Guanajuato, Mex - TMO Report

TMO is an acronym for Typical Mexican Operation

Going to the Mega Superstore is an object lesson in TMO. You can see all manner of stuff that will give you a grand idea of what it is going to be like living in Guanajuato. It is a classroom in Mexican culture.

Today I walked through the store looking for t he "grazers." These are Mexican who believe that the supermarket is one huge buffet, a free buffet. I do not believe they ever buy anything. They walk through the place helping themselves to anything they want to try out before buying. Whether it is food in a box, food , sitting in a serving pan in a deli, or in a package, they help themselves to whatever very liberally, I might add. They will even drink pop and drinkable yogurt. (Did I say they never pay for it?)

In other parts of the civilized world, that is called SHOPLIFTING. But, I digress.

We were too early to catch the "grazers" testing out the food. Damn!

We did see that Kraft Mac and Cheese, Velveeta Mac and Cheese, and Jiff Peanut Butter was gone. This is normal.

The way "stocking the shelves" works in a Mexican Supermarket is a salient example of the TMO principle.

The manager will always order the same amount of replacement items that he was told to do when he was hired. If a procedure manual exists, and that is highly unlikely, the re-order amount will always, with never an exception, be the same simply because that is how it has always been done.

For example, when the store first opened there could be 24 jars of Jiff Peanut Butter on the shelf. That is what was ordered when the store made its premier opening. From that point until today, no more than 24 jars of Jiff have ever been ordered when it was replacement time. They will wait until the very last jar is sold, then they will order just 24 jars of Jiff.

It will never matter that those 24 jars of Jiff are sold out almost immediately. The collective lot of store employees will never in a million years think to order more than just 24 jars of Jiff at a time. And they will always wait until the shelf is completely wiped out of the product.

The Kraft Mac and Cheese takes months to arrive. I mean that. It took seven months for a restocking of our favorite mac and cheese product to occur. When it finally arrived, it sold out in a week and there is no more to be had. We will have to wait more than a half of a year to get more.

Now....sales and sales fliers...

The wife saw a particular bran of butter in the store's flier that was on sale. It was two for the price of one. When she was in the checkout the girlie rang it up and it came up on the computer screen as the normal price. When the wife confronted the chick she merely shrugged her shoulders.

Shrugging of the shoulders is also a Typical Mexican Operation.

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Resources

1. THE PLAIN TRUTH ABOUT LIVING IN MEXICO
2. A WALK THROUGH MEXICO'S CROWN JEWEL - A Guanajuato Travelogue
3. ROCKET SPANISH
4. LEARNING SPANISH LIKE CRAZY

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