Campeones mundiales / 2

Delegating work
There is a great labour force in this country. Hardworking people capable of responsibly carrying out instructions. But it's equally true that in the heart of each of them lies a frustrated boss. The Chilean never feels like he is the last in the pyramid, even when he is. He will always find someone else to whom he can pass on his duties, because if he has 10 hours to do a job, he would prefer to spend 9 of them thinking about how to foist his work onto someone else. And he does this wishing to 'share responsibilities' and to not end up the only person suffering the costs of a possible 'negligence'. To be lazy but not appear to be so, requires a lot of ingenuity.
I wouldn't have been able to put my finger on it this way, but, yes, I have noticed (and Chileans have told me) that oftentimes people are happy if something is adequate ("Así, no más.").

Accumulating stuff
The Chilean spirit is accumulative. One doesn't start over so much as place one layer on top of the previous. Our houses are full of relics because at one time we realised that we could both start a business and create space in our houses. Perhaps certain periods of national shortage have created this hoarding tendency, the feeling that any one thing may at any moment - a moment that never arrives - be useful . . . We think the television that one day stopped working will miraculously revive. We have created places for recycling . . . where we pretend to change our paradigm and which make us believe that our treasured possessions aren't going to die but will be reincarnated in a bin.
Haven't observed this one, but a friend told me his Dad's famous for it.