A few months ago, we devoted two posts to our experiences with Mexican bureaucracy, including useful Tips for Successfully Resolving Trámites (bureacratic paperwork and procedures).Let's face it: If you live in Mexico, the odds are that sooner or later you, too, are likely to be caught up with one or another bureaucracy.
Update: A reader-friend not only found the posts useful, but was generous enough to write to tell me about it! I'm posting her story because it highlights key strategies for dealing with Mexican bureaucracy. It also illustrates how the gestor or gestora employs exactly the same strategies to deal with el sistema (bureaucracy).
Keep in mind: A gestor (gestora is female) is a person who combines the roles of attorney and accountant in undertaking to deal with public bodies on behalf of private customers or companies.
Mexican Bureaucracy Live!
My friend writes: "And now I need to say yet another THANK YOU...this one for two of your blogs...one about gestoras and the other about how to deal with bureaucratic nightmares.
"I think I told you that we had failed to look at our tourist visa stamps for two weeks, and they had been stamped Oct 11 rather than Nov 11, which was our actual arrival date. Fortunately, we still had our airline tickets and boarding passes to prove the true arrival date, but still....
"We hired Samantha to help us as our gestora and...long story short, we have freshly altered visas all stamped up with official seals and signatures, etc.
"Without dear Sam we would not have gotten past the cleaning lady at the airport. Sam was a marvel of competent, intelligent, calm, respectful, assertive energy. She charmed the cleaning lady who got us to the young woman behind the door of International Arrivals...who reluctantly let us speak to the ultra-official, ultra-responsible older man who most definitely would have sent us packing...but our dear Sam then pulled her Sr. Rodriquez card (long-time family friend, high up in Migración).
"The ultra-responsible man then scurried us up the stairs to the bright, sunny, corner office of Sr. Ochoa...a gorgeous young man who loves Canadians, lived in Vancouver, and speaks perfect English. We parted as friends with the required stamps on the visas.
"It did take over an hour in his office as he engaged in some creative problem-solving and dealt with senior officials on the phone...sooo...quite literally, we would still be dealing with the cleaning lady, or at most the first young lady in immigration. Bless your heart, bless Sam's heart...all is well!!"
Lessons Re-Learned
- Having documents that conform to the formal bureaucratic requirement is essential!
- Showing courtesy, patience and respect accomplishes far more than any alternative you might consider.
- Enlisting the personal assistance of everyone (cleaning lady, receptionist, guard) with the power to keep you moving toward your goal is essential—without it, you may well find yourself standing outside on the sidewalk wondering what happened.
- Tapping into a personal network—who you know (friend, gestor) able and willing to ask their contacts to help—is more often than not the decisive factor for achieving bureaucratic success.
This from a New York Reader: Reminds me of a book, "Maximum City" by an Indian who returned home to Mumbai after many years in NY and the UK. He couldn't even get his hot water turned on because he didn't understand the informal network - his cleaning lady took him to the right bureaucratic channels and postures.
ReplyDeleteVia email from a World Traveler/Reader in Australia: I enjoyed you sharing the story very much. Always your blogs touch me with the open warm hearted feeling that comes from living and breathing and understanding the culture of Mexico. Yes human contacts, respect and open heartedness and community is what matters. I just liked so much the way the cleaning lady was an important part of the story.
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