Professional courtesy

Every once in a while I am reminded, again, that personal relationships, kindness and integrity really rule the day here in Brazil. For all the talk out there of Brazilians working a hustle to get ahead, I have not experienced that in our dealings with workers/contractors/tradespeople.

Last night was another example. Yesterday the wiring for our electric showerhead (heat-on-demand) finally blew out. I’ve been waiting. The wires have been smoking for a couple weeks. [This whole electric wires in the shower thing has always made me nervous…]

Anyway, we called our electrician guy and asked if he could come by and fix it. He said he would come after work. So at about 6:00 p.m. Jorge Luiz arrived with replacement wires and tools. He made pretty quick work of repairing the wiring and commented that it had been wired incorrectly the first time, thus the melted casings and ultimate short.

When we asked how much we owed him for his work he said, “Oh, nothing. It really wasn’t that much work. I’m not going to charge you for such a small job. Just give me a call when you are ready to install your ceiling fans and I’ll fix you up.”

OK, so maybe the job was only 20 minutes of his time, but he had to come here (by bus) and he did what we asked him to do. We needed his help.

For him it was all part of our relationship and he was investing in his being our go-to guy for all things electrical. Nice.