Difficult Journeys Can Lead To Your Most Authentic Self.
How I found my calling part 2.
"A lot of what shaped who I am and where I am today happened between Guatemala and Canada."
You know, it’s funny because the only reason I fell in love with computers was because I didn’t want to do the type writing. If you boil it down, it was always laziness that inspired my motivation for computers. But I’d soon learn that it wasn’t all about taking it easy. As soon as I went to school, it was super hard. We started learning C Language, Basic, and Pascal. It was incredibly difficult because while it was the best computer school, it was also one of the hardest schools for math and physics.
I started to find ways to automate everything in my life using computers. I became the assistant of the computer lab manager. Back then, no one had personal computers. I was one of the few in the country that had one. Everything had to be done in a computer lab, with a mainframe and a terminal. I became good friends with the manager of the computer lab at the school, so I had easy access to the lab. Because I was in love with automation, I would stay two- or three-hours past school to learn how to do the operations, how to copy files, and how to manage things. I was curious beyond belief.
Don’t get the wrong idea. I was obsessed with computers, but I definitely wasn’t a computer genius – yet. I was actually always the worst in computer science class. All my friends were better than me. Today, out of five guys, two of us stayed in computer science and we’re currently working together. My buddy is my VP of operations. Everyone else followed different career choices. Even though they were better than me, it simply wasn’t their passion. It wasn’t in their DNA. They applied their intelligence to other skills in life. Me, I was the worst, but I was so focused on learning it that I’m still running my software development business to this day. And that’s how I got started.
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I had graduated from computer science school in Guatemala. In the same month I got my diploma, my dad became the CEO of a manufacturing plant. They were doing injected plastic molds for different uses like shampoos, sprays, etc. They were making all kinds of bottles for the industry. He had 300 employees, and they were writing checks by hand. He said to me, “Ok, now you know some programming. I’ve got a computer at the office and I need you to write me a payroll system”. Of course, I took on the challenge. It was a chance for me to apply what I learned in the real world. I hired one of the smartest kids in school, and together over three months, I had made my first commercial product. It was a very rudimentary payroll system, but it ran well, it had a database, and it was calculating contributions and deductions for employees while printing checks automatically. What took the payroll department a week to accomplish, we cut down to one day. That was one of the first amazing experiences I had with computer science and applying it to business.
Once we had all of this in production, my older brother was already in Canada. He went to study at business school because he wanted to become his own boss, too. He got this scholarship to go to Laurier University, and he opened his own business on his last year of school. His business skyrocketed. He started importing goods and crafts from exotic countries, with the target market of women ages 14 to 60. It took off. It was the first store like this in the city. With business, there always comes a need for automation.
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He was having a lot of problems trying to complete the invoices and inventories. He was trying to do it all by hand. By now, it was 1991. He went back to Guatemala on vacation. My dad took him back to the factory, and he showed him the system that I built for him. My brother asked me if I wanted to come to Canada to write an invoicing system for him, because they were going crazy going to bed at midnight or 1am just counting the invoices and fixing all the mistakes they made. Of course, I agreed.
A lot of what shaped who I am and where I am today happened between Guatemala and Canada. I saw a humungous opportunity to move to Canada, but my brother was a struggling student and I was just starting my own career as a software engineer. I also had my beautiful wife and a one-year old baby. I was blessed enough to have had a car that was worth something and one of my best friends helped me sell my car to his dad. I got the tickets figured out, and I thought that was enough, but it really wasn’t. I had a student loan from university that I had just finished, and I forgot that I needed some money for provisions until I got to my brother’s house in Canada. The thing is, I only had enough money to see my sister in the United States – she lived in New York City back then. My brother was supposed to pick me up at the border.
Me and my dad threw a going away party, just a small reception to say goodbye. My uncle, my dad, and my aunt were all there. My wife’s family was there, too. At the end of the night, my aunt – I don’t know how or why –came and gave me fifty US dollars. She said, “Gatito,” – that’s what they nicknamed me, it’s Spanish for little cat – “take this money and use it in case of an emergency. God knows you might need it.” I took the money and put it in my wallet. That was the only cash I had on hand. All the money went to buying the tickets, so that was all the money I had. I flew to New York City, and in 1991, it was not the same as it is now. It was a very scary place back then. I stayed with my sister for a couple of days and she showed me around. I told my wife, “If Canada is like this, we’re getting a plane back the next day.” Even though I was coming from a country that was suffering a civil war, some parts of the city looked scarier than Guatemala did. After a couple of days, my sister put me on a bus to Buffalo to meet my brother.
Remember those fifty bucks? As soon as I left my sister’s house, we were on a ten-hour bus ride, and my baby daughter started to cry. She needed food, and we didn’t have any for her. The bus took a quick stop at a gas station and I was able to use that money to provide food for my daughter, wife and myself. We bought some diapers too, and that held us over while we got to Buffalo. Once we were there, we found out that my brother couldn’t pick me up (remember, he was struggling, too). He figured out with his friend that we could go to a convent to wait for him. We didn’t have any money for a hotel or anything like that. The way forward was so unclear, but our young family continued in faith.
[End of Part 2. What a crazy journey-- but it certainly doesn't end there. Until next time, friends.]