We use an automated carwash. We don't drive a vehicle that requires hand detailing..... <grin>
In Mexico there are few automated carwashes, instead on a corner lot you have the Auto Banos - car baths. All hand washed. It's business!
In the public squares there are lines of shoeshine chairs. It's business.
On the corner is a young man selling toy rats that skitter around on a string.... I bought one because they are really cool and use it to play with the cats. It is a unique product, and ... It's business.
Those foreigners working so hard are probably sending money home to whatever country they're from. In Mexico the #1 gross national product in 2003 was money coming in from workers in the US!
Many people have a problem with foreign workers coming in to take US citizen's jobs. The sad commentary is that US workers are no longer the ones in those service possitons... "we're too good for that" is the attitude that I've picked up. So many of the foreign workers are just happy to be able to work, and most seem to really bust their butts in their work. The fall-out from this is bad attitudes from customers toward the service workers. But they'd probably have a bad attitude anyway.
US citizens seem to have lost the impetus to work hard. In the US Customer Service is simply lip service to answering the phone and saying "no", usually rudely, much like the David Spade in the credit card miles redemption ad. And now Customer Service department is often in the Phillipines, or India, or Europe, as was my most recent bad expirience with Earthlink.
What is cool, is the fastest growing business area is small businesses, most owned and run by women; started by women who have become disheartened with big corporate america, in their 40's and 50's, who want the flexibility.
My 2cents worth.
PS. I try extra hard to be pleasant and welcoming when I come across a foreigner working their arse off.
