Never tell a customer No.

This town, Sonora, Texas, is an economic disaster that can only be created when you drive away new ideas so a small group of inbred rancher families can continue pretending they are important and in control. If it weren't for the government subsidies and backroom deals, they'd all be broke. Why? Because every year, we drive out the smartest kids who flee this town to college. Few return. This constant brain drain has meant a century of stupid remains in control of a community that (on paper) should be successful. The only way for folks in this town to survive is to go along with stupid or (like me) make your money from outside this backward dysfunctional county.

Have I offended you? Then you might want to stop here. You're probably part of the problem. You won't want to hear the rest because it's not about you. What I want to talk about is the horrible pattern of telling customers "no." I've seen this too many times in our restaurants and businesses by employees who aren't getting the training to do better. They aren't getting the training because the people running the businesses in this county almost always inherited their money and even the business. They don't know any better because they weren't trained as well.

But one woman in this town gets it! (There are actually three or four I can think of who get it but I'm specifically writing about one example because she did it right.) The restaurant had run out of a specific item. In most cases her coworkers would just say "we're out of that" and that would end the opportunity to make a sale. This individual instead said "Can you wait 10-15 minutes while I make more?" She shifted the decision back to me (the customer), and two things happened: (1) I was impressed, and (2) I told her I would wait 30 minutes if it meant I could have what I wanted! So, that business made a sale, and I got what I wanted.

In any other community, what I just described would be the bare minimum a business would expect of an employee. But in Sonora, Texas, this is not the normal customer experience. Outsiders are usually treated like shit, and even as someone with four generations of family in the local cemetery, I don't rank much better. We complain that we have no economy, but we turn down business because people lack initiative to do better. They lack training. It's like living in a banana republic, which is why I call this town The People's Republic of Sonorastan.

If you run a business in Sonora, read this and see if this might have been your business. If you're that woman, enjoy the nice tip you got this week. I waited a few days to post this so I could avoid identifying you because the chickenshit local politics here can be nasty, and I didn't want you to have any consequences for doing a good job. That might offend the cousin-fuckers running this county. If my metabolism were 20 years younger, I'd be buying from you every day.

If you are reading this, I'm taking the time to post this because I know this town can be better. On paper, this town should be successful. We are a disaster of our own creation. I-27 is coming, and it's a huge opportunity. It's time for this town to perform a collective rectal craniotomy and decide whether we want a community with an economy or whether we want to be an ongoing failure. To our west, Ozona is thriving. To our east, Junction is thriving. When I-27 is complete will we see the same thing when Eldorado outperforms us too? That would be sad. No one should want to be outdone by "slacker" county.

Happy Hacking!

Sam