Author: doug

How many workers…?

At our place in the country, a low-hanging power line would have been dangerous for anyone trying to pass to the back of the property with a machine. After months — years? — UTE, the state electric company, got around to responding to the work order(s) to raise it

UTE worker overkill, Uruguay

I wasn’t there yesterday, but apparently the task involved four trucks and about ten workers, only one of whom was actually doing anything. The power pole was for the next street, so why other trucks came up our street so nine workers could watch one work — ? Ahh, the mysteries….

Tienda Inglesa: from class to trash

Tienda Inglesa: Lo bueno por menos

Classy may be too strong a word, but Tienda Inglesa has been for me the best of the handful of “large” (remember, Uruguay is small) supermarket chains in Uruguay.

Back in 2012, Tienda Inglesa sold LED lights imported by Renovables S.A., a wide-ranging and impressive Uruguayan renewable energy business. The owner, Rolando Ringeltaube, told me how carefully their company monitored quality control in China. And, he told me, LED bulbs should have a life of 20 years. Which, considering the history of incandescent light bulbs, seems an unlikely prediction. Still, they have to last longer than these mercury-laden compact fluorescents that seem to last about a year, no?

So imagine my surprise when an LED light bulb I bought there died after three weeks. They have a “no refund” policy, but thought about it a couple days, and gave me another. Which also died after three weeks. Once again, they reminded me of the “no refund” policy, but gave me a credit after a few minutes. Meanwhile, I walked to the lighting section to examine the packaging. Sure enough, they are now imported from China by Tienda Inglesa. No middle man. No quality control.

LED bulbs are great (10X more efficient than incandescent), but the Tienda Inglesa LED bulbs are now officially trash. Consider yourself warned.

Extremely poor quality LED bulbs sold at Tienda Inglesa in Uruguay

Walmart wisdom™ comes to Uruguay.

Update 5 January 2017: the latest Tienda Inglesa garbage LED light, acquired 3 December 2016, has started overheating and malfunctioning today, after 33 days.

Compet—

—Several years ago, getting a quote on a large order, I complemented the local lighting store on their prices, which were much better than another place I’d just been. The kid behind the counter said, ”Sometimes they’re more expensive. Sometimes we’re more expensive. There’s no real competition here.”

He used the word competencia.

competition and competence in Spanish

And today his statement was again proven true (with a twist, twice!) with a phone bill address and delivery.

ANTEL bill delivery fail, Uruguay

Abandon logic all ye ….

Presupuesto with weird Uruguay handwritten 9

The first thing about this presupuesto (estimate) you might notice1 is the 9 that looks like a lollipop. And you might recall that the 9s of Uruguay are a near-obsession of mine.

But no, I’m sure I’ve mentioned this, but don’t find it: when you buy house paint in Uruguay, the cost varies with the color. You don’t just ask “how much does a liter of this brand cost?” — you have to ask “How much does a liter of this brand in this color cost?”

So I picked a slightly cream color and got the cost for 20 liters, UYP 2,596 (about USD 17.30/gallon). At the last (unhelpful) place I bought paint the cost for them to mix the color was a multiple of the cost of the plain white, so I wrote down another price.

Uhn huh. If you take the 20 liters of plain white, ask them to add color and mix it for you, they will charge you 89 pesos — less.

1 red arrows have a way of doing that

An early Christmas present

Years ago, a fellow expat told me about a long clamp he bought at Tienda Inglesa, very handy for making clean plywood cuts with a circular saw. I went to Tienda Inglesa, and — reminiscent of trying to find a ”special” item that you didn’t buy the first time you saw it at Costco — there were none. And there have been none. Until yesterday!

120 cm clamp
The clamp on top of one of my first attempts at cabinetry, including very disappointing not-straight cuts.

So it’s an early Christmas present. Time to try again to make a cabinet!

In other news, a bloom:

succulent blooming

I think we’ve had these plants at least three years. This is a first.