Chapter 8

Sr. Alvarez put me to work right away. My first job was learning how the incoming barley, hops, etc. were handled. I had never given that much thought, but the job was a lot more significant than I had imagined. My first three weeks were spent out on the warehouse floor learning what went where and why that was important. Anyway, it was a lot more interesting than I had expected, and I am sure that I bored my wife and mother-in-law to death talking at supper about what I was learning.

My next job was actually in the brewery, and that lasted two months as I followed the entire production from raw materials to bottling and storing the finished Mexicali Delight up to the actual shipping.

I even was sent with a local delivery to see how that was handled. That was my first opportunity to escape from the brewery itself since I had arrived in San Juan. To my amazement, I actually missed all of the activity within the brewery and could hardly wait to get back to San Juan. Maybe I was cut out to be a brewery manager after all.

Uh-oh, now the drudgery started. I was pinned to my desk shuffling papers. At least, that was how it felt at first. However, as Sr. Alvarez shifted more and more of the routine stuff to me, I began to appreciate how much responsibility the manager really had and how important it was to keep the flow of the product moving.

The first week, I was snowed under by the mass of paperwork, but then I began to see how to shift that down the line to the foremen. This was my first opportunity to be the boss of so many people, and I began to realize that they knew what they were supposed to do. I did not have to micro-manage—in fact, the whole business ran better if I stayed out of the way and let the experts do their jobs.

Of course, the first couple of days were appreciated by the foremen because I took a lot of the paperwork that they normally handled, and they were getting a mini-vacation, but the third day was a shock to them when they found out how much I had unknowingly messed up the smooth production routine. There were two days of frantic work as the foremen straightened out what I had messed up.

That was when Sr. Alvarez called me into his office and gently but firmly explained that I should let the foremen handle all of that routine paperwork that I had been trying to do. He explained that the foremen could handle the normal stuff, and I was there only to help them straighten out kinks that occasionally came up. That was my real job; otherwise, I should just keep my nose out of their business. My basic job was policy and their job was implementation. Okay, now that I understood what my job really was, the brewery returned to its normal operation.

I did find out that the first week had been a teaching experience that Sr. Alvarez and the foremen had been in on, and I had acted exactly as they had expected. In effect, the foremen enjoyed the joke that they had pulled on me, and I now bonded well with my subordinates. I no longer gave unnecessary orders, and they no longer pestered me with the paperwork that they were supposed to handle.

At this point, Sr. Alvarez gave me a secretary, and I had even less of the routine stuff to follow up on. My secretary, Julio Insosu, had been around for many years and could probably have done all of the routine segments of my job than I could ever do, but he was not interested in taking a lot of responsibility. He was happy with his job, and he sure made life a lot easier for me.

After I had been at the brewery for a few months, I was called into Sr. Alvarez’s office for a serious discussion. Unknown to me, he had been carrying on a steady correspondence with Juan in Los Angeles. There was a problem that I had not been aware of: most of the employees had one hell of a time pronouncing my name. “Sr. Summinski” was one hell of a tongue twister, especially for those people who spoke only Mexican Spanish.

Therefore, Sr. Alvarez had suggested, and Juan had gone along with it, that they ask that I change my name from Summinski to Hernandez. It was not at all unusual for a man of the hidalgo class to take on his wife’s name if her family had more social distinction than his. That certainly was true in my case. Juan had cleared it with Papa and Mama, but I wanted to know what Rosita had to say on the subject. The change was okay with me if she approved.

Dammit, a whole lot of stuff was going on behind my back! Juan had written to Rosita, so she already knew about the proposed name change. She approved and was just waiting for me to bring it up. That evening, I mentioned it to her and her mother. Both women gave me their enthusiastic support, so the change was put into the works. In the process, I became a citizen of Mexico, and my name was officially changed to Orville Hernandez.

It turned out that the brewery workers all accepted the change with a sigh of relief because they could start using “Sr. Hernandez” when talking to me instead of the God-awful “Sr. Summinski.” Rosita and I got a good laugh at that, and I was accepted at work as just another high-class Mexican. Not only did Hernandez slip more easily off the tongue, but the locals felt that it was more natural for the Assistant Manager to be named after the communities top dogs. I actually could feel the relaxation spread through the brewery and the community of San Juan. If anything, I received even more respectful attention.

I was amazed that I began to feel like a true Mexican, and to view those occasional Americanos I met with a small degree of suspicion. I am sure that they felt the same about me.

After I had been under Sr. Alvarez’s tutelage for nearly 11 months, he started to have chest pains. I managed to convince him that I had enough training as Assistant Manager to allow him to take a few days off to try to recover from whatever his illness might be. After considerable pressure had been applied, he finally agreed to see a doctor.

Fortunately, a very qualified Spanish doctor happened to be aboard a ship docked in San Luis for some minor repairs, so he was available to see Sr. Alvarez. The doctor had a diagnosis immediately. It was the doctor’s opinion that Sr. Alvarez’s heart was announcing that it had had enough! Sr. Alvarez was simply working too hard for a man his age. He had to slow down, or his heart was just going to stop working.

Well, everybody but Sr. Alvarez had no trouble believing that. He was sure that his heart was perfectly all right and all of his discomfort was coming from too many rich foods. He stuck with that opinion until one day the pain moved into his left arm and up around his neck. The pain was so intense that Sr. Alvarez fell from his desk chair and had to be carried to his carriage which was immediately driven home.

Once home, Sra. Alvarez would brook no argument. She put her husband to bed and ordered him to stay there except for when he needed to use the chamber pot. It was difficult for me to believe that Sra. Alvarez had such a commanding personality when she felt so strongly on a subject. Okay, Sr. Alvarez finally took orders from someone whom he respected and he knew had his best interests at heart. He didn’t like it, but he did do as he was told.