Life Musings

I was having a online discussion with some people from a certain Third world country. We were talking about the rampant graft, corruption, and freeloading that plagues their nation, and how deeply it has become embedded in the culture. Under-the-table machinations are extremely common, and are often carried overseas.

Somebody told the tale, for example, of how visitors from that country would routinely ask department store sales clerks for "free samples" of their perfumes. The gall! Somebody also shared a tale of a man who drive a Mercedes Benz into a car wash and had expensive jewelry on his fingers. When he found out that the car wash owner was a fellow countryman, he asked if he could have a free car wash, just because they were from the same nation. That seems like a rather tasteless thing for an obviously wealthy man to ask of a stranger.

To my amazement, one person piped up and said, "I don't think that it's wrong! Our people are just being street smart. We're creative! We've learned ways to get things even when we don't have the proper resources." My jaw dropped. That's how he excuses these shenanigans? First of all, this dishonesty and freeloading is by no means limited to the destititue. And secondly, there's nothing creative about this behavior. The guy obviously doesn't know what creativity really is.