“I work hard for my money too” - On being scammed

 Machu Picchu

“I work hard for my money too” - On being scammed. 

People of Peru are very honest people. There were very little bargaining at street markets when I was there in 2015. I appreciate that. What you see is what you get. There is no sizing someone up. There is no going back and forth to try to work out the best deal. There is no pretending to walk away from the deal. There is no trying to make your customer feel like they got a good deal. There is no feeling bad you got ripped off by the seller. 

Then there was that one restaurant in Aguas Calientes next to Machu Picchu. After arriving late in the morning and settling down in the hostels, my travel group headed out to explore a bit of the town. I am always afraid if someone is trying hard to sell you something. And walking down the road there were lots of people trying to get you to go into one of their restaurants. Seeing that we had plenty of time we collectively decided to sit down and have a bite after viewing their menu. Everything was going well. The food must have been decent because it wasn’t too memorable. Nothing horrid and nothing spectacular. Then our bill arrived. It was quite suspicious because the prices weren’t what was advertised on the menu. Did they add gratuity on top of each dish? We asked our server where these numbers are coming from and due to the language barrier I wasn’t able to understand the whole explanation. But I did understand when the server said “we work hard for our money”. No doubt the service industry is difficult having had service jobs when I was younger. But what made me upset was the blatant deceit. Seeing this was a foreign country where I could not speak the language, with very fews other customers inside. We reluctantly paid for the surcharge of being “tourists”. But I needed to tell that server is “I work hard for my money too”.