When I started back to work, a lot of my spare time disappeared… But that isn’t the primary reason I dont blog much any more. The real culprit is isolation. While working, my head is in Canada and the USA. Even when I’m out and about here, my brain is still solving problems several thousand miles away. I dont ’see’ as much as I saw before.

But today was special. I had one of those ‘Uruguay’ moments. I went out to Zonamerica to pay my office rent. That would be a post in itself, but it’s not worth writing about it. I dont know how to use the mail service. I dont want to learn. Why? Because I hated it in Canada and it’s worse here. Matter of principle. I’d rather drive for an hour and deliver a cheque into someone’s hand. Besides, I’m friends now with the cashier in the Administration office in Zonamerica. He helps me spell the numbers on the cheque

The ’special’ day occurred when we left Zonamerica. When we approached the gate this time, there was actually another vehicle going through the guard station. I decided to follow him. It was a FedEx truck. When he pulled out, I pulled up to the guard, rolled open my window, showed him both my hands in the universal symbol, ‘no tengo nada’ and expected him to waive me through. Wrong. He gave me a stern look and motioned for me to go away.. go backwards. He was telling me something but I didn’t get it. My wife was with me and she said he’s telling you to back up. I ask why. She says because this is he lane for trucks… We both looked at each other and went… ‘is this guy nuts?’ There’s no reason for us not to use this lane. It’s ONLY for trucks because it has a weigh scale. It’s not meant to refuse cars.. it’s meant to weigh trucks… No one else was there but us. I made a sign like you’ve got to be kidding. He wasn’t.

So we backed up about 100 feet (still no one else there), swung over into the other lane, (btw - neither lane was marked… I call this the Uruguayan secret handshake… you’re ’supposed’ to know this somehow).. and drove up to the SAME GUARD WHO WALKED TO THE NEXT LANE. The guy was now smiling and happy and waived us through.. Have a nice day…

So, here’s the reason for the post. Why is it that Uruguayans do this. It’s not just the truck lane in Zonamerica. We see this everywhere, mostly every day. Someone is following some kind of loopy rule that makes no sense to any normal person but there it is, he’s telling you this is the rule, (could be a female in that role too - doesn’t matter).

I asked my wife if you were in that situation, wouldn’t you think that was a dumb thing. She said yes. I asked her if this was because she lived the last 40 years in Canada? She said probably not.. It would be stupid to anyone. So I asked her if you were the guard, would you make me back up. She thought about that some and said, yes, IF her boss had told that cars couldn’t use this lane and if she would be fired for letting someone through.

So that begs the question… is the guard, (your average Uruguayan), thinking what he’s doing is stupid and just following orders or does the guard (Uruguayan) actually believe that these otherwsie stupid situations are actually meaningful and that really is important that a car not use a truck lane.. even though there’s no one else there?

This comes up frequently for me with cheques. I frequently misspell words in Spanish. The dumbest one to date is spelling quinientos as cinientos. I’ve seen lots of spelling mistakes on english cheques. They go through no problem. But do that here in Uruguay and the check will be refused. Write the date wrong (eg. spell Agosto Augusto) or heaven forbid, write a shortform (eg. Ag)… and you’re in deep kaka.

The first cheque I ever wrote was refused because you’re supposed to write in the city you’re in at the moment you sign the cheque. I didn’t notice that 3 point pitch ‘lugar de pago’ I thought it was background noise. Back home, someone else would write it in and even initial it on behalf of someone else, (saw that done many, many times in the business world). But not in Uruguay. It’s like it’s a sacred thing here.

So the question left in my mind is this. Do Uruguayans do this because

a) they really believe it should be done that way

b) really believe they’ve be fired or reprimanded if they let something like this pass

c) follow the rules, express or implied, because that’s they way they’ve always done it?