Minimum Wage

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
Most of the "information" in this thread is skewed or flat-out wrong.

The minimum wage benefits including Seguro, vaccaiones, and aquinalgo, are for full time employees and it is best to read up on the laws before hiring someone to work more than a day or two in a week's period.

Bartering is a way of life in traditional and indigenous communities. For especially vegetables, fruits and other aborrotes and alimentos. If you pay what they first ask, they hand it over with a grin and lose all respect for you. You are then a big wheel where money is no object and therefore a focal point of contempt. Fresas y crema.

Barter a 200 peso a day worker down to 150 and you will be lucky to get 80 pesos a day worth of work out of him.

Masero(a)'s have a saying

We survive on our wages
We live on our tips

If you are staying in a hotel several days, try laying a 50 peso note on your pillow. Some managers are wise to this and will run over the moment you leave for the day and steal it. If it gets into the hands of the maid prepare yourself to pampering - mounds of fresh towels, a night stand topped with extra bottles of drinking water, and a room scrubbing the likes of which you've never seen.

A five dollar gift is treasured more than a ten dollar tip. Yes they need the money but a gift comes from the heart. Want to reward a good mechanic? Give him the present of a tool. One top of the line twenty dollar tool is valued and appreciated more than a thirty dollar set of cheap tools.

In tierra frio, a large comforter is priceless. Queen or king because the whole family is going to squeeze under it. Flashlights that plug into the wall with LITHIUM battery is another excellent choice. A five D cell will just sit after ten dollars worth of batteries go flat.

Women LOVE a good frying pan or pot. Don't get cheap now. A T-Fal or Revere ware stainless is where it's at. Mexico is full of overpriced garbage. Remember the from the heart part of gift giving.

Shovels, rakes, and other garden tools with FIBERGLASS handles are treasured. A hoe, a stupid hoe, hand forged (heavy as hell) costs EIGHT HUNDRED EIGHTY PESOS seventy bucks any which way you look at it. General Electric 26-watt DAYLIGHT CFL lamps are priceless. So is the GE 10-watt DAYLIGHT spiral. But GENERAL ELECTRIC, not Feit, not Lights of America, G.E. only.

Giving a man a small kit of ATO fuses and tail light bulbs is good for him and good for you. Too many Mexican men squander extra money on beer, cigarettes and the lottery. When they have a bag of fuses and lamp bulbs you are less likely to smack into them on the road.

Tipping and gift giving becomes addictive. Try it and see. How the hell does "guilt" enter into the picture here? You are GRINGO not mexicano. Gringos are hoped to leave bigger tips. It does not spoil a waiter in a traditional restaurant. Having night after night of drunk gringos drop hundreds of dollars in a tourist palace like Cabo Wobble or Senor Frags, is what screws up the waiters.

If I encounter a price too high, I smile and move on. No gun barrel imprints on my forehead. Everything in gringolandia Mexico is priced too high, starting with absurd rents for business locations. Shine it on. It ain't Mexico. Some purists hate and rant at Cabo San Loco and Cantcun. I move in, sweep the joint for condiments and stuff I can't find elsewhere then head down the road Duggin. I have tens of millions of fellow Mexicanos that must life a lifestyle similar to mine so I'm not alone.

But I DESPISE wealthy Mexicans. They are a blight upon this planet.

Why, I ask because I live in an oil based economy in Calgary and I have noticed many Mexican engineers that have been hired by the oil companies in town and assume they have a few dollars. They seem to be such a great addition to our city.