Tercio de Melo Sousa

↵A Taste of Hell in Rio: Mob Robbery in Tunnel

Flash Mob Robbery, a.k.a. Steaming in UK, is something that was always far from my reality, it's something that I heard about once in a while on TV, that happened in Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo, those megalopolises where bad things matter. Everybody in Brazil is aware of the problems in Rio, its violence, its organized crime, its corrupt police and even more corrupt politicians. People are afraid of Rio, and I certainly was.

Strike 1

In 2018 I was living in São Paulo, unhappily working at Amazon, and my friend Remy was living in Rio, happily working at VTEX. He was insisting that I should give VTEX a chance, and I did. They flew me in to Rio on a July Thursday evening, and got me a room in ibis Styles on the upscale neighborhood of Botafogo, very close to the VTEX headquarters where I would spend my Friday being seduced.

It happens that I forgot to pack my toothbrush, and I needed to get a new one; brazilians are notoriously obssessed with teeth brushing and I would not sleep without brushing mine. A quick look on Google Maps revealed to me that I was in luck, there was a 24/7 drugstore right besides the hotel. I walked there and to my surprise the drugstore seemed closed. All it's doors shut with reinforced gates, and I couldn't even tell if there was some light on inside.

Then it became interesting. I pulled my phone out and started searching for another drugstore on Google Maps, then I heard somebody calling me from above.

— Hey, right there on the side — said the man on the balcony of an appartment two floors above, on the other side of the street.
— Huh what? — said I as I located him.
— There's a little window on the side where you can talk to a clerk.
— Oh, thanks!

At this point there was a lot to process, but I found the little window, pressed the button on the intercom — Damn! What am I doing? If the drugstore isn't safe, neither am I!, I thought as a waited — and a clerk answered it.

— Yes?
— I need a toothpaste and a toothbrush.
— Which brand?
— The toothpaste Colgate standard, or any other if you don't have it. The toothbrush, anyone will do.
— Okay. — and I heard the little sizzle of the intercom shutting down.

What if someone is coming to rob me? I thought as I looked around to check, the street was dark and empty. For this drugstore to be this secure and successful it can only mean two things: it's dangerous and it's lucrative. ; my tension increasing while I waited. It's got to be lucrative, many people in that hotel must forget personal higiene stuff and buy here at night.; that was my best hypothesis, and if I was a robber, that would seem like a pretty good place for me to wait for some fools.

The clerk opened the window, shoved a credit card terminal for me to pay with my card. The window closed, the window opened, and he pushed the items in a paper bag. I thanked and hurried back to the hotel. I questioned myself if moving to Rio would actually a good idea at all, that is not a reasonable reality; a drugstore needing to be so heavily secured against crime. Strike 1.

But there is no such thing as fighting against your heart. The following day at VTEX was amazing, I learned about the products, how the company worked, the culture, the people who were there — many of them being university colleagues of mine — , their tech, and I got hooked. I got hooked specially about VTEX IO, a serverless/low-code development platform for e-commerce. They didn't interview me, they spent the day pitching themselves to me and other candidates. I didn't even know I was a "candidate", actually. In the end of the day they made me the offer, for which I established that should I accept, I'd require to work on the bowels of VTEX IO, they were happy to grant that wish. On Saturday I flew back to São Paulo, on Sunday I sent an e-mail accepting the offer.

I moved to Rio a little over a month later to start the best job that I ever had so far. But I was still afraid of Rio, and on my second week there I would have a little ordeal.

Strike 2

It was Friday evening at the office, wrapping up my second week at VTEX. We were drinking beer in the company auditorium, planning what to do afterwards. In Brazil there's this usage of "friday" as a verb — Let's friday! —, which means to have fun with alcohol on a Friday evening/night, it can be going to a bar, to a party, to a brothel, or even going to a karaoke, which is what we chose. Feira de São Cristóvão is a piece of brazilian northeast in Rio de Janeiro; my home city happens to be in northeast. There you find traditional northeastern food, art, restaurants, music, shows, dance, and of course, many karaoke bars. It's amazing, though a bit far from VTEX by Rio standards.

We estimated that we would fit in 3 cars, so we called 3 Ubers. The first one came and took the first group, the second one came and I went in it; we will get to the third in a little bit. When my group arrived at Feira de São Cristóvão we found the first group very easily, bought our tickets for R$ 5 each, and went in. As we walked around drinking beer, seeing things, we noticed that the third group was taking some time to arrive. They eventually did, we met them and asked what made them take so long.

— Well... — one of them started — There was a flash mob robbery while we were going through the Santa Barbara Tunnel.
— Say what!? — The rest of us said with varying words and terms, some including a couple of curses — Keep going, what happened!?
— We were stuck in traffic more or less in the middle of the tunnel, which is a little unusual, but I guess not so much on a Friday evening. We thought that maybe there was an accident or something at some point and traffic was a bit jammed and...
— Dude, fuck it, what about the flash mob robbery? — Someone said
— So... — I was shocked by the naturality that he was displaying on this conversation — Out of nowhere a lot of motorcycles started coming in the opposite direction, and we noticed that they were turning around to escape from something, and that was when we realized that a flash mob robbery must be happening and the criminals coming in our direction. Other people in other cars must have realized the same, because they were leaving their cars behind and running out of the tunnel. We did the same. We ran out to the end of the tunnel and kept running until we found a taxi to bring us here.
— Well, that sucks. At least you didn't loose anything right? — Somebody said
— Yeah
— Ok then, let's find a karaoke for ourselves!
— Yeah!! — everybody reacted.

I was taken aback by that situation. I knew for sure that I was on that third car and had gone through that situation, would move back to São Paulo in the following week, find another job and resign from VTEX. Only two weeks in Rio and be in a flash mob robbery? Already? No thanks, that would have been the last straw. But I wasn't in that car, it never happened to me, I never was even robbed in my life. Nevertheless, Strike 2.

The following 2 years were amazing, I was able to build many things I'm proud of at VTEX, I learned from the best professionals that I ever had the pleasure of working with, I was mentored, I mentored people, I built a team, I burned out, I had fun, I had real impact and I was really impacted. But every story has an end, and COVID eventually happened. When I realized it wouldn't be a short event, I knew I couldn't stay there; some other day I tell you why. For now know that was Strike 3.