It’s difficult trying to run a business in Mexico when you don’t speak the language, but it was difficult working in Corporate America as well. Anytime you have to deal with other people it’s difficult especially when the communication isn’t based on honesty and trust. Who’s really honest and open and truthful at work? Most of us want to keep our job or keep our employees so we don’t say what’s really on our minds. God forbid we’re honest… there’s a lawsuit waiting to happen. Law suits are less prevalent in Mexico except for employees who leave or are fired. Laws in Mexico heavily favor the laborer.
The maestro is leaving tonight. I have mixed emotions. I’m fearful about the business and surviving in what’s already a precarious economic environment. I’m wondering if my two best people at producing grabado (carving on glass) will come to work tomorrow. They were very attached to the maestro. They’re young girls ages… 16 and 18. He encouraged, played along with their bad, immature behavior. Yet without the two of them it’ll be difficult to produce tomorrow. On the other hand… they have no respect for me, my office manager, and their supervisor.
Business is difficult for most of us! I’m not talking about sales and profits. I’m talking about really doing right by your employees. It’s a balancing act of wanting to survive, do well and do the right thing. It’s a constant lesson of learning from your mistakes and your successes, but most of all learning to read between the lines. I said in a previously entry, “I might be a little cynical and a bit jaded, but I expect that Corporate America utilizes only a fraction of their employee’s abilities, energy and assets.”
Reading between the lines… I have two disabled individuals working for us in our new factory. Have I done “right” by them? Have I done the right thing for myself or for my office manager? I want to have a company and I want to be able to pay my employees, but have I sacrificed my integrity or degraded my employees in pursuit of a dream. Or does the end justify the means as Nietzsche put it?
Business is difficult for most of us… If you have a conscious! If you care about people! If you care about yourself!
Read entry 43… The maestro said he was leaving because we put an employee in as a supervisor and he didn’t like being watched. As Juan, our grabado supervisor, got out of the car tonight I don’t think he even said goodbye to Gabrielle, the maestro. Gabrielle has shown him no respect. Question: Is it because Juan was the newest of the people learning grabado and Gabrielle felt that someone who didn’t know this process inside out couldn’t be a supervisor? We explained to him the difference between a teacher, a maestro and a supervisor, but that didn’t seem to sink in or convince him. Or was the lack of respect due to the fact that Juan is disabled?
The nature of discrimination is one of covertness (Wow! This might actually be a real word!) Covertness… Is it real? Isn’t that the question that we’re so often asked in these cases? How do you know? Invalidos!
This afternoon I went out with my office manager right before closing and in front of all of the employees thanked Gabrielle for all that he had done for us. As I was speaking one of these young girls evidently was laughing. I didn’t realize it at the time, but asked Mary, my office manager, what she said to this girl before translating. Mary just asked her why she was laughing. My comment to Mary was, “They always laugh when I talk.” Mary responded, “I hate it!”
What does this say about me? What does it say about how I feel about the two other disabled individuals? What does it say to the non-disabled individuals about how I feel about myself and others who are disabled? On the other hand… Is it real? Maybe we can’t quantify attitudes about disabilities, but general disrespect shouldn’t be a problem.
Now the maestro is gone and the girls might show up for work tomorrow. We’ve found another person who has been doing grabado for 20 something years and might have an interest in helping us out. My dream was to have 20 individuals doing this by the end of the year with 14 to 16 disabled. Now? I’m just hoping to survive…
More, much more to come!
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We can found our businesses incorporating social goals: employment of minorities and women, concern for the environment, a level playing field for the disabled. But in the end, the business has to survive, to prosper, because if it doesn't, none of the other goals can be reached.
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