Outside In

Earlier this morning, I had one of the more fruitful conversations in quite some time. A middle-aged couple came into my store. It’s always a custom of mine to make conversation with my customers, especially early in the morning when hardly anyone comes in, in order to establish rapport, even if the conversation is not, let us say, product-related. This is simple Customer Service 101. As it turns out, they needed me more than I needed their conversation.

They spoke in broken English as they described to me what particular pair of shoes they were looking for. I immediately made it clear that we didn’t sell that particular model. Having worked at both a retail and an outlet, I immediately recognized that shoe as a retail-only product. I gave them the address of the nearest retail store and even took the trouble to look it up on my phone’s GPS to make sure they didn’t get lost, as I’d already established that they were Latin American tourists (they only spoke español among each other). Up to this point, I hadn’t spoken a word of Spanish. I like to surprise people like that.

Finally, I broke my Spanish silence. I told them my computer would actually tell me if that particular store had that shoe or not (I think I was so engrossed in giving them directions that I’d completely forgotten that I had this option, and could thus save them a long trek). They were delighted and a little surprised at the fact that I spoke Spanish, and excellent Spanish at that. They didn’t hesitate in asking me where I was from, and the husband guessed before I could even open my mouth. “Puerto Rico!” he yelped. He was actually half-right: I’m Puerto Rican and Dominican. But I simply acquiesced to being Puerto Rican--his boisterous guess was so full of energy that I just didn’t want to disappoint this man.

I then asked them where they were from. In fact, I’d been quietly wondering about this the whole time they were there. When they answered Venezuela, I did something almost reflexively that personal experience has taught me never to do (yet somehow I still inevitably do): I uttered the first thing that came to mind--in this case, President Hugo Chavez. They laughed a hearty laugh and said something, very half-assedly, to the effect of, “Oh yeah!” But ignorant as I sometimes can be, I continued (something I’m leaving out is that I’d just seen a movie touting the goodness of Chavez the night before). “Yeah, he’s such a good president. Finally, you guys have a leader that doesn’t bow down to the American empire, who nobly serves the interests of the population, and shares the petroleum wealth with those who most need it!” I was so impassioned that even my fellow associate stole a glance at me that seemed to say, What is up with this boy?

I could tell right away that this did not still well with them. A vacuum sucked all the life out of the room. The man spoke, not with anger but with a tenacity unlike any I’ve ever seen before. He told me of all the horrors that Chavez had wreaks on the population; of his exploitation of petroleum to aid his cronies, such as the Cubans and friends in Bolivia; he told me that Chavez's nationalized television network alone rules the airwaves. He spoke for about five minutes unabatedly while his wife nodded to literally every point he made. This was a man on a mission. Not only that, you could see that he’d been waiting to get this off his chest for a long time. And he didn’t hide it, either. He said that he wouldn’t be able to say what he was saying now back home. He’d be imprisoned.

But as I scrutinized his arguments I quickly realized that he was essentially indifferent to the plight of the poor masses that lived in the barrios and that would likely never see anything except Venezuela. I noticed, too, that he was dressed in more or less Western, trendy attire, as well as his wife. And, beyond all else, I noticed that they happened to be at my store!, which is considered more or less an upscale shoe boutique, even as an outlet. In short, I realized that I was preaching to the wrong crowd. They were not members of the voiceless, Venezuelan masses, these were products of the affluent middle class--those who hate Hugo Chavez for plundering their wealth in order to distribute it among the poor, a sort of presidential Robin Hood. I’m neither condemning nor condoning this. It’s too hard to take this kind of stance when one looks from the outside in. And I was wrong by being blindly misled by a documentary which almost certainly contains an ulterior agenda.

As I said, this man didn’t speak from anger. He was actually very cordial. He simply spoke from a deep sense of passion that obviously stirred him; he spoke from his heart. He spoke from the only thing he knew. He spoke to me as if I was his fellow brother. He simply wanted me to understand. I put myself in his shoes. If I were to live in Venezuela, knowing English and having a Bachelor’s degree, I’d likely be a member of the middle class as well. I’d likely have a white collar job. Can I blame this man?

But here’s perhaps the crucial distinction (and again, I don’t claim to be holier than anyone, as I can only speak for myself): I’d never ever let socioeconomic status get in the way of my charity and my equal love to all.

We said goodbye to each other with a firm, brotherly hug.