So, I am renting an apartment for 15 months starting January. I have been living in Latin America and will be returning after the 15 months. Dealing with people the last few weeks I have almost come to appreciate how formal and serious business people take themselves down there.
I have dealt with 3 different apartment complexes and each and every one has been so incredibly unprofessional in their emails to me. Most of them have numerous people on staff, all under 30, and they almost NEVER sign their emails. I have to actually ask who I am talking to. They send me one-liners filled text acronyms, they don't even attempt to punctuate their sentences and they write in cute colors. My last email from an apartment manager ended in: Hope 2 C U soon! I can maybe see this if I was another 20-something peer of theirs (although I still don't think it is correct business practices) but I am NOT a 25 year old.
The manager of one building, bad mouthed his previous manager, who he told me was fired because she did nothing but sit around on her fat @$$ eating snickers bars all day long (his exact wording) then went on to bad mouth another complex I was looking at then flat out lied to me about a couple of things to do with his complex. Later he emailed me several times lowering the rent each time (although never once actually signing his name) and making promises I knew he couldn't fulfill. I forwarded his emails to corporate hoping they might give him a little advice on how not to handle a potential client....
Oh, and I went furniture shopping Wednesday and the first store they hovered over me to the point I gave up and left. However the second store was even worse, as I walked in 2 salespersons where having a screaming match over one stealing the others customer. Right in the middle of the sales floor. I turned around and walked out. Ordering online is seeming more and more appealing.
Yes, I used to think it a bit funny how Latin Americans would be so formal and serious about themselves in their jobs but now I see what happens when it goes too far in the other direction and it is not pretty.
I have dealt with 3 different apartment complexes and each and every one has been so incredibly unprofessional in their emails to me. Most of them have numerous people on staff, all under 30, and they almost NEVER sign their emails. I have to actually ask who I am talking to. They send me one-liners filled text acronyms, they don't even attempt to punctuate their sentences and they write in cute colors. My last email from an apartment manager ended in: Hope 2 C U soon! I can maybe see this if I was another 20-something peer of theirs (although I still don't think it is correct business practices) but I am NOT a 25 year old.
The manager of one building, bad mouthed his previous manager, who he told me was fired because she did nothing but sit around on her fat @$$ eating snickers bars all day long (his exact wording) then went on to bad mouth another complex I was looking at then flat out lied to me about a couple of things to do with his complex. Later he emailed me several times lowering the rent each time (although never once actually signing his name) and making promises I knew he couldn't fulfill. I forwarded his emails to corporate hoping they might give him a little advice on how not to handle a potential client....
Oh, and I went furniture shopping Wednesday and the first store they hovered over me to the point I gave up and left. However the second store was even worse, as I walked in 2 salespersons where having a screaming match over one stealing the others customer. Right in the middle of the sales floor. I turned around and walked out. Ordering online is seeming more and more appealing.
Yes, I used to think it a bit funny how Latin Americans would be so formal and serious about themselves in their jobs but now I see what happens when it goes too far in the other direction and it is not pretty.