Solidarity in Mexico

The third prize for the Intercultural Game organized by Akteos was awarded to Bertrand Seurret who tells us how a Mexican can "lend" his job to his wife and the conclusions that can be drawn from this on Mexican values.

Values ​​in Mexico

An incredible Mexican story

A Mexican couple learns that their seventeen-year-old son, in France for his studies, ended up in the hospital after a drunken evening and an altercation with the police. Although their French connections can act locally, it is impossible to get their son out without the presence of one of his parents.

A call for family contributions allows you to quickly finance plane tickets. However, it is difficult for the father to be absent because he has started a new job in the purchasing department of a small company and is not entitled to leave.

He then thinks about being replaced by his wife (who doesn't work), whom he trains for two weeks, before flying to Paris to pick up his son and return a month later...

On his return, as naturally as possible, he resumes his work.

Intercultural decryption

Several points need to be deciphered in this surreal yet true story:

• Quick family support to bear the heavy financial burden of tickets for a middle class family.
• Family and friendly support network in France, a distant country, mobilized immediately.

This perfectly illustrates the behavior of Mexicans, in daily life and in business.

A French person would certainly ask himself two questions:

• Why didn't the mother go?
  • In Mexico, it is the father who solves the problems. We should not underestimate the importance of the father figure in Mexico (machismo?).
  • The dual relational channel in the family is even more accentuated than in Europe: mother-daughter and father-son

• How can you “lend your work” to your wife?
  • It is not, as one might imagine, an undeclared job in which roles can be interchanged: the father's job is official.
  • What comes into play here is the deep conviction, shared by the family and the employer, to whom the story was told, that what matters most is to go and get the son back. It's more important than work and the father would have quit if that had been the only solution. However, the father is appreciated and the employer naturally sees his role as helping. As the latter cannot afford additional pay or do without an employee for two weeks, he agrees to hire his colleague's wife as a replacement...

Family comes first in Mexico

The solution found allows everyone to get by: the employer can maintain the employee's benefits and the family can keep their income while picking up the son in France. The most important conclusion is that a serious family reason in Mexico will always trump a professional question, regardless of the pressure a French manager would (probably) put on it.

Not only will the Mexican employee resolve his family problem as a priority, but he will probably then resign if his employer has not been understanding, because trust will be lost. The sense of family, the network, mutual aid and trust are fundamental values ​​in Mexico.