ON THE RAILS AND READY TO GO

The newly hired personnel, including me, spent the rest of the morning chatting and talking about our own experiences at school and our immediate and long-term goals; we were just killing time until lunch time, as we had been invited for lunch by Pepe. I was the only one who was single; the other three were married and had kids. Their urgencies were different than mine; I wanted to make a career in the Firm, and I said so during our conversation, whereas the other three thought that their agreed salaries would not be enough to keep their families going, so they said they would, sooner or later, start looking for a better paid job. At lunch time Pepe talked to us about the Firm`s history, about its Swedish founder, about their goals in Ecuador, a country where they had good expectations for their business. Pepe also discussed with us about the Firm’s training programs which comprised tree important seminars abroad in 1969, and at least other two on an annual basis thereon. The ones in 1969 included an eight week long program on Accounting, to take place in Cali, Colombia, a one week Introduction to Auditing in Bogota, also in Colombia and a three week intensive Introduction to Auditing seminar, in Mexico City, one after the other, beginning in June. I was thrilled. Not only I was going to have a first class training in areas that were not my strongest (accounting and auditing), but I was also going to visit places I had never been to, and had always wanted to visit. The staff’s training program also included locally conducted seminars, as well as “hands on” training provided by the most experienced staff, including senior auditors brought in from Colombia, Argentina, the US and Peru.

My first local “training” consisted of literally adding up the local telephone book. The fact of the matter is that, since I came from a non accounting school, I never learned how to use an electric adding machine without looking at the board and using the five fingers, therefore, when my first supervisor, Jerry Windham saw me adding an inventory list using only one finger and looking at the machine’s board, he jumped on me and asked “what are you doing Rafael?”, my answer was “I’m adding this inventory list”. Jerry laughed and didn’t believe what he was seeing; he just didn’t believe that an auditor didn’t know how to use an adding machine. Patient as he was, he asked me to stop my work and ordered me to start a crash course in “how to add like a real auditor should”. “I don’t care how long it takes Rafael” he said, and added “you take this book (showing me the three inch thick local telephone book) and start adding it using your five fingers and without looking at the machine’s board” , then he gave me a couple of tips about how to do it the right way, and he continued jokingly “I know exactly how much that book should add up to, and when you are finished, I’ll tell you if you pass this course”.

It took me a full week of struggling with the damn machine, at the beginning I thought that my fingers were not going to respond, I felt they were lazy and dumb, it seemed that I was not going to be able to do it and therefore "i was going to flunk the course", but such is the virtue of training, that at the end of one week, I knew how to add relatively fast without looking at the board. Jerry was happy to see that I was able to add “like a real auditor should”, but I was even happier that I had passed the test.

Since I was the only English speaking staff member, I was always assigned to the jobs where Jerry and Pepe were the senior and the manager in charge, all the working papers in these audits were in English and I surely benefitted from such a great supervision and the “on the job training” that came with it. The other staff members always had to work with either Colombian or Peruvian seniors whose training was not as good as Jerry’s. By the beginning of April, I had participated in a number of audits and had the chance to see the final product of them, The Auditor’s Reports and the byproduct that came with it, the so called “Blue Backs” which was a memorandum of “Recommendations to the Management for Improving the Company’s Internal Controls, Policies and Procedures”, which resulted from the auditors’ work. I was very happy with my job, my supervisors were very happy with my work and everything was going on rails.

It was by mid April that I met Fanny, my wife of 37 years with whom we have made a family we both feel very happy and proud of, and both have said many times over that we would marry again and again if given the chance to live one or more new lives. It was at the Sweet Sixteen Party for my niece Chachita, on April 15. This was basically an extended family gathering to celebrate Chachita’s BD and what is called in our country “the girl’s introduction to society”. I had just returned to Ecuador after two years of absence and was just trying to reintroduce myself to the extended family and family friends. It must have been about 10 PM in an unusually fresh and slightly windy summer night, the party was being held in the terrace of the building where my sister Lilia and her family lived, right across the Alcivar Hospital on Calderon Street, one block from the Mighty Guayas River front.




FANNY (WHITE DRESS) AT 18

There must have been about fifty people in the party; my niece Chachita looked beautiful in her pink sweet sixteen dressing gowns, and she was transpiring happiness as much as her proud parents were. The speech introducing Chachita to society was delivered by a family friend in which he pondered not only her beauty, but also, and more important, her virtues as a young woman, as a student, as a sister and as a daughter. Her parents, Lolo and Lilita were still emotionally sobbing when the music started. The music and the drinks that followed began to put “the pepper” to the party when I saw this pretty young brunette standing by and talking to my brother Pancho’s wife Clara. “Heck”, I said to myself, “there is someone I could enjoy the party with”. I thought she was very attractive, and since I had no one to dance with, I approached my sister in law and asked her to introduce her friend to me. Showing a surprised face, Clara said, “Rafico, I don’t have to introduce her to you, you have known my niece Angelita for a long time, you just do not recognize her, she’s Nena, you have known her for at least ten years, since she was eight”, and added, “She’s the daughter of my older sister Fanny, her father is Facundo, you know them very well, don’t you”. Surprised and still not quite sure, but trying to hide my lack of good memory, I said, “Oh sure, I remember her now (I really didn’t quite recognize her, but I didn’t want to look like a fool at that moment), but, I added "it's amazing how much she has changed, she is now a complete and beautiful señorita”, and without much to add to the conversation, I asked Angelita (her name is actually Fanny Angelita, but I have always called her “Nena”, which is her nickname since she was a child), if we could have a dance together. I could see then that Nena was a little shy (not quite any more, I can tell you!), but she accepted my invitation to dance.

In my next posting: ON TRACK AND OFF I GO