like that.
On the flip side, I get what people mean when they complain about bosses who require everything under the sun for such little pay.
Obviously, you get what you pay for to some extent.
Plenty of people like to cheapen out on paying less (for employees, products, services and whatever else) and then act surprised when the quality isn’t 5 stars.
We can acknowledge that while also acknowledge what is simple half ass work that isn’t justifiable by the low wage in question.
For example, the theoretical worker should’ve just moved the branch slightly.
Elsewhere in Latin America, I’ve seen workers put in complete half ass work.
Be it some of the employees at the Mexico City airport for example.,
When I was there over a year ago, I remember asking some employee at a help desk to point me in the right direction for where a certain gate is.
He looked up from his phone (presumably trying to get naked pics from Maria), shrugged his shoulders and said “I don’t know.”
Motherfucker, you at the HELP DESK of an airport.
How do you not know where Gate 27 is?
You had ONE JOB.
And you see this half ass work involved in many aspects of Mexican and, more broadly speaking, Latin American society.
Of course, you got people like this in every country in the world.
Including the US!
Though, being from the US and having visited numerous countries around the world, I will say that the problem is worse in Latin America broadly speaking.
And I say “broadly speaking” because the problem is basically less extreme in places with more wealth as you can imagine.
A place like Argentina has less “half ass work” being done than a place like Hidalgo in Mexico.
Of course, even in those specific territories (Hidalgo and Argentina), you have differences between cities and towns on the matter.
I’m sure a place like a small, isolated town in Misiones has more of this problem perhaps than a nice neighborhood in Buenos Aires.
So on and so on.
At any rate, I got talking with a friend named Blayde not too long ago about this issue.
We were discussing whatever topic with another American who was thinking on living in Mexico like us.
He was new to the country and was just asking about life here.
Somehow the topic of “half ass” work came up but in the context of rental units.
And Blayde began showing him photos he had taken previously of how, in his apartment by Metro La Viga in Mexico City, the paint job in the place is kinda half assed.
Which isn’t unusual in Mexico specifically – whoever is painting the apartment not doing a very concise job at it.
I’ll show you an example of what I mean in my own apartment now (along with other examples of half ass work).
Let’s get to it.
A Walk Through Matt’s Apartment by Politecnico
Much of what you see below will be examples of what I have seen in other apartments also in Mexico City.
Be it nicer apartments (though not insanely nice) to crummy ones.
In all fairness, the place I’m at now isn’t terribly crummy by my standards but it’s definitely not a high rise apartment in Manhatten.
After all, I only pay 125 a month in rent and I live by the northern area of Mexico City close to Metro Politecnico.
So it’s not like I can expect my neighbors to be Queen Elizabeth and Gandhi.
Which, as a side point, is a topic I wrote about here.
Sometimes Latinos will criticize the gringo criticisms of Latin America by how much we spend living here.
The same idea – you get what you pay for.
In the apartment we will be checking out, there are some examples of where that might be applicable and other examples where it’s not really a good justification for half ass work.
So what are those examples then?
First, sticking to the topic of paint, here’s what part of the ceiling in my bedroom looks like.
As you can see, the paint job wasn’t very good, was it?
Not sure how the dude somehow got so much white paint on the orange bit.
Pretty confident that it’s not part of his “artistic taste.”
In this example, I could see how someone could argue that it’s because he wasn’t paid much to do the job.
Still, I’m not entirely sold on that excuse.
After all, you had one job – paint white on a surface and make sure nothing else is painted white.
Granted, I’m not a professional wall painter to be fair but I feel that, if you are offering the service to paint something correctly, you should probably know how to paint it correctly.
Then we have the example of the shower door!
This is extremely obvious that the worker in question didn’t know what the hell he was doing.
There’s absolutely no justification for what you’re about to see.
The motherfucker simply didn’t know what he was doing.
Here’s photos of what I mean.
So, as you can see, the door simply doesn’t shut properly.
It literally doesn’t lock.
The lock itself was not aligned properly with that small hole that it should be going into.
That’s not an example of “you get what you pay for,” that’s simply an example of a worker who didn’t know what he was doing.
Why couldn’t he have aligned it properly? I don’t fucking know.
But then we have the second photo that shows the consequence of the poor job in the first.
Where, in order to make sure nobody can enter the shower while you are using it, you have to position the light switch in a way so the door can’t be opened anymore as it is rests on the light switch button.
Thankfully, positioning the door that way still closes it most of the way so nobody can see your 19 inch cock while showering.
I’m only generous with providing such a view to the nice ladies on Tinder….
At any rate, when you are done with the shower, you have to click the button to turn the light on so the door can open all the way before turning it off again.
Now, in case you ever use this specific shower, just make sure to turn the light switch on and off with some other object other than your hands if you happen to be wet.
On my first day using the shower, I was pleasantly surprised with a tiny little shock when I used my wet hands to turn it on and off.
Next, we have the toilet.
I did you the favor of flushing it first and taking the bucket of toilet paper away so you don’t have to see any of that.
Which, as a side point, you could argue that the fact that numerous toilets in Latin America require you to put the toilet paper in the trash can and not the toilet is a sign of “half ass” work.
But I’ll leave that alone for now – why they can’t flush in some toilets but can in others down here in Latin America is a big mystery to me.
And, when speaking of toilet paper, the thing to the side doesn't even have toilet paper.
Now I don't mind buying my own toilet paper but why do they even have that there if they aren't going to put toilet paper in it?
Who knows.
At any rate, the toilet is a sign of two examples of half ass work (outside of the two toilet paper mysteries above).
First, you have the fact that the thing you put on top of the toilet is missing.
I’m pretty sure this toilet wasn’t designed with that black thing on top of it.
I have no idea then where it went.
Did someone steal the original lid on top?
Some disgruntled tenant who felt like stealing it?
I have no idea.
Second, the toilet seat itself slides whenever you try to wipe your ass.
It's only a slight annoyance to be fair.
Though, at another place I lived in by Copilco area of Mexico City, the toilet would slide so much that part of the front of it would slide underneath the toilet if that makes sense?
Then you'd have to force it back up because you wouldn't be able to sit on it very well obviously.
I've only had two toilet seats like that in Latin America. Not too common of an issue and not sure why they slide. They just do.
Finally, we have another funny little example in this photo here.
You think they could've made this look a little more professional?
Anyway, let's wrap this up.
Final Thoughts
At any rate, there’s nothing else to be said on the matter.
I’m sure there’s plenty of other examples out there that reflect either a “you get what you pay for” scenario or simple half ass work that isn’t justifiable in Latin America.
Either way, as I said, I often find folks down here to be a little more liberal on giving half ass work than elsewhere in the world.
But, as I said before, your mileage will vary depending on where exactly you live in Latin America and also, to be fair, how much you’re paying.
That’s all I got to say for now.
If you have any comments, drop them below in the comment section.
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Thanks for reading.
Best regards,
Matt