That is right, I have, for the first time in my life left my home country and went to Mexico. Granted, it is for business but I will be here for a week and a half to two weeks so I will get to experience a lot of different things. So, here it is.. a day to day experience for my trip
Day: uno 1
The day started out really early.. I had to meet the guys at the shop at 3:00 AM in time to get tools and still make the flight. Once at the airport, as we were going through security we were all standing in line to go through the body scanner and one of the security agents asked for everyone who had already had their birthday this year already to go through the standard metal detector to help speed up the line.. at 5AM it took a minuet for my brain to kick in so, there was a delayed reaction. The result was him giving several of us crap for taking so long.
There was a lot of typical air port stuff that occurred but I will say that the flight to Texas was one of the smoothest I have ever been on. The Flight from there to San Luis Potosi was more fun however. it was a REALLY small commuter Jet that experienced a lot of turbulence. I also got seated just behind the wing (my favorite spot so I can watch the mechanisms on the wing working in flight)
Everything started to get real fun once we landed.. mostly for loss of communication skills and thus the understanding of what was going on during my first time through customs was fun. It took a few attempts to get the paper work correct but in the end they let me in.. and I went to get my checked luggage but wait….. it was not there, it was not even on our flight.. I had no translator there to tell me what I was suppose to do.. eventually I proceeded only to find out that pheewww it was sent on an earlier flight.. one thing that was fun though is after your luggage is scanned they tell you to push a big red button. (this is not a joke or a prank but they did not tell me what it was either) later I found out that it is to determine if you are randomly selected to have a physical search of your luggage.
After getting all of our luggage we headed out to get our rental car that had been pre-arranged with a friend of one of the managers here. Unknown to us though, it had not been paid for.. No one here wanted to pay for it as the total would have been well over $1000.00.. finally I said I would try but that I had not called my bank to let them know that I was traveling to Mexico. So of coarse it was declined and apparently with in the moment they were trying the transaction, my bank called my wife to confirm the legitimacy of the transaction.. (I love my bank!!) so the manager here had to do it even though he was unwilling.
The drive to the hotel was the most scary I had even seen.. there are typically not lane lines so you really drive where you want. and when there are lanes, it is merely a suggestion not a requirement. I know at one point there was a large commercial van next to us that was so close I could have reached my forearm out the window and touched it with no effort. Speed bumps of all sizes ranging from Normal to Gigantic under carriage scraping masses, were placed randomly on all main roads to accent the mammoth eating potholes everywhere. The person we were following decided that to get a taxi to move out of the way he would tailgate him.. Not like we do in the stated but more like 6-12″ from his bumper.
At the hotel we find out that only the first night of our planned 12 had been paid for.. that was a mess but at that point the only language spoken was Spanish so I went and relaxed in one of the nice chairs and waited until the problem was solved and we could go eat and get some sleep. By the way they did have my favorite sandwich at the McDonalds here (the McPollo or McChicken). For the meal it was $73.9 Pesos or about $7.00 US
Days: dos to cinco 2-5
As for the rest of the week we worked a typical 12 hrs a day. Food here is so/so eggs and beans or eggs and hot dogs for breakfast every morning, there was also chips and salsa, I leaned toward the cold cereal the most.. the eggs were not bad but the more I ate them the more my stomach became upset. At the shop, it was catered and usually had some kind of soup that was really not good at all..
Day: seis 6
It is finally Sunday and we do not work. The mental fatigue from the language barrier and work bureaucracy has set in and I did not get out of bed until almost 10.. I will also be going back to bed once this post is complete and plan on sleeping and maybe watching a movie the rest of the day.
One week in, and I will say that the things I miss the most about the US are: People who speak English in some form or another, American food!, and safe driving ( I know that sounds weird, Americans are safe drivers?)
Thank you all and hope you all enjoy the journey. that is if the Drug Cartel and Dirty Policia dont get me before the next post 🙂
This week, the craziness continued as the project I was working on was reaching its deadline. As it was completing, the fear of empty and shallow promises began to set in with the thought that they were for the mere purpose of having me complete something no one else was able or willing to do, with no intention of coming through or, sure they will give me a title promotion with not monetary compensation for the additional stress and responsibilities. Now I don’t say this lightly as it is something that scares a lot of people. I really don’t make much now, in fact, when I took this job; I explained that I am used to moving up the ladder quickly and that was the only reason I would accept as low of a pay as they were offering. (keeping in mind that I was taking a pay cut from what my last job was paying and I was extremely under paid there as well) After taking the job there was a lot of talk around the company that they did not give raises or “real” promotions, the only way you made more was to work more and after several weeks of working 80+ hours with a record of 117 hours in one week, it started to sink in. “Is it time to start looking for another job or focusing on my own business again?” it is scary to think about not being financially secure.. I know I could make it on my own but the early stages of a small business scare me the most. As this project wrapped up, the promises got bigger with the title of Manufacturing Engineer. Sure, it sounds great but will the pay match.. Probably not.. the last title they talked about giving me was about $20K more a year (at a starting pay) than I am making now. At this stage in the game Doubts run rampant.
