The better my Spanish gets, the easier it is to make friends and acquaintances here and take advantage of the friendly atmosphere for frequent get togethers.
However, there is a downside too unfortunately, I have noticed a definite decline in the customer service I receive at some but not all of the businesses and services I use. It appears when it comes to issue of money and paying Dominicans are very wary of dealing with one another and actually prefer to deal with foreigners in this regard. Apparently, they must think I'm a Dominicanyol - which generally aren't considered desirable nor respectable.
A good example is Cambio Taveras here in Santiago. I have cashed quite a few checks in a relatively short period of time for more than 10k (I'm not rich I'm a contract engineer and just got paid) and even though they explained that another client would have to guarantee only the first 3 checks, after cashing something like 6 checks they turn around and tell me that now that I will have to have someone guarantee my checks for a year. What really bothers me the most is that I found out from my friend who had guaranteed the checks even though I had just cashed one a day earlier. Furthermore, I called and talked with a supervisor and asked why they changed the policy and the girl tells me that it had always been like this, which was a big fat lie. I told her she was wrong but she wouldn't back down. For those of you who don't know this type of business dealing and back talking is very common here in the DR. Lesson learned - don't bother changing your checks at Taveras Cambio and maybe speaking heavily accented Spanish isn't so bad after all. :squareeye
However, there is a downside too unfortunately, I have noticed a definite decline in the customer service I receive at some but not all of the businesses and services I use. It appears when it comes to issue of money and paying Dominicans are very wary of dealing with one another and actually prefer to deal with foreigners in this regard. Apparently, they must think I'm a Dominicanyol - which generally aren't considered desirable nor respectable.
A good example is Cambio Taveras here in Santiago. I have cashed quite a few checks in a relatively short period of time for more than 10k (I'm not rich I'm a contract engineer and just got paid) and even though they explained that another client would have to guarantee only the first 3 checks, after cashing something like 6 checks they turn around and tell me that now that I will have to have someone guarantee my checks for a year. What really bothers me the most is that I found out from my friend who had guaranteed the checks even though I had just cashed one a day earlier. Furthermore, I called and talked with a supervisor and asked why they changed the policy and the girl tells me that it had always been like this, which was a big fat lie. I told her she was wrong but she wouldn't back down. For those of you who don't know this type of business dealing and back talking is very common here in the DR. Lesson learned - don't bother changing your checks at Taveras Cambio and maybe speaking heavily accented Spanish isn't so bad after all. :squareeye