MAYBE THIS IS WHY SALES ARE DOWN…?
After five years of fear mongering and the waving of boogey men in the faces of people around the world, it’s only natural that people start believing the campfire tales and it starts to hurt business. Reader Jennifer Emick passed along this little gem from Spiegel:
Wal-Mart is making life difficult for Oscar Brufani, a 52-year-old man who makes his living delivering potato chips in Buenos Aires. One of the corporation’s store managers thinks he looks like Osama bin Laden — and won’t let him come near her store.
[Snip]
Brufani is a self-employed small businessman who supplies all the major markets in southern Buenos Aires with potato chips. Being on time is the most important part of his job. Things always worked out well for Oscar Brufani — until October 2004.
He was standing next to his truck in the delivery area of a Wal-Mart in La Plata. He had just unloaded his crates and wanted to go home. All he needed was the delivery receipt. But the store manager kept him waiting. She had been talking to two Wal-Mart controllers from the United States.
Those crazy Yanks
Brufani already noticed the two men in suits when he was unloading his crates: They were staring at him. They eyeballed him, whispered to each other, looked at him again. Then they went to the store manager’s office.
“You can’t work here anymore. Orders from upstairs,” the store manager said when she finally arrived at the car park, Brufani remembers. He asked whether he had done anything wrong, and she told him no — the problem was his beard. “The controllers think you look like Osama bin Laden. If you appear on any of the images recorded by the security cameras, I’ll lose my job.”
Those North Americans are nuts, Brufani thought to himself. Do they really think bin Laden would spend his time delivering chips to a Wal-Mart store in La Plata?
The next day, security personnel refused to let him enter the delivery area. To this day, Brufani still doesn’t understand why. He’s an Argentinian, the son of Italian immigrants; a cross hangs on the wall of his living room. All he knows about bin Laden is that he’s a terrorist and lives in hiding — in caves whose walls aren’t decorated with crosses.
Do you suppose they have this problem in Lancaster County Pennsylvania?
No me sorprende en absoluto. Desgraciadamente las grandes corporaciones americanas y el propio gobierno estadounidense crean sus propias reglas y pretenden imponerlas en cualquier parte del mundo. Piensan que su razonamiento es completamente normal y que la opinion del resto del planeta no cuenta para nada. Pueden iniciar una guerra cuando les parezca necesaria, sin importarles si el resto del mundo no esta de acuerdo o como en este caso, tratar de implementar una decision estupida y sin sentido. Todo en nombre de una muy bien selecta libertad.
Shalom Omar,
First, thank you for stopping in, for reading and, most importantly, for takng the time to leave a comment. It’s all about the conversation.
If I’ve mistranslated your comment, please take into account I’m using high school Spanish from more than 30 years ago.
This absolutely does not surprise me. Unfortunately the great American corporations and the American government they own create their own rules and try to impose them everywhere in the world. They think that their is reasoning is completely normal and that the opinion of the rest of the planet does not count for anything. They can initiate a war when it seems necessary to them, without any concern that the rest of the world disagrees, or, as in this case, to try to implement a stupid decision that makes no sense.
B’shalom,
Jeff
[...] MAYBE THIS IS WHY SALES ARE DOWN…? After five years of fear mongering and the waving of boogeymen men in the faces of people around the world, it’s only natural that people start believing the campfire tales and it starts to hurt business. Reader Jennifer Emick passed along this little gem from Spiegel: Keep reading… [...]