A Taxista Explained It
Submitted by fyl on Mon, 2012/09/03 - 15:13.
One of the hardest things to explain to someone new to Nicaragua is that "time is free". Now, that doesn't mean that is the case for a professional -- say a doctor or lawyer -- but, for most regular people that is the assumption.
When you go to a store and the clerk is talking to her boyfriend on the phone and expects you to wait, the Gringo tendency is to get mad. I know I do. This person is wasting my time. Most of us who get paid for what we get done rather than just renting our body by the hour feel this way.
Well, today, I got another way to explain this. A few of us got in a cab to go from Point A to Point B and then return to Point A. At Point B we were going to have to wait to get some papers reviewed. We had no idea how long. On the first leg of the trip, here is what the taxista said (in Spanish of course).
If you want I can wait for you. I don't charge for waiting.
Maybe this will strike home. The last time I was in a taxi with a meter was in Seattle over 10 years ago. I remember there was a "pickup charge" (interesting concept considering I was at the airport with taxis waiting), a distance charge and a wait time charge all automatically computed by the meter. Thus, if you were stuck in traffic or just waiting at a light, you were paying for the taxi driver's time. At the time I believe it was $.20/minute.
In that last Seattle taxi ride I remember the meter said $5.60 when we were finally out of the airport and on a regular road. Today, our full taxi ride (three adults and 2 kids) cost about the same for about a 15 kilometer trip. He waited maybe 20 minutes and made another about $6 to take us back. If the wait had been five minutes or an hour the price would have been the same.
Now, I still think my time is worth money (because I can do things with it which actually does make me money) but for lots of people in Nicaragua, there is no charge for waiting.
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I don't seem to have the problems other people have with this
My pulperia-owning friend answers the phone if it rings when I'm there, but then she tends to deal with a call fairly quickly, and we are friends. The other thing I think about here is that work supports life -- and life is more than work. I think this is cool. When my dentists wanted to match my enamel, we went into the courtyard where their children's class was practicing for a school show. At times, earlier, the kids had looked out to see what mom and dad were doing and got smiles and some chat from whoever was freer. When my first dentist of the pair finished installing my bridge, he shook himself out and danced around a bit (it had taken two hours). Much more human and utterly more charming than dentists in the US.
My impression is that most Jinotegans tend to get things done in a timely fashion. It's like hearing about a whole different country when people complain about service in the rest of Nicaragua (come to think about it, the service I've had in Matagalpa has been unexceptional also, or good enough to be memorable as the last restaurant where friends and I had lunch).
I don't know if I'm simply okay with how things are, or if the people complaining about service simply have bad manners that the people dealing with them shut down and reassure each other of their common humanity before dealing with anyone difficult. Your life and theirs will run something like 60 to 90 years and neither yours or theirs is more important in the greater scheme of things, and certainly your time is less valuable to other people than their own time is to them.
If possible, I deal with people who are selling their own stuff, not people who are underpaid and exploited by one of the local tienda owners and who aren't even on commission (one learns which stores do this by the very high turnover for clerks, then from what one hears locally). Claro has mostly the same staff that it had when I moved here; the post office the same (equivalent, I suspect, to a union job, but completely competent). One woman here whose family was Contra joined the FSLN after working for a while for one of the nastier local store owners (she did it to get a decent job).
If someone has to pay for her own pens and makes C$1,000 more or less a month for a 12 hour day, six days a week, she's not really motivated to write a lot of tickets. It's a job to have until another better job is available (pity we don't tip store clerks for better service -- they probably have more need of it than waiters, who will at least get a couple of meals while working and probably take some things home at the end of the day).
Even in the store I'm thinking about, the service has never been bad, just rather lifeless and slower than it needs to be, with the boss lady or her husband taking the money rather than having it in the hands of the clerks, which adds a step to buying anything. I don't shop there anymore. Most of what they sell shows up elsewhere, or I simply don't need it. I have thought about buying a box of ball point pens and giving all the clerks there a couple.
Rebecca Brown
I disagree
Lifeless and slow service = bad service. It is not a quaint cultural issue. It is rude.
I am not new to this culture. I have lived here for over a year and in Costa Rica for 6 years prior. My wife of six years is Nica I have somewhat of an understanding of Nica culture. With that added, we believe things people like you contribute to the underachievement of Nicaraguan economic performance by having low expectations. In other words you come off like you think Nicas are too stupid to be held accountable. Too stupid to be held to normal standards of behavio. WHO are you to judge? It is not acceptable behavior for a lot of the things these Nicas do. It is because they have been taught (originally by the government) to be lazy. People that want to claim they are intellectual often excuse bad behavior like this and rudeness is also excused based on some PC code of some sort. I do not know how this code was devised but is is nonesense. Lazy IS lazy. Rude IS rude.
We ran a restaurant for 6 years with ALL nica employees when we lived in Costa Rica. This is not a Nica culture thing. It is a behavior indoctrinated into a lot of Nicas by leftwingers. I work remotely and we chose to move here to be close to her family rather than back to the US. I absolutely need to have solid internet service and I pay Claro a lot for mine. This is true of every encounter... This is true of their management... Claro employees are rude, have absolutely zero respect for your time. Our cable internet has not been working IN THE WHOLE TOWN for a month and they simply DO NOT CARE and they do not understand why anybody would want the internet to actually work (because all it is for is to mess around on facebook and play games) . (Even though we pay for it). I have called and called and finally I went to the office and the woman said you need to come to the office not calle. I do not have time to wait in line at the office, I told her. She does not understand that statement, does not care to understand that statement and since the internet outages causes me to have to push work back, she of course does not care or understand about that either. With all due respect to anyone with a different opinion.. no respect for the time of a person is RUDE. I do not care that she has no value placed on her own time. Her not having respect for my time is rude.
This is not some quaint cultural trait of Nicas. IT IS RUDE. Nicas that live outside of this leftwing bubble of nonsense do not behave this way. This behavior is the product of years of socialist indoctrination. People in unions are even worse and are often (with exceptions) despicable. People need to be held and hold themselves accountable. When you are paid to do a job, you do the job.
Your comment about how much a Nica store owner pays his employee makes no sense. What business is it of yours what a relationship betweeen others is? It is none of your business.
The issues you all point out here have been designed into this culture by the left wing. It fosters compliance and lazy people are weasy to control. Obama and company are dong the same thing and it works. Another culture destroyed.
Bummer.
Oh, I left out the issue of lying to get you to go away so they can continue to be lazy. They will not think of the consequences of blowing an issue off. That is tomorrow. Some think it is quaint. IT IS RUDE. Acting like that is not normal!
By the way, they can lie to each other as much as they want. None of my business just as the salary of a person and his employer has nothing to do with me. I do however have the right to comment on relationships I am directly involved in. Why are left wingers always worried about someone else's money?
I find that the jerk employers tend to cross political lines
One of the local jerk employers is FSLN; the other is probably not, but I don't know for sure (other than a Contra woman had a job there).
Basically, promising to pay one thing and cutting wages is nasty. Don't care who does this. I met a cab driver who said he preferred to work for foreigners because they had money to pay their staffs and they didn't try to pay them less than the original agreement. Trying to renegotiate terms after the employee starts working seems to be unfortunately common in NIcaragua.
If you see people working for you as cattle to be driven and to be lied to about what sort of pay you're planning to pay them, you can't really expect them to care all that much about how they treat your customers. The people who cheat their employees also probably see the customers as people to be cheated as much as possible. I compare this to Leica/Leitz where the employers took care of their employees (saving their Jewish employees from the Nazis) and their customers (I've owned a 1951 IIIf with a 1946 Summitar lens and it was a fantastic camera even more than fifty years out of the factory).
Basically, except for the two places, I don't have problems with service in Nicaragua, but then I'm not rude and I know how to do the basic civilities.
Since I really haven't had any significant problems with Nicaraguans in stores, I assume that those who do are doing something wrong.
Rude service -- see New York City (except for B&H Photo which was wonderful and honest -- you can make money treating both employees and customers well).
I had trouble with Claro when I tried to argue them into selling me a contract before I had my cedula. At this point, I've made up for it by helping them communicate with another customer, and I don't have any trouble with them. I haven't had trouble with them in over a year and a half now, and they re-imaged my phone for free after I messed it up playing with root on it.
But it's much more fun to whine and blame left wingers than learn some manners. Most people who are mediocre figure they're going to make up in cheap wages and docile help what they lack in creativity and intelligence to do something that attracts smarter workers.
A woman opened a fine small hotel here, but messed with someone who is well-liked among the expats here. She will not get references from several of us because of that. Her politics have nothing to do with it; her lack of courtesy to her very hard-working employee did.
It's always my business to support things I approve of and put my money in businesses I want to see in my neighborhood. Someone who thinking that bullying the help makes up for crap pay is not someone I really want to do business with, and it's my money to support what I want to support.
I also don't cross picket lines.
Rebecca Brown
B & H Photo
I loved B & H photo! They are still in NYC I would think. Good company. I have seen some Nica employers treat their workers like crap for sure but I have seen extranjero employers do the same. hat is the cruxof my point... You were sort of saying that it is normal to have bad behavior here. I submit it is NOT normal.
This IS not a cultural issue. It is an issue of behavior and responsibility and accountability.
The good: My first encounter with Claro was good and the person was informed and helped me with the correct info and behaved NORMAL.
The bad: We have been having relentless cable internet issues here for over a month every night from 6:00pm on and after a month one would think since this affects the whole frigging town that they would care and do something about it. .. OR... at least admit they cannot figure it out. Maybe apologize? Partial refund? Buy me a beer? Buy my neighbors who are also screwed by them a beer? Anything?
However, they have chosen to lie. The most recent lie (now remember the whole town is out) was that we are having bad service because we have more than one device connected to the router. Specifically a credomatic terminal on one of the router and a couple computers. This right after this woman agreed the outage is town wide. Not just our place. Yet one of their responses (4 times( is to send a tech guy here and blame it on more than one PC connected. Of course then I disconnect all but one with no change and then they make up a new more silly lie.
The router/modem has 4 wired ports on it and an unlimited number of wireless devices can connect to it. Yet is is my wifes fault for connecting a credomatic machine to it and a couple computers.
Is she AND the techs ...
1. Stupid? 2. A liar? 3. Lazy?
None of those three are Nica issues.
Stupid is a choice. Being a liar is a choice. Being lazy is a choice.
The managers at Claro have apparently told the underlings to not let a customer talk to the manager however, I was able to get to the manager on the phone.
The manager LIED!
Why could Claro tolerate people doing this that represent them?
Finally remember this.. This outage is EVERY SINGLE NIGHT for over a month. A couple of the NICA OWNED cyyber cafe's likely will be out of business soon thanks to these liars at Claro.
Claro entered into a contract with me and all these other people. Lies do not feed the families of the cyber owners and employees or my family and our employees for that matter that depend on their ISP.
The Juanno troll on here wants me to just pay the cable bill and get no service and take it as nica culture that it is perfectly ok for them to take everyones money, provide no service and then blame me and call me an ugly american. Sorry, I was raised to be accountable for what I am responsible for.
Juanno, go troll someone else.
I wasn't saying it was normal to have "bad" behavior here
I was saying that I don't see it. The service at the local store with the owner who bullies her employees isn't bad, just that it's very obvious the people working in the store aren't particularly happy and the turnover is high, and boss lady insists that she or her husband are the only ones who handle money.
You're having a bad experience now with technology that's under current rapid development and deployment here. Find the guys who actually do the cable laying and talk to them. It's how I got my electricity back when it was only out in house I rent half of (other half is a young Nicaraguan family); I talked to a work crew.
All of us are responding negatively to your grand over-generalization from one experience. I've mostly had things done on time here; haven't had crap restaurant service; and generally like the humanity of people doing things here (we just had a parade of fire trucks -- and at least one of them was Russian-built), and their pride (the garbage trucks here are amazingly clean).
When the net was new, my IT boss lied/made promises he couldn't keep a lot; some of his employees saved his business despite him. I was billed in error after canceling my service (before I worked for the company). It's a new technology; they've hired people who used to be picture frame makers or local parallels; and trim. It's in roll-out phase, not mature technology phase, for here.
Either you don't have cable at all, or it's dying at night. My experience here was that Claro had oversold some services and 3g speeds dropped drastically after about 4:30. So I did other things in the evenings. Speeds in the early evenings now are better than they were. I also noticed that after things were crappy, they came back better than they'd been before, so I suspected that people were working on the system and switched things over to the slower services during those times (like yesterday).
My guess is someone underestimated the time needed to do something -- or they've massively oversold their cable service and when everyone goes on line in the evening, the thing slows down drastically. Early days still for Internet services in Nicaragua.
At this point, in my former life, I'd be kicking the boot bottom of the engineer sleeping on the floor to wake him up to deal with the problems. The manager probably just runs the office staff -- you need to find the guys who are the technical guys who install cable.
Rebecca Brown
Rebecca, if one needs a Claro business package....
And Claro knows that (lets say they know you have a credit card device or something of that nature), then they may choose not to be responsive to ones concerns about a domestic system not being able to "keep up" so to speak.
http://www.claro.com.ni/wps/portal/ni/pc/empresas
Yep, and that....
He needs to talk to some folks who have commercial service and find out how they went about getting it.
The cybercafe run on a domestic cable connection could be the big drain on the system, or there are enough machines that have trojans and such on them in the area that when the spammers set up their runs, the system slows way way down, or someone knocks machines off line to stop the spam.
Rebecca Brown
Business service
Yeah those 300 bytes a credomatic machine uses once every half hour really impinges on claros bandwidth as compares to say some kid watching videos on youtube at 10-20 Megabytes per minute or more.
I had offered to upgrade and pay more for business service if they would provide better service and they act like I am crazy to want better service. LOL
In my situation, I really do not care if it is reasonable more expensive. It just HAS TO WORK.
With all that said... This is the WHOLE TOWN. Not just us. They are non responsive to the whole town.
They do not give a damn.
Dude, if you had complained to me about losing business
....because your residential DSL was down, I would have explained that we weren't selling that service for business purposes.
Videos on YouTube come down at around 60 Kb/sec, which isn't the top speed I can get (circa 1.6Mb/sec). So I'm getting a sense that you don't really know what you are talking about, and you're not aware that the people you do talk to are basically trained in sales and billing, not in the technology.
You need to talk to Claro in Managua since everything Claro here goes through them (and the servers for everything are in Managua apparently since my IP is always read as Managua-based). I think Juanno gave you a website.
My impression, based on where my phone had to go to be reimaged (Managua) is that everything really technical is done in Managua.
I know you've lived in Costa Rica for a while and have a Nicaraguan wife, but some of this seems like the sort of confusion that arises when people don't speak Spanish that well (I've been in that confusion myself). The other option is that you don't know the technology that well.
The muchachas in my Claro office in Jinotega can sell phones and net services, can work up contracts, and can package phones to go to Managua for repairs. I doubt seriously that any of them would know what a netmask is or how routing works -- or what to do if the local DNS servers go down (plug in Google's DNS server IP address). You're asking them why the system isn't working. I wouldn't be surprised if they simply don't know.
If you have the tools, you can ping or traceroute to the local DNS servers, and maybe figure out what server is your next hop and see how healthy the connection is, do a traceroute to the various Speed Test servers in the region, but if you don't have these tools, you can bet that the muchachas in the office don't have those skills, either.
Rebecca Brown
Stellar
We pay for 4mb and we get that and about 800k up at all times. Prior to the last week of July this was true night and day. Sine then, this crap has begin...
The router remains locked on when this happens... If you leave an endless ping running. During the day it never loses even one packet ever. 80ms - 110ms to yahoo at all times. This held true for over a year. Now it holds true during daylight. I am thinking they have a device somewhere on a pole that is getting hosed by the streetlights going on affecting some device upstream from here.
At 6:00pm every night it goes to this:
Tiempo de espera agotado para esta solicitud. Respuesta desde 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 tiempo=1568ms TTL=42 Respuesta desde 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 tiempo=1053ms TTL=42 Respuesta desde 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 tiempo=233ms TTL=43 Respuesta desde 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 tiempo=1450ms TTL=42 Tiempo de espera agotado para esta solicitud. Tiempo de espera agotado para esta solicitud. Respuesta desde 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 tiempo=1847ms TTL=44 Tiempo de espera agotado para esta solicitud. Respuesta desde 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 tiempo=1553ms TTL=42 Respuesta desde 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 tiempo=1066ms TTL=43 Tiempo de espera agotado para esta solicitud. Respuesta desde 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 tiempo=1656ms TTL=42 Respuesta desde 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 tiempo=1649ms TTL=43 Tiempo de espera agotado para esta solicitud. Respuesta desde 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 tiempo=2341ms TTL=44 Respuesta desde 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 tiempo=1527ms TTL=43 Tiempo de espera agotado para esta solicitud. Respuesta desde 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 tiempo=1569ms TTL=42 Respuesta desde 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 tiempo=2124ms TTL=44 Tiempo de espera agotado para esta solicitud. Respuesta desde 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 tiempo=148ms TTL=42 Tiempo de espera agotado para esta solicitud. Tiempo de espera agotado para esta solicitud. Respuesta desde 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 tiempo=203ms TTL=44 Respuesta desde 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 tiempo=156ms TTL=42
When I wake up, it is fine.
I would pay double for better service. But they do not care. They do not care to understand. They do not know how to understand and they do not understand why they need to understand.
I just find this absolutely incredible that a business like claro would allow this to go on. The wife deals with many suppliers here for her business and nobody acts like this except claro. The Cervezaria is absolutely professional. Coca cola. Mom and pop companies.
These people at claro are seriously messed up.
I want to get a router to hold the sim card for my 3+G claro and movistar accounts but the nica people will make me go to managua to open an account to get a telecom permit if i have it shipped in because it has RJ-45 connectors on it and I do not have the time do that that sort of stuff.
wjmsjo -Possibly A Meaningful Tech Discussion Offline
If you care to discuss & share solutions PM me with Email, Skype name, or whatever. Sorry I don't suffer talk blaming Obama et al. for my or the world's problems so please avoid that. I have been out of engineering consulting for years and was not the ultimate expert in the IT field back then but I have a couple of things that work for me. --- Includes one 3G USB modem that works & a cheap router available to support that. 3G ICS with XP works well too. Also an easy way to get a TELCOR import license. Commercial wireless from Rivas too but that may be out of your region. You probably have some good ideas to contribute. Talk limited to that technical stuff.
Claro cable internet in San Juan del Sur pretty much mirrors your problems. Excellent service for 4 years but now bad for a month mainly in the evenings. We have partial solutions to their local 100% lies - The higher level supervision in Rivas says they care so real time surveillance, cell photos, & on site reports of their lazy lying repair truck crews back to Rivas seems to help. - Strange they think maybe it has something to do with street light interference???? since the times coincide but they do NOT have solutions. Maybe never will????
I owned the best cyber in San Juan del Sur for several years but gave it away because I-Pads, Smart Phones, & Netbooks on public WIFI have taken over. I still support the network there & support the network wired/wireless in a small 12 room hotel here as well. Also associate with many other Cybers here & Managua working to solve connection problems.
As you have discovered there are few similarities between Nica & USA and that includes ISPs and their services. - I gripe about Nica problems too - Way too much - All non-productive - Don't expect to change things - Adaptation is the rule.
Claro openly markets their residential services to cybers and small businesses here because that bandwidth usage is insignificant compared to the home users. - Just like in the US the bandwidth hogs are families that download illegal mp3s & movies as well as legal movies from places lile Netflix streaming 24-7. The problems we have are generic and any commercial connection would be the same anyhow. Claro told me their basic commercial service is identical except the prices are a lot higher so they don't try to sell it. Can't get Claro DSL here either.
BTW Key West Pirate per our earlier discussion neither TP-Link & Sapido tech support can help me keep their USB 3G supported routers connected. Maybe doing something stupid. Did get the old Cradlepoint router working with the Claro USB modem. Too many years here to de-compile their drivers and use their SDK to re-write them. I found several sites with processes & files to unlock those 3G modems' firmware to use any SIM so I will try that when I have some tome to waste. Maybe that will help.
wjmsjo as you see this is the best Nica social site going and is terrific for good entertainment and info. Phil has done a huge job for us.
But tech problems are tough to discuss because every village needs an idiot and Jinotega has world class representation. That inane irrelevant drivel & trolling and the responses to it fill a thread so a back & forth factual detailed discussion is just too hard for me to follow. Thus the offline offer if you care to talk about solutions.
When does the cybercafe do the most business?
Basically, play by the rules or live with what you have.
I suspect that a dedicated IP block and some guaranteed bandwidth is going to be more than twice what you're paying for residential cable.
My current traceroute to Yahoo is timing out. Stuff get oversold, happened in the US, apparently happens here.
As for "OMG, I have to go to Managua and get a telecom permit," either look for what you want in Managua (they do appear to have rather interesting things available there, including some Cisco routers), or get the license.
If this is all critical to making a living, you do have time to deal with it, or you don't have the connectivity you claim you need to make a living. If you can't make a living because your connectivity dies every evening, you need to deal with the real problem you have a chance of dealing with and not with the entire state of Claro's customer relations when dealing with its consumer wing.
The ISP I worked didn't really care all that much about the consumer wing, either. The real clients were the guys who had businesses running on T1s or in colo cages and cabinets.
Maybe the real gig here is getting some major fiber optics running from the undersea cables and setting up a commercial-only provider with a colo facility and some good dedicated bandwidth for people who want to run their own servers. Or does someone have something like that already?
Rebecca Brown
not sticking up for claro..
but a lot of it is a bizz decision..used to be able to use my usb plug in modem in waslala..no more..the service didnt pay claro to keep it up..same in catrina..where are they going to spend there money..a big city or a small town..really as a money maker..having cell service..all over nica..i dont thik is a money maker..now movistar is going into waslala..lets hope they have internet..but not counting on much..
Open mind so you can see
First I want to say that all those books about Nicaraguan's behavior should be taken with a lot of grains of salt. The same for books about other nation's behaviors. I know there are people that lie in Nicaragua, and also people that are very rude and lazy too. But that's not the result of a government indoctrination. I tried to explain why Nicas lie, and I think I know why and it is not because I married a Nica and have lived in the country for over a year or so. I know about Nica's behavior because I'm a NIca. When a Nica lies to you is for one of these reasons: he is playing with you, as in yanking your chain and he will let you know that is just that a joke, or he lies to you because he has no respect for you and doesn't care about what you have to say, plain and simple. In this case the lying could've been triggered by his perception that you don't care much for him after all. That you are out to take advantage of him, that you are not to be trusted. So our lying is not because of the government of turn. We have been lied to for the longest time from all sides. The same goes for being rude and giving bad service. Have you ever gone into the market, you know el mercado, not the supermarkets. As you make your way in the crowd you're going to hear this over and over: Que buscas amor, que queres madre/padre and as you walk past you won't hear them cussing at you for not buying anything from them. I don't recall getting such treatment at a department store or shop anywhere in the US, except the mom and pop's. Rudeness and lazyness can be found anywhere as well as lying too. Hey remember ' I am not a crook ' Nixon, Reagan's ' I don't recall ', Oliver North and company, Bush senior's ' read my lips no more taxes ' and junior's ' weapons of mass destruction ', and on and on. And to be fair the other side too is also at fault. Wether Obama and company is destroying another culture, well that depends on what side of the aisle you're on, and I can pretty much tell which is it. ' The things these Nicas do ' as you say can be applied to any other nationality, and that much I know. In my line of work I've dealt with people from lots of places and I see that there aren't many differences when it comes to the basic human behavior.
Nice
Well said.
Politics
FYI.. you claimed Bush Jr lied about WMD. Apparently moveon.org told you to say that.
Here is the OBAMA state department where they have magically FOUND the non existent WMDs in Syria this year. These ARE Saddam's WMDs.
Yeah.
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/02/24/exclusive_state_depar...
For what it's worth
I'm not that much less cynical about those claims than I was of the earlier claims. The Gulf of Tonkin non-incident was under Johnson, who I thought was a brilliant domestic president and poor on foreign policy.
I think everyone in the Middle East needs to be given ethnic amnesia, stuffed into Speedos and bikinis, and dropped on Brazilian, Indonesian, and Indian beaches. Then nuke the place end to end so nobody lives there in the future -- it's full of insanity about gods and is responsible for the rising of monotheism. Both sides are wrong even if the Israelis are marginally more appealing except when they beat up Arab guys for dating Jewish women. All sides take far too much of the world's attention.
Costa Rica never had US help with its civil wars; during the last one, 2,000 people died, so the country did away with its military, started working on nationalized health care and education, and basically is the one country in the region that never has been invaded by the US because some fast talker claimed that if the US didn't prop him up, his country would fall to communism.
My guess is that I'd have to be in Syria to have some understanding of what's going on, and probably whatever we're getting in the media isn't the whole picture, but then I've spent some time poking around State Department archives and tend to be very cynical about what is going on and what is known to be going on.
Given that I don't read moveon.org, I suspect that I figured out that the US had lied us into the Iraqi War when the NY Times apologized profusely for having been conned into supporting that war.
Rebecca Brown
Employees
I am not trying to take advantage of a person whan I take time out of my day. Go to an office because they do not bother to answer phones. Ask why my internet service is not working and they make up bullcrap just to get me to go away to make THAT MOMENT easier for them. Tha is not a cultural thing. It is simply rude. The poster I responded to was implying it was some quaint cultural thing specific to Nicas.
Sorry, but asking when my ISP service will be fixed is not taking advantage of someone. Therefore the person I was speak of was rude.
Day 32 and my Claro cable internet is still not working and they lied again today. Todays lie? My wife's IP credomatic machine being the second device on the router is obviously causing this issue because you are only supposed to have ONE PC on a router that has FOUR PORTS. = LIE
Collecting money for no service then collecting MORE money on my backup 4g service is RUDE. Some would call it theft. It is not cilture.
I tried to strike up a conversation as I am somewhat new and have not posted much but some guy named juanno is trolling so I will not bother here any more.
Good luck!
Basically, I used to work in IT
And if the system went down, we got lots and lots of phone calls from people who wanted to know precisely when we'd have things back up. And often, they'd want to speak to the head engineer who was very busy trying to fix the system. I had to tell them that yes, we knew it was down and no, I wasn't going to put the head engineer on the phone because he was busy trying to fix their problems, and nobody was special enough to interrupt him. I could have lied and said it would be fixed in an hour, which was generally the case, but not always.
This afternoon, I had EDGE service, not HPSA+, on my 4G modem, and couldn't get on line reliably. Whatever caused this, I figure Claro knew they've got a problem. Possibly some of it came from overselling the new 4G service; some of it could have been Friday afternoon. It's okay now. I took a break from the Internet and a young friend came by to install Windows 7 on a laptop using my external DVD drive, and I put "Battle of Algiers" on to keep us from being bored.
You were telling me that I had to be imagining that I don't have problems with the people I deal with here that I don't have. And you were ranting about how Nicaraguans were spoiled by a left wing government (it's a left wing country -- go elsewhere for right wing -- say Honduras) and how what people were paid and treated should have no impact at all on how well they worked.
And you call this striking up a conversation? It looked like a rant.
Rebecca Brown
IT work
On that edge thing. Set the modem to only connect at 3g+. I had the same issue.
THIRTY-THREE days
What would have happened when you worked in it if your customers or users were out of service for 33 days? And you lied to them every day when they asked for your help?
I do not find Nicaragua to be so left wing actually. The government by and large leaves you alone. In the US the leftwingers now want to tell me what to eat. Tell me where I can smoke including on my own property sometimes. (I do not smoke) .. you know what I speak of.
All I want is for someone to tell me the truth about this very serious issue affecting me and my neighbors. This has begun to affect peoples lives. Kinds of sucks that all I get on here are excuses for bad behavior.
Claro, after all has agreed to provide me, and my neighbors service and I have kept my end of the agreement to pay. As in your example, you object to employers changing the agreement after the agreement has been made. I see no difference. IE, Claro takes our money, provides no service, lies to us and treats us like crap. AND we have to pay claro a SECOND time for 4g after they have taken our money for cable internet that does not work. People enter into contracts with claro for their benefit and claro enters into the contract for their benefit. Claro has breached their contract and now lies about it.
Yes this may be a bit of a rant given the damage Claro's liars have done to me and my neighbors.
Different culture in some ways, in other ways, not really
If your Spanish is good, I think the next step is to talk to the people who handle public utilities, or you decide that you aren't going to pay for Claro's services since they're not delivering them.
For that matter, I knew an ISP runner in Philadelphia who didn't have DSL set up but who was selling it to get the funds to set it up. He also broke into a cage to get equipment he said was his -- and I'd heard elsewhere that there were two side to that story.
This may be an extreme of the sorts of things that go on with ISPs, but it's not, in my experience, off the main sequence (my old boss sold NNTP services that were beyond what he was provisioned to deliver).
The ISP and IT business in the 1990s was wild and wooly in parts of the US -- and I had tremendous problems with Verizon in Fairfax County, VA. Try to find out what IS happening, talk to the crews laying cable, to any governmental oversight organization.
And my old boss used to promise so much vapor that another ISP guy asked if something I'd been promised was going to happen in real time or (boss's name) time. When IT and the net was rapidly expanding in the US, a lot of the people doing it were full of all sorts of vapor plans. Those people got shaken out or down to levels where they could perform competently. I suspect Claro is going through the same sort of expansion and you need to sort this out with people who are in Claro's loops (like the crews who actually do the work). I did the same thing with my nine days of being without power.
When I get EDGE signals, I just bag the internet for duration and do something else. Simply isn't that big a deal for me to be down for a few hours.
Rebecca Brown
The crews
I do not think this is the fault of the crews they send to do the work. This is the management. The girl at the office may be in a position that she has no choice but to lie but Claro should not be operatng that way. I suspect this is just some lazy people not being overseen properly. Claro seems to be a decent enough sized company that one would expect more. They certainly spend enough bucks on marketing.
The end bottom line I have a backup using the 4g modem but i worry that some idiotic problem will destroy that also. I simply am too busy to take the time to go talk to anybody, Nobody here understands the concept of doing business on the phone. And they clearly do not understand how it could be that a person does not have the time to go to an office and wait in line at an office. In other words, the phone is not a means to do business with many in Nicaragua. That IS a cultural issue. lol
Now onto my rant about the windows 7 old school 3g modem comparability rant :) .....
I listen to what people with more time in the country tell me
I found that the advice to talk to the guys doing the repairs (in the case of the power outage) worked better than calling and leaving word with Union Fenosa (I ended up also paying them a personal visit). The crew is more likely to know just how far they've gotten the cable laid; some engineer will know how over-subscribed the service is. The office manager is basically in charge of sales and bookkeeping, not the technical side, or she'd be running the technical side and someone else would be the office manage.
If you're not able to work because things are down, then you're not too busy to go to the office.
I'd be curious to know at what rate personal internet service, especially through the 4G and 3G modems, is growing.
Rebecca Brown
Just to keep us off topic
To the best of my knowledge there is no commercial Internet over cable service from anyone in Nicaragua. That said, there is commercial DSL and Wireless from Enitel (Claro). Now, I am no Enitel fan but am well aware there are reliable alternatives via Wireless in much of Nicaragua. My neighbor went with them and the info is posted here.
What they offer is guaranteed bandwidth. That is, the CIR is equal to the bandwidth you buy. If you need reliable service, it is available. As for the Internet cafes that run on non-commercial service, gee, too bad if they are down.
Have a link?
If that is available, it may be a godsend! Have a link?
there aren't many differences when it comes to the basic...
human behavior...true
Yes, you are both right.
And haven't we seen this tired old wjmsjo type of post before on NL?
Its old.
Perspectives
You should read "The Naturalist in Nicaragua". by Thomas Belt. The book was written over a 100 years ago and the author (who visited much of Nicaragua) had the same complaints about Nicaraguans then as you do now! (except for the internet, of course!!!). His observations 100 years ago about these people led me to accept that these things are indeed "cultural" but from a "northern" perspective can be easily seen as "rude". The culture you come from, my friend, sees these things differently than the culture here. I know you won't agree with me but nimodo. We all have our perspectives, our cultures and our experiences. I once complained about all the noise at "purisima" time and how it was keeping me awake at night. My host family's mother told me that I was rude to complain about "her" culture. She was right! One other thing.... since Mr Belt observations were noted over 100 years ago, the culture he experienced obviously was not result of "socialism" or a "culture of dependency" created by the state or the government. Just a little food for thought!
Not Nica-bashing
I re-read my comments and just wanted to take the time to explain that my comments are not meant to demean Nicaraguans but rather to point out that cultures vary and vary greatly. And when someone enters and lives in another country and is exposed to their culture, they can often see things that are different as being wrong, uncomfortable and difficult because those things are out of step with what you are used to. This thread started out as a comment on "time" and how a taxi driver gave his time as part of his service. To a northeastern USA person, this might seem a very rare event. In the northeast ( at least) people are in such a hurry that they don't seem to have time to say hello, much less lend a hand and service providers are hell bent on charging you for even time they spend givng you info on the telephone, such as lawyers, doctors, accountants and such. If you move to Nicaragua, after having lived your life in such a hectic, time driven, rat race culture... you might very well view people here and too slow, lazy and unambitious. You would be WRONG here and possibly right in the northeast USA. I have noticed here in Nicaragua that "customer service" is generally not what I am used to in the USA. If you buy a product the vender will sell it to you. If you don't she will look for another buyer. Nicaraguans in general do not "fawn" all over you to get you to buy their wares. Actually, if you do meet a Nica who is hell bent on selling you something, you might want to be a bit more careful about the purchase! As to the "lying", I usually find that people lie to me, more to avoid "pena" of not having the correct information or because "lying" is better (in the person's mind) than giving you no information at all. I can't tell you how many times I have been given wrong directions because the person I asked here didn't want to leave me without telling me something to try to "help" me out. Or the person didn't want to be embarrassed by not having the answer I was seeking. I have learned that "pena" and the avoidance of it, drives a lot of how people act and re-act here in Nicaragua. I just had a contractor the other day tell me that he would be right over to give me the estimate he had been promising me for a week on some work I need done. I waited and he didn't come right away and, in fact, he never came at all and that was 4 days ago. He never called to say he wasn't coming. All I can figure is, the job was too big for him and he was embarrassed (con pena) to tell me he couldn't do it. So he lied to me and I am not mad at him because I live in his culture and have learned to understand that sometimes here, that's the way it works. I enjoy it here. And most of the things I don't like are due to the fact that I am "used to" another way of doing things. I don't like the noise of the purisima and the other celebrations. I don't like people jumping ahead of me in line. I don't like 5 different families blaring their stereos with 5 different types of music. I don't like people showing up hours later than they said they would. I don't like dogs running free all over the place. But I moved here and the only other people I see complaining about these things are people like me, people of other cultures!!!! So I live with what I don't like and enjoy what I do (which is a much longer list) and I respect the culture that I have decided to live in. Hope this helps! Va pues!
Cheer up
This month 3 of our providers--Scumbag Claro, Disnorte, and moviestar chose not to send facturas for our bills. Disnorte did have time to send somebody to cut off our service, which we were able to pay by phone by credit card while he was waiting. ( this was a little tricky because recently there was a scam about bogus Disnorte employees shaking people down for money. We checked him, his badge, and his truck, plus the office by phone and were satisfied they were just incompetent, not regular thieves).
These pathetic excuses for modern companies have among the best jobs in town and still can't manage to do anything right.
More good news-- last week enecal showed up to fix the leak in the street that has been there 5 months. Bad news, they didn't fill in the hole because they need another 5 months to see if their repair worked or not. If anyone has any connects with the government of Taiwan, can you have them send some 1/2 inch slip caps, pvc glue, and a hack saw blade?
"You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality." Ayn Rand
What Incredible Opportunity
for someone to do things right ! This statement holds true from hospitality businesses, to growing coffee.
We have to fight for customers in our (our-of-Nicaragua) business environments; customers would flock to a company in Nicaragua with just modest competency and customer service. But, what does competency and good customer service buy Claro?
You can't check and pay your monthly bill online?? Tiny investment, and huge cost savings for any company. It's getting tough to get a paper bill in the US anymore. Someone writes a check at Costco and the whole line starts audibly grumbling. Most registers, you can have your payment information in place before the cashier finishes ring your your goods. None of this is rocket science, and the equipment is 99.5% reliable.
Wait, isn't this how Maxi-Pali does it ?? Does Pellas own them?
Uncle Sam Walmart actually.
....owns Maxi-Pali
To be exact: Walmart de México y Centroamérica owns La Unión, Maxi Pali & Palí
You can order your Claro bills and pay on line with three major banks:
http://www.claro.com.ni/wps/portal/ni/pc/personas/atencion-al-cliente/pu...
Pena
Pena is still a lie and it is still wrong, a sin and immoral. Oh! And rude. Renaming things does not change what they are. Giving someone bad directions over some machismo issue should be embarassing to the liar as any thinking person knows that the lie will be found out shortly.
Oh and I will not utilize someone that is late. That cultural excuse is bull. If a person cannot respect another persons time. The person does not get my time or attention. 8:00 means 8:00.
Calm down friend
You are going to give yourself a stoke. Seems to me that if maintain your position and anger about all these things you will only end up frustrated and miserable. You can sound off all you want about these things you find "immoral" but I wager to say that you will not change one single Nicaraguan nor his way of doing things nor his culture. If you are going to continue to live in this country, it would be to your advantage to "loosen up" and relax your requirements and as a result, live longer and happier! Buena suerte!
Living
I kind like being able to work to buy my food. That way. I get to live :) Claro and the liars that front them are taking that away from me and my neighbors. I submit again, making excuses that liars are mearly operating within their different culture is a bs argument. People need to act responsibly.
Lying is not culture.
Most Nicas purport to be Christians. Yet they are liars. For the non religious nicas, lying is immoral. Either way it is not culture to lie.
My wife is pura Nica, yet she is not a liar. You are excusing liars claiming that is culture. That to me seems to not make any sense.
Socialism caused this. Happening in the US right now. Has already happened in Europe.
And if, wjmsjo, you are 100% right....So What?
Really, so what?
What have you identified?
Other than a place you don't want to be.
Because if you are right....(and you think you are)....that's all you have really done.
BTW...Great stroke of luck you picked one of the (apparently) only non lying types of Nicas!! .... Sarcasm off.
P.S. What happened since you made this comment at the end of May this year? ... "I have not myself found the Ckaro employees to give4 bad customer service. IN fact the woman in Tiitapa was quite helpful. I will say that they are typical...
Did your working on line in Nicaragua business not work out?
Trolls
I will go back to watching Tom and Jerry. I wanted an intelligent discussion. Not a troll.
Good luck.
Who is trolling?
You come on here slamming Nicaraguans behind the lame excuse that you can because you are married to one.
Its obvious by your comments on the internet thread that you need a better than average internet provider (more expensive) for your home based online business and because you are not paying for one....its all Claro's fault and Nicaraguans are all liars.
Before you "re-located" from Costa Rica, perhaps you should have checked that Nicaragua can provide what you need and want.
More
I did not slam Nicaraguans troll. I would like to slam Claro for not dealing with the employees they have that are liars. (I have now encountered 6 absolute liars at claro in a row) Is I have said in a prior post. I did receive good service in Tipitapa and I posted that as a reply to another person talking about Claro service. I now see what that poster was speaking of. Why any business would tolerate that behavior from employees is incomprehensible.
You troll are now taking the position that Claro can provide NO internet service because i presume of some nicaraguan cultural excuse and I am slamming people because I do not want to pay for business service? Well troll.. that is just silly and and also quite dumb because residential service as well as business service is supposed to ... i want you to think about this for a minute so just be patient.......
wait for it... here it comes... almost here... wait a little more.....
almost here....
it is coming........
i am gonna tell you soon.....
soon.............
IT IS SUPPOSED TO ACTUALLY WORK! ........ there, i said it.. i hope i did not offend you for not lying. God knows I should not offend you by stating the truth.
You see, and this may be wierd for you. On my planet, when we pay for a service. The service is supposed to actually be provided. WOW! What a concept huh?
Now with that said, troll...
Do you want to point out where I said I do not want to pay? I PAY for 4mb. In fact, I told the rude liar at the Claro office I would be willing to PAY MORE for a person that did not lie to me. She was clueless and just continued to lie as you are sir. You making it my fault for a liar is ridiculous.
You see, Troll. You putting words in other peoples mouth. (The post just prior and your other troll post about you have heard this before) is just dumb. Why would you be upset at someone that wants people to be accountable? Troll.
Troll, I remark about things that I see before ny eyes and that are directed at me. You troll, make things up such as this fantasy that I do not want to pay for my ISP. Troll.
the ugly gringo way..
the way i do it//most nicas..when they want to say something important..lower there voice..when i get someone at claro..or any other office..thats giving me a run around.i RAISE mine..my nica wife is starting to learn this..talk loud and ask for the jeffe..point at there telephone and say call some one..that can answer my ??..dont worry about the security guard standing behind u..he wont do anything as long as u stay sitting in ure chair..it might sound ignorant..but after living down here for 20 some yrs..it works..u make a fuss..and they will get u answers..yep..maybe im a ugly gringo..but when im paying for something i want answers
You best fix your San Juan del Sur live street cam
It's still not working....call Claro
Self esteem
If your self esteem is improved by having the last word. Have at it.
Las dos caras de la moneda
That would not be the case every time and every where, but that's part of the beauty of Nicaragua. You never know what you will get.
Life
Is like a box of chocolates.....
"Maybe, just once, someone will call me 'sir' without adding, 'you're making a scene." -Homer J. Simpson
Box Of Chocolates
So true. But the service I got on my last trip was extraordinarily better than the first time I came to Nicaragua. The country as a whole is stepping in the right direction. I had waiters and waitresses who were truly concerned about my level of satisfaction. I stay at Los Arcos and the staff went out of their way to assist me this last trip. Shower was show, hot water was slow to appear, and the internet can be quirky, but the staff was great. They keep the place squeaky clean. I could fix their internet in an afternoon with a few inexpensive access points, the shower/hot water situation could be remedied with a bit more effort and expense, but people's attitudes can be very difficult to change.
My biggest concern is not whether Nicaragua can gain the skills the country needs to move forward, (it can and will, and the number of Nica returnees will accelerate as they grow older) but whether DO sticks his foot in his mouth and finds himself on the wrong side of the fence -again. That has far more potential to put the country back in the 80's than anything else. Perhaps the canal will keep him focused. He's not going to get it if he teams up with Iran.
If I had a time sensitive business (and I do a lot of IT work that requires a good connection) I would double up on my connection if I could, as some already do. Cable plus wireless. Not fair to the consumer, but a few years back just getting internet outside of a major population center was a pain. Still is for some people.
Rude? I have never seen much of that, and I've always been able to walk away from it (and not go back). Rude is also very subjective. Talking on the phone while a customer waited would be cause for immediate termination in the US (unless the employee was a member of a union). Clock out, go home and don't come back. We'll mail you your final check. Not too many countries left where you can get rid of a non-performing employee so easily. Certainly NOT the case in Nicaragua; talking on the phone while the customer waits seems to be the norm.
Lazy? Varies from A to Z. Returning Nicas hustle, I've been in two Nica returnee businesses that look and run just like what I am used to in the US. That hustle and attention to detail will rub off on the population at large. If not, the population at large will be working for the returning Nicas, as Nicas work for Costa Ricans. Employees of Pellas' Budget car rental at MGA hustle; again like being in the US. They even have a direct line to the US that you can use for free, phone sits right on the counter with a sign: "Free Calls to the US" That's why I always rent form Budget, why WOULD I go anywhere else?? So, not all Nicas are rude, lazy and incompetent.
Absent some socialist scheme to prevent it, the cream always rises to the top.
One other very big issue is the level of literacy and education. Comparing Nica and CR literacy rates, for example, is apples and oranges. When you read at a 6th grade level and have non-existent math skills the literacy number is not a good (78 vs 97) comparison with another country that sends a significant number of its students on to post secondary programs. Interestingly, Cuba tops the literacy chart. Even waiters get two years of post secondary education. When you have a full employment economy with everyone earning $50 /month, you can afford that luxury. Nicaragua is not so fortunate. I see a lot of campo students struggle to get that "high school".
What does this mean practically in this instance? It means that Claro is probably unable to find sufficient techs who can read manuals and follow printed instructions. Perhaps even their engineers are lacking in the requisite skills. Telling you that your credit card terminal is the cause of your internet problem speaks volumes for the lack of basic understanding of the process. Couple that with a predilection for hiring family and friends, or those politically connected, and you have a dysfunctional business that would never function without a monopoly position. Certainly not unique to Nicaragua: Many 3rd world countries are structured this way (and that is part of the reason that they are and will always be "developing".
This is Nicaragua. You can piss and moan, or you can enjoy it and try to make it better.
Comments
I wanna start that I love Nicaragua We chose here because of her family and the weather and other than a few issues, I am fine with the culture here.
That said, I will never accept crap treatment from an ISP or the power company. Ever. My living relies on them.
We have claro cable 4Mb. Claro 3+G modems, Movistar 3+g modems as backups. I am still nervous as the wireless setups are backups and we have had 33 days of this issue every single evening with the cable internet. This is after a boatload of research and over a year of stellar uptime on the claro cable.
Big UPSs and a generator also.
One problem and claro absolutely fails and then make nothing but lies and excuses. A few people on here have spoken about another wireless commercial quality backup and I would for sure get that if it is reasonable. A lost day is more cost than what any sort of backup is likely to cost.
Normally I enjoy the laid back stuff here but when it comes to my means of income, I will not accept excuses and will not tolerate people that are not accountable. That is why I was complaining so much about the lack of respect for time. I simply do not have time to go to a Claro office because they are too stupid to answer the phone.
Claro has a first class marketing department and crap for customer service. And absolute scumbags for management. No other way to describe it when you, the customer get treated like crap.
Finally, my wife, other than vacations, has never lived outside of Costa Rica and Nicaragua and neither have her siblings. They DO respect peoples time. They DO understand customer service. (One is a hotel manager in Costa Rica and one owns a Tienda in Granada. The difference? Their mom raised them well. They work and they have ambition. They went through the public school system here too so blaming that is not exactly the whole answer either.
We have two young nicas working in website design here. Ordinary guys that like technical stuff. They are damn good employees and mostly self taught. Both of them I can safely say are the result of good parenting and maybe some good genes have helped a little. We build joomla websites and provide content for automated marketing. These Nicas understand time. Not respecting someone's time and lying is not a cultural thing, it is ignorant and rude.
For the lefties on here, consider this: Bad parenting + socialism = lazy, rude and dysfunctional people. (There are exceptions of course)
It used to be in the US, that even offspring of dumbass parents would end up ok most of the time because of the culture of success that existed everywhere in the US. That awesome feature of US culture is sadly being socialized out and now offspring from dumbass parents are mostly doomed for life.
Bummer!
Ayayayay!!!!!
Sr. WJMSJO I am sorry that you're having a terrible experience at the hands of Claro and its employees. There's really no excuse for it. I've read all the replies and also the link about the suspicion of Syria having WMD, but it doesn't say those are Saddam's 'non existing' WMD, that assertion comes in the comments posted about that article. Republicans and Democrats will never see eye to eye on that one, along with the liberal and conservative medias. About 3 years ago I was buying a lot of carpet from this guy I've never used before. He was from Iraq. So we started talking about many things and I asked him what he thought of Saddam. He said he didn't liked him so much, that he was really a mad man, but mainly he said that Saddam was a fool for letting the UN and the US come in after all and inspect the country in search of those WMD. He said the inspectors told the US that there weren't any to be found. So the US made there and then their decision to go in. The guy said to me what fool tells his enemy what he has to defend himself, much less that he doesn't have anything that can cause real damage. A poker player Saddam was not. There are so many opinions voiced here based I hope on real personal experiences, but my problem with those assertions is not wether they are true or false. My problem is when people, including me so I should say we people assume that one case is representative of the entire population. The lying, rudeness and laziness is present everywhere. Is not an excuse but a fact. Now how each of us deal with any of those issues is a different story. But I was told that I could catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Yes there is a lot that needs improvement in Nicaragua and by saying Asi son las cosas aqui, doesn't solve or rectify the problem. There was an article in La Prensa today written by Alfredo Gonzalez Holmann El Empresario, El Mercado y El Amor and another one on Thursday's written by Alejandro Escoto Valle El Cambio Que Necesitamos. Try to read both of them. I happen to agree with what they wrote almost in its entirety. Unfortunately it is hard, if not impossible, to teach an old dog new tricks. That's why I tell the grownups that just because they have no desire to change I won't bother much trying to show them there's a better way and still keep their humanity. Our best chance rests on our children's education. To end : One is born either a hustler, in the good sense of the word, or a slacker. I've seen plenty slackers manipulating the system in of all places the US and of course in Nicaragua. The place doesn't make the person bad or good, a success or a failure, just like the mud doesn't make a pig a pig. In case you can't get your hands on those articles here are a couple of lines that call my attention. Mr Valle cites Sir Winston Churchill: Ha llegado el momento de empezar a pensar en las proximas generaciones y no en las proximas elecciones; these lines are from Mr Holmann, I don't know if they are his words or someone else's: Una de las caracteristicas que mas perjudica al ser humano es que no quiere lo que tiene, pero quiere lo que no tiene. I hope things get better with your internet connection and you have a more pleasing, if not perfect, experience in Nicaragua.
MY entire point...
I never intended to get into the claro novela really. I used it as an example and then we went with it.
My entire point was directed to the comments that some made that justifies slacker behavior as a quaint Nica cultural feature. I took exception to that,
Lazy is a choice. These people at Claro choose to be this way and Claro does not rectify it. IT IS RUDE. It is not what I find in Nica culture generally.
A related example is.. If you are in Costa Rica and someone does not do what they promised. (Tico, Extranjero Gringo, Canuck, Nica or whomever..... basically any slacker) .. Often the response when you want an answer is "Pura Vida". That is a BS response. It is NOT indicative of Tico culture . The lazy in general have now adopted that phrase as a quaint excuse for being lazy and rude. I have had Tico abogados say that to me when they did not deliver on time and they got offended when I called them on their bullcrap. THEY CHOSE to be lazy. The culture did not make em do it. (Thinkin of Flip Wilson now).
Final part of my rant. When you have an appointment and you might be late. Just call the other party and tell them! GOOD GOD ! Don't just blow it off and blame some quaint cultural feature. That is absurd.
Frankly, this has nothing to do with politics left or right
You're trying to talk to the office staff about technical problems. The people who can sell phones and services and process contracts are NOT the people who manage the system or even repair the phones.
My impression is that IT here is about at the level it was on when I first tried to get an internet account -- whole thing was scripts and various weirdnesses that I didn't understand then, and nobody at the ISP cared that much about helping me at all (and I worked for this ISP later), but they continued to bill me even after I cancelled. Whole thing was egregiously mismanaged by a kid whose grandmother gave him $2 million to start his own business that he ran into the ground despite some dedicated employees who kept him going longer than he would have. He found the right partner to utterly gut the business and the remains are now owned by the people who bought the company that went bankrupt buying iffy ISPs.
Claro isn't that bad, and the folks setting up things (at least here) do a decent job of it compared to what IT was like in Philadelphia in 1995. Claro gets people on line better than the ISP I later worked for got me on line (the owner was all about playing with the machines at that time, and the staff were rather appalling). You need to find out who runs the technical show at Claro Managua.
Friday, things were crappy. Today, things were fine and the first year I had the 3G modem, that would not have been the case (Saturday line speeds were generally very bogged). I tested during the day and got the line speed I paid for. It's a bit slow now, but everyone seems to be on-line now (my next door neighbors have two visiting laptops with kids attached).
I suspect that Claro was not really prepared for the demand -- and they're introducing several technologies at once. ISPs in the US generally introduced one at a time -- first dial-up for consumers and T-1s and ISDN for businesses and power users, then DSL. Cable tended to be rolled out by dedicated cable companies. Claro is rolling out DSL, 3G and 4G, cable, and handling cell phone service and t.v. cable on top of that in a country with a population smaller than NYC.
The problems you're having aren't that different from the problems I had with Verizon in Philadelphia (DSL over copper, with a disintegrating copper system -- one of the technicians found that the box that held the pairs for my block was letting water in and my first pair was completely corroded and he switched me to a pair that was still in good shape -- I'd forgotten how zooey Verizon's service had gotten. At one point, I was getting the line and number for a church office at my house. Haven't had anything that bad with Claro. Ended up being completely unable to get Verizon set up at my house in Fairfax County and went with Cox Cable. If you were in Managua, you could go with the Russians rather than Claro.
Your problem appears to me to be that you don't have the right phone number or the right email address.
That this is happening "every single evening" suggests that they massively oversold services in your area, and people are setting up wireless modems and sharing the connections with friends and family (just looked at my networking icon to make sure I wasn't sharing mine through the Mac and I have seen the wireless for the local beauty shop visible here, though not useable). A cybercafe operating on your local cable connection would also have an interesting effect on how much the bandwidth got divided between even more users. How Claro handles that, I'm not technical enough to know, but I wouldn't be egregiously surprised if people were selling connectivity to their neighbors or not securing wireless routers and so getting people parked in front of the building using the connection for free (Sollentuna Hem's service wasn't secured when I first used it, and some other services in town tend to be generous with their bandwidth and give out the pass phrases fairly easily).
If unofficial commercial or neighborhood shared use is saturating the local service, it's going to be hard for Claro to deal with it this. One of my friends heard from a major cable company about hiring him to knock unapproved servers off line -- he had done work to secure open relaying servers used by spammers and the ISP thought his skills would work for that, too. If people are reselling or sharing their connectivity, then Claro has a non-trivial problem on its hands. It has to go into the various modems and see what's using the bandwidth, then deal with the more egregious offenders, like the cyber cafe, first. (I also wonder how much of the local machines have been converted into a bot net -- and what sorts of spam is coming off the machines that don't have good security maintenance, which would also flood your local bandwidth).
ISPs and crap service seem to be common, not just here. A lot of things contribute to it -- one of them is hiring people who are there to play with the machines and who have a certain contempt for the mere /users, pronounced lusers. The other is the simply amazing explosion of use.
What you need is a line with a fixed IP address that's just yours, with bandwidth that's not shared. This will cost most for all the obvious reasons.
Rebecca Brown