Living in Chile, networking, networking, networking

After living in Chile four years I feel like I've gotten a "diplomado" in business, specializing in networking and negotiating. To get anything done well here, you pretty much have to work among people you know. For example, when Vuko and I moved from Valpo to Santiago, we were lucky Vuko's mom had the number of a good truck driver, and it even turned out to be cheaper because Vuko had a friend who wanted to move from Santiago to Valpo. Originally he was going to charge us 80.000 pesos for the move, he charged Vuko's friend and us 100.000 pesos, and we split this figure 5o/50. I doubt you could find a cheaper 3/4 moving truck complete with 2 teenagers to help move the stuff. And then when V's grandparents moved, they called the same truck driver. To look for a truck driver in the yellow pages is to risk a number of problems: perhaps they don't show up, maybe they charge you 3 times what they should, or in a worse scenario perhaps they steal stuff from you. That's why networking is so important and pretty much mandatory for getting anything done well here in Chile. The other reason networking is good, is that to get a good job, often Chileans rely on pitutos, someone that can hook them up with a good job, or who can get them into a good medical or law school.

The other important thing here in Chile is negotiating. It seems everything here is about negotiating. To bring faulty products back to the stores, sometimes you really have to build your case on why the store should take their low-quality product back. It seems each worker, at least in the multinationals, has to negogiate his own salary, and what you're paid has more to do with your negotiating skills than the quality of your work, although perhaps good-quality work does give you more negotiation power. Personally, I mostly negogiate with taxis, because they are famous for ripping people off, and they specialize at screwing over foreigners with their money, like charging triple the cost of the ride. I generally figure out how far I'm going before getting in the cab and then do the math to get a ballpark figure. Asking someone who takes a similar cab ride is useful to know what the ride should really cost, and then you just have to be stubborn and turn the ride down if the driver wants to overcharge. And, in normal situations, wait for the next taxi. And then there's always Sernac, servicio al consumidor in Chile, if you want to report a person or company that screwed you over.