Cultural Divide

"The only thing a person can truly keep is his word"... unknown

I was sermoned recently about the cultural differences between my culture and the one in which I live. That fact that even I don’t know from whence I call home other than the Middle East for the past decade irrelevant apparently.
I was also chastised for raising a voice and purportedly using unjust words.
In first instance one might say that yes I was indeed wrong… (but I don't!)

Lets put the whole situation into perspective because even you the reader thus far have only a single eyed view of the scenario.

If raising a voice and using a harsh term is culturally incorrect then I beg to ask the following of all…….is lying correct in any culture ?
Is disrespect correct in any culture?
Is insolence, lateness, laziness and stupidity correct in any culture from business people or anyone?
Sure my actions may have been extreme, but what lead me to them !! For they were not the actions of a calm persona, but one who had suffered disrespect over a period of days.
Lies, lies and more lies had lead me down this path not by just one man, but many.

Of which to me, is the greatest and most direct cultural indiscretion one can have thrown at them. A man who can not tell the truth is not a man at all….!!

As stated I have lived in the region for nearly a decade so I’m pretty used to the most common lie, “I’ll call you back !”
They never do !!
But when you call them and ask why, it’s the stupidity of their lie that infuriates me. “My phone broke yesterday! “
“My computer has been down! “
“I flew to Pakistan for three days!”
Seriously. Come one. We are all men in this discussion, all above 40 so grow up, man up and tell the truth.
“Have the decency to tell the truth; I could not be bothered calling you because the job was not interesting or worth enough for me to be bothered going outside in the heat !!”

One person called me at 7am one morning, forget the fact that its Ramadan and I work till 2am, but he called at 7am and said he would be over before lunch time…He never showed….and then in the afternoon his phone went unanswered on the eleven times I called it. Why call at all to disturb someone if you have no intent on turning up ? Why lie ? and in this era of connectivity do you think I don’t know that your just cowardly not answering your phone ! or has it strangely stopped working just for today and my eleven calls !!


Another day I am called before 9am, by someone asking me straight away “ what time do you close,”  mind you its just before 9am…no rush obviously on his behalf to get to me to fix what is broken..

I tell him 6pm, he says he’ll be over “FOR SURE.”
In the end I remain at work until midnight, hoping he would arrive as we truly needed the services he was supposed to provide.
I stayed late he never showed.
The next day he calls me and asks directions to the kitchen.  Never apologises for leaving me waiting the night before. My time and my life apparently means nothing to him.  His request of direction though proving the lies he had made over the previous day, as he did not even know where we were ..
He could have downloaded the map sent to him by email, but there you go, lie number two, yesterday was the only day in the last year his computer broken down !!
But why the lies at all !!??
What form of business practice is it, in any land, any culture to lie about turning up ?
Is it to make himself sound busy?
Is it to answer to some one higher, that yes he had called me?
I have no idea !
All I know is that when he tried to get directions from me he feigned ignorance of the language once again and did not even try to listen to the directions given.
How hard is it to listen to the words “Take the third exit at the second roundabout onto 13th street. Drive up 13 street and take the first right turn….”

When after all these lies, disrespect and stupidity I finally cracked and told him what I thought of his attitude and business resolve, I am then informed that it is me , who has the cultural delusion.

People who know me well, will know I do not stand for stupidity.
I do not accept laziness and I really hate liars.
Apparently I have found myself within a culture that disagrees with this and requires me to relent all my 30 years of business and industry practice and accept lies, disrespect and stupidity as a common practice.
Well, It is not going to happen.
I relent nothing and apologise for nothing either.
Liars beware. Cultural misunderstanding or not, the truth is you can find a phone and have the respect to say I CAN NOT MAKE MY MEETING, I AM DELAYED or send a text, I’m lost, I’m late or I cant be bothered coming, and I suggest before we do business again you find the words, “I’m sorry I wasted your time and left you waiting”.

Those who disrespect me after 30 years in the industry  and 43 years on this Earth and think that they can treat me merely as a cook, make me wait for days without showing up and make me stay at work for 15 hours waiting for their arrival look out….you are messing with the wrong animal.
I do not care who YOU THINK YOU ARE, my life is not to be wasted waiting for liars in any form.
I’m tired of the practice of being lied to. Maintenance people, sales people, suppliers and managers, tradespeople  all think we are stupid enough not to realise that phones don’t break down on a daily basis, that I cant hear in the background of your conversation that you are not sitting in a car, that by asking what time I close means you have no intention of hurrying to my assistance !

I agree only that my actions may were strong, after all it was stated by Mahatma Ghandi, “An eye for an eye eventually makes the world blind”, but it is also true that “Liars begin by imposing upon others, but end deceiving themselves”.