The Cafe Owner

CM: Tell us the story of how you got started in business here in San Miguel.

Kris: I came down after college to study Spanish for a month – from the University of Austin in Texas – and I ended up staying for a year the first time I came. I worked as an English teacher.

CM: An English teacher in...?

Kris:  At a school called Interidiomas, which no longer exists. I taught the volunteer fire department how to speak English. I had the volunteer firemen every day at 8:00 in the morning, and then I taught adults and children during the day.

After that I went back to graduate school at the University of Massachusetts. When everyone else was getting a corporate job in America, I decided that wasn’t the route I really wanted to take and I came down here instead.

CM: I think there are a lot of people who don’t want to take the corporate route. So, if somebody were interested in doing something like what you have done, what advice would you give them?

Kris: A lot of the stuff I did was with ignorance, and I got into a lot of things just because I didn’t know any better. I wouldn’t actually re-do what I did. One reason I came down here was because I needed a lot less capital to open a restaurant, where I didn’t have that option after getting out of school in the states.

At the time it was very reasonable to open a business in Mexico. Things have since changed. It was a lot of very hard work. I worked like 14 hours a day, seven days a week for the first three years.

CM: Were you cooking and bussing the tables?

Kris: I was the only cook for the first year – cook and baker. I was the only baker for the first three years. After I hired my first cook and trained her, then I did all the baking for three years. Then I slowly got employees. Since my menu is not a traditional menu, I have to train my staff, and it takes months because it’s things that they are not used to in their homes.

CM: That was one of the things I was going to ask you: if you found people in the community who could cook and bake or if you had to train them.

Kris: Definitely had to train them. I mean they knew some basic stuff like rice and beans and salsas... and every now and then a little more than that but not much. Basic sanitation is something that is a big problem. You have to train your workers from day one. Even with employees I’ve had who have been in other notable restaurants and hotels in town, I am amazed at what they do not know.

If they come from the communities outside of town, which most of the dishwashers do... They are not even from San Miguel. They are from the rural areas around San Miguel. The don’t have refrigerators at home. A lot of our employees in this town come from ranches. They come into town on a bus, sometimes for an hour to get here for work. They know nothing about refrigeration. A lot of them don’t have working bathrooms in their houses. They don’t even know the different utensils to use, as they eat every meal with a spoon in a bowl.

CM: I’m skipping ahead now, but one of the questions I wanted to ask you was if the gentrification of San Miguel de Allende has pushed the Mexican elements outside of downtown.

Kris: Definitely. It’s become very expensive for people to live here. There is a lot of employment. That’s the good thing about it. There are a lot of jobs here. That’s why the bedroom communities, as we call them, come to San Miguel for work.

CM: I see some parallels in the genesis of Boulder, Colorado and San Miguel de Allende. Boulder, other than a university town, was also a hippy town in the 1960s and 1970s, and you could hang out and practice Buddhism and rock climb and stuff like that. As it became more and more popular, those guys couldn’t afford to live there anymore and got kind of pushed up into the hills. So, I was wondering if, as San Miguel has gentrified, if maybe the (original) gringos as well have gotten pushed out into the countryside.

Kris: Well, they just don’t live in the downtown area anymore. I have very few friends now who live in the downtown area because it’s too expensive. Most everybody lives in the neighborhoods, walking 20 or 30 minutes form here. Some have gone out to the country.

The Mexicans themselves rarely buy a house. That’s not an option for them. You build. So now they have to go out further and further just to find land that’s reasonable.

CM: But they do build their own homes?

Kris: Yes. Not everyone can, of course, but that is the route... Mortgages here are few and far between, so you buy a piece of land and you build. That is if you are lucky enough to be able to do that.

CM: So, after spending your first three years baking and training your staff, what happened after that?

Kris: Well, basically we started as a bakery/cafe. It wasn’t a full restaurant. By the second year we did breakfast only, and by the third year we evolved into a restaurant. We added personnel. We expanded. This has been expanded (she sweeps her hand to indicate the large room where we were sitting). Originally we only had four tables up front. It was very tiny.

CM: So, not taking the road to corporate life, has it been easy?

Kris: It has been good and bad. The good thing about corporate life is that you usually have a check in the mail every fifteen days. I’ve always been an entrepreneur. I had my own little businesses since I was fourteen or fifteen, so it’s been natural to me. I’ve never had a job with a paycheck. That would be kind of a luxury. I can’t imagine that kind of life, honestly.

You know, here, as a boss, you are the last person to get paid. You cover everybody else’s salary and the bills and if there is money left over you get paid; if there is not, then you don’t. It took this business about three years to break even, so I paid myself the first year ten pesos a day, which is not much money (laughs). And that was it. I mean, I couldn’t afford to eat out in restaurants. That was an absolute luxury, and I couldn’t afford to do anything like that for the first two or three years.

CM: So, anybody reading this on Café Mundo is going to be discouraged from ever coming down here and opening a restaurant!

Kris: You know, it all depends on how you open it and where you’re at. I started with nothing, really. And I really built it up. You could come down here with a chunk of capital and open a business. I didn’t do that. I didn’t have that. I worked like the Mexicans did: little by little, building it up.

You wouldn’t do this if you were looking to make money. Let’s put it that way. It’s not an option you choose if your financial situation is the most important thing to you. There are other things that you gain, but it’s not going to be money. If you want to make money, you just stay in the United States. Mexico is not the place to make money.

I wanted to be my own boss. That was a big important thing. The one big problem I had with corporate America was that they told me I could only have two weeks’ vacation a year. I had a big problem with that.

CM: That’s not enough.

Kris: No, it’s definitely not enough because I’ve always been a big traveler, and I didn’t want anyone to dictate to me where and when I could take off. And even though the money hasn’t always been there, I’ve had the freedom to travel several times a year. For me the traveling, even if it’s with a backpack, was more important than making a high salary.

CM: Is that what led to your wholesale business as an importer/ exporter?

Kris:  Nope. I actually started that way before, when I first came to San Miguel. I had a lot of friends who were into the business, and then when I moved back to Massachusetts, and was in school, I opened a store in North Hampton basically to pay for my trips to San Miguel a couple times a year. So I had a store for two years in Massachusetts selling Mexican goods. It didn’t really make any money, but it paid for my trips. I came here all summer, and came here for the winter semester.

Now what I do is mostly Asian imports as, basically, an excuse to go to Asia once a year. It’s not a financial motive. These businesses are  a way for me to do something I like and it pays for itself. It’s not going to make me rich, but I can recover all my costs.

CM: It sounds like a great lifestyle.

Kris: I like it, plus it gives my trips a mission, where I’m not going to, like, sit on the beach and read. I get real bored with that after a day or two. If you have a business, you can meet people you wouldn’t meet normally. We have friends now in Turkey and Bali and Morocco and Laos who we work with and make contact with. We know their families. So, we’re not tourists necessarily.

And it’s nice to know that economically you help certain families in certain countries.

CM: So how did you work with the indigenous community when you got here – as a boss, hiring them, or establish relationships with your suppliers? How do you find them and develop relationships with them?

Kris: Well, things now are so different from when I came. When I came about 14 years ago, it was very rural and provincial. I remember one of the first purveyors that ever came looking for me – I was 25 at the time – came in and asked to speak with my father. And I said, “You know, my father is in Texas. My father is not in Mexico.” And he said, “Oh, I’m so sorry. Can I speak with your husband?”

And when I told him I wasn’t married, he didn’t want to sell to me. He didn’t want to work with a 25-year old girl. And he was a coffee salesman, but that was the end of that. If there wasn’t a man at the front of the house he wasn’t interested. That wouldn’t happen today. But fifteen years ago stuff like that still happened here.

It took a while for people to take me seriously here, as a foreign woman.

CM: So that was a cultural barrier you had to cross. What other cultural barriers were there?

Kris:  Working with my employees every day is a cultural barrier.

CM: Still?

Kris: Oh, God. I know the culture. I understand it, but half the people I work with come from the ranch communities. They are very small-town...

CM: Would you call them campesinos?

Kris:  Yeah. The majority are, but that’s who you get as kitchen help.... So, their way of thinking is so different. For example, today – and every day – I have a fight with my cook (because) they never turn the lights on in the kitchen. She says it takes away all of her energy.

CM: It takes away her energy?

Kris: Yes. And I argue that I need light so I can see if I’m working in the kitchen, so I turn the light switch on, and she turns it off. She can’t work with the light because it saps her energy... and she really believes that. There is no way of getting around it...

They have all these... ideas that they truly, truly believe, and you know they’re kind of nonsense, but it’s what they believe. So, it’s very hard to work with that, and it takes years just to understand where they’re coming from.

CM: As far as values or belief systems?

Kris: Well, their way of thinking. I also learned that money is not (as much) a motivating factor as it is in our culture. For some people it is, but for a lot of people it’s not. It’s not about money; it’s about other things. So, giving someone a salary increase doesn’t mean they’re going to stay. (You have to) give them the other things they want.

They don’t want too much pressure. They want, you know, more of a laid back scenario. They want to have time with their family. They want to have Sunday off. They don’t want to work late. They want to be able to come in... late (laughs).

CM: That’s interesting to me because I have had no contact with the campesino community. I have had contact with those who have come to the United States, particularly in the construction industry, and they work like dogs. I mean they work hard. And so I thought there was this work ethic in Mexico.

Kris: Well, the workers say this themselves. My employees told me this: that all the good workers left. Anyone who wants to be a good worker... left the country already. In their own community they say that. If you’re ambitious and you want to get somewhere you don’t stay in Mexico. You leave.

Most of my employees too are women with families, and they can’t just pick up and leave. And all the guys that really have the motivation – if they come from these communities where they really have no opportunity whatsoever – they do leave.

CM: So do you think it’s a good thing that people like you come down here because you are creating opportunity?

Kris:  Um, it’s good and bad. We create jobs. There is very high employment in San Miguel as opposed to other communities. But we also make prices go way up. I think of real estate (which is) just outrageous in this town. But with jobs the educational level rises. Because... at these jobs a lot of them learn to speak English out of necessity... so it’s in their benefit. They learn to cook; learn about sanitation. They learn a lot if they choose to learn.

CM: Then they can keep their kids in school longer. That’s the other thing, because if they have a stable job, they have some income, they don’t have to worry about their kids trying to find a job at a young age.

Kris: Well that’s very true. So, employment, again, makes the education system work (better). Even though education is free, it’s not free. They do require them to buy these uniforms; these books. It’s actually quite expensive if you look at it proportionally to what people make and what they have to spend at schools here.... It’s much more than we pay in the States really.... And for working mothers making a little more than minimum wage, it’s a lot of money.

CM: That’s interesting because Aimee went to school in Mexico, and she studied things in high school that we don’t study until college, if at all in the United States. So when I asked her why the educational level in Mexico was so low (if the schools are good), and she told me it’s because so many people don’t send their children to school. And it’s primarily a problem in the countryside.

Kris: Well, they can’t afford it, just because of what they have to buy for the children. Or they need that child bringing in an income.

CM: So back to the cultural barriers. Can you tell me the story that (a mutual friend) told me about someone casting a spell on you?

Kris: Yes, I will tell you that story. This was about maybe ten years ago when I had a disgruntled employee. I can’t even remember the circumstances, but she left and was unhappy that she left. So she went to a witch doctor. Black magic is very big here – again, in the rural communities. I wouldn’t say in all of Mexico. But these people do come from the ranches, and she got the witch doctor to tell her what to do to get her revenge on me.

She would come by every day, and throw a bouquet of red flowers through that window right there. And the first day or two I picked up the flowers and thought, “Oh, how nice. Someone left me flowers.” And then one of my waitresses was telling me not to touch the flowers; that they were cursed. And I thought that was absolute nonsense. Then all my other employees wouldn’t touch them. This continued for like two weeks, and when the flowers were on the floor, none of my employees would touch them. They wouldn’t take them off the floor – because they were cursed. So, I would pick them up...

CM: and put them on the tables.

Kris: No, in a vase! But I had people telling me I didn’t know what I was getting myself into; that there was death and destruction. And they really believe all this stuff. It got to the point where they had me scared to touch the flowers by the end of two weeks. I mean, it was a head game.

For them it’s not... there’s nothing wrong with the flowers. It’s what they symbolize. So what they told me I had to do... was to hire my own witch doctor to do a counter-spell. I didn’t go that far, but I found out from someone what the counter-spell would be.

CM: OK, so tell us how you solve this.

Kris:  What we did was... and we did it kind of to pacify my employees, because they really believe in it. We had to put alcohol in the form of a cross (on the floor) and burn it, which we did. Supposedly that cleaned everything.

After that the flowers stopped coming.

CM: Really? Maybe the word got out that you had cleansed the spell.

Kris: Yeah.  I think so, because this is a small community, so I’m sure they told the girl that I had hired my own witch doctor and that she had better just quit wasting her money. I don’t know the details.

CM: And you know that the curse can go back to you in Mexican culture. If you curse somebody, that curse can go back to you if somebody counters it. So, if she heard that you had hired your own witch doctor, she may have feared that if she continued doing this to you it could go back to her.

Kris: It worked. But it’s funny how, like I said, they started making me think twice about touching the flowers because they were just so adamant. I’m not aware of it all, but there are so many things that symbolize different things. You have to be aware of it. (For example)... in the Mexican community, all the people who are like a little “off,” people say they had spells cast against them. So you can’t be... schizophrenic. That doesn’t exist here. You had a spell cast upon you. That’s why something is wrong with you. And they talk about all the people they know in this community who have all these problems, and it all has to do with black magic. There’s nothing scientific about it.

CM: It’s still a very mystic belief system.

Kris: Yep. It’s amazing that they still believe all (that), but they really do.

CM: I would say something like “Gee, it will be a good thing when the scientific revolution catches up with the countryside in Mexico,” but that would be ethnocentric.

Kris: It’s kind of cute. It’s kind of nice in a way... you know, entertaining.

CM: Well, I wonder if it does them harm. If someone’s sick, for example, they would seek out a brujo.

Kris: A lot of them do. Instead of modern doctors? A lot of them do. But I’ve heard incredible stories about people getting cured. I don’t know if you’ve heard the same. I don’t say that I believe or disbelieve. I’m open to listening to it all.

I had a really good friend... this is one of my favorite stories.... A friend of mine who is American was down here, and she had been married about ten years, and she wanted to have a baby but could not conceive. They ended up getting a divorce.

She was in New York, and went to a number of specialists in New York.... And they said it was impossible. It’s not going to happen. So she ended up divorced; stayed here, and she was probably in her early thirties at the time. She got a Mexican boyfriend, and he wanted to marry her.

She said, “I’m never getting married again.”

He said, “No, no, no. I really want to marry you.”

And she said, “The only way I’m getting married again is if I’m pregnant.” In her mind it was impossible to get pregnant.

So he said, “Fine, I’m going to get you pregnant.” So he took her to a witch doctor. It was an old woman, and the witch doctor laid her down on a table and performed “surgery” on her. You know, just over her body, with her hand. She kept telling my friend not to move; that she was performing surgery. So she went along with it out of curiosity. Afterwards... she had to lay in bed forty days and forty nights because she just had major surgery.

Then she said, “Your boyfriend is going to fulfill your every need and wait on you hand and foot while you are recuperating.” (My friend) liked that part of course... So, she went along with it, just to entertain herself in a way. They did exactly what the witch doctor had said, and within a month she was pregnant. And she had a baby, and then they tried to have a second child two or three years later, but she went the medical route again. She couldn’t conceive, so she went to a doctor, and the doctor looked at her and said, “It’s impossible for you to get pregnant.”

They went back to the witch doctor, and the witch doctor said, “The operation only works once. I can’t do it again.”

Isn’t that amazing? So, you can’t rule it out. If you didn’t know her you would think she was exaggerating, but I knew her when she was married; when she wanted to have a baby and couldn’t get pregnant. I’ve known her for fifteen years.

CM: So has any of this rubbed off on you? Do you practice... anything?

Kris:  No. I’ve never been in a situation where I needed to, but if I were gravely ill or something I wouldn’t rule it out. I’ve probably heard ten or fifteen stories like that, which I really believed because I know the people well. I believe something happened. I can’t tell you what it is, but think they are true.

(So) in a lot of these communities, before they ever go to a medical doctor they will go to like a... well, if there is a cura there, it’s not really a witch doctor. I don’t know what the translation would be – a healer. If it’s black magic, they will go to a witch doctor, but if its a medical thing, they would go to a healer. It’s the same idea.

CM: These are old indigenous traditions? I mean, this is not new stuff.

Kris: No. This is old, old stuff. There is a guy in Querétaro who I’ve been curious about that a friend of mine went to. Again, a Mexican who had been living in New York for fifteen years had a really bad problem with a herniated disk in his back. In New York they said, “Do an operation.” He went to two or three specialists, and they said he needed an operation. (He) came back here to visit his family, and I just saw him a couple of weeks ago. He heard about this guy in Querétaro who works with bee stings. This is supposed to be Chinese medicine....

He went to see this guy three times and his back is completely cured. (The bees stung him) in certain areas of his back. It was quite painful of course, but using the bee stings he got rid of this disk problem. That every surgeon... had said needed this (surgical) procedure done.

...

CM: When you first opened your business, how did you deal with the Mexican authorities? What kinds of permits did you need to open your bakery? Was it difficult?

Kris: Some stuff was difficult, but – again – it’s changed since then. I had a big problem with immigration... the person who was in charge of immigration when I moved here. I was trying to get my working papers, and it took me nine months. I couldn’t get them, and I couldn’t get them... and there was a group of young women in town and we all realized that we were the only group that couldn’t get (our papers).

One of the girls pointed out that we had all of our files in a separate drawer of his office; not in the filing cabinets outside with his secretary. Well, he always wanted to meet us in bars late at night to go over immigration issues. You can see where this is going.

So a few of us got to talking, and we knew something was up. Well, one of my friends, about my same age, was married to a Mexican, and (the immigration official) didn’t realize she was married, but he tried to pull that same thing with her. Her husband knew people in Mexico City, and they got him fired.... But he basically had never submitted our papers.

In the meantime I had to hire a lawyer to go to Mexico City to go to the immigration office, because this guy was in charge here, and I couldn’t work with him. It cost me a lot of money.....

CM: Any other problems as far as getting a permit to serve food, or anything?

Kris: No. Unfortunately the health department is quite lax. I’ve been in business 13 years and I’ve been checked maybe four times. I go out and eat in restaurants, so I don’t like the fact that the health department only comes knocking on the door once every three or four years.

You need to get your tax papers in order, which is not difficult. It’s cumbersome, but it just takes time. And I think it’s much easier these days....

Basically it’s just taxes, immigration, health department; you don’t really need anything else.

CM: Yes, my impression of Mexico is that it’s kind of a weird mix of bureaucratic authority and lax enforcement.

Kris: That’s a good way to explain it. Just the laws in Mexico are a good example, because the laws on the books are very strict. Supposedly Mexico has some of the toughest environmental laws in the entire world, but they don’t enforce them. And that’s how the whole country operates. On the books the paperwork is just... enormous, but no one checks it; no one enforces it.

CM: That leaves the bureaucracy with a tremendous amount of discretion.

Kris: Well, I got audited once about six years ago. It happens to everybody probably on about a 10-year cycle. My accountant said, “You’ve got to give them something so they can fine you.” 

(I said)... “No, no, no. Everything’s done right here.”

He said that I had to give them something. You have to give them something and you have to pay them.... Like, here’s a mistake. Make it obvious. Show it to them, and when they tell you the fine, pay it.

From our way of thinking, if everything’s in order, why make up a problem that’s not there? It’s like, “No, you don’t understand how the system works. They come after you for money; you pay them.” Whether you need to or not, you just have to give them something so they’ll go away.

It didn’t make any sense to me. It still doesn’t make any sense to me, but it’s an example to everybody. They are not going to go away until they get something....

I think the bribery thing has gotten much, much better in Mexico over the last 15 years, but it definitely still exists... everywhere.

CM: We ran into a minor example of that when we wanted to get our marriage license in Puerto Vallarta. It was a matter of waiting for weeks, and we shoved some bills across the counter and asked, “Is there any way we can get it sooner.” Of course you can get it sooner!

Kris: Of course you can. See they don’t take that as bribery. Here it’s called a tip – a propina. It’s just giving someone a tip to work faster. But they make things slow so you will tip them....

That’s just the way it operates. And Americans come down here and they’re very indignant, and “We’re not going to do this, and we want our stuff by tomorrow.” It’s not gonna happen. You either play the game or you leave.

CM: Well, that’s good information, if someone is thinking about coming down here and running a business. They need to be psychologically prepared to deal with that.

Kris: You have to work within the cultural parameters of Mexico, and not what’s in your head – what you were raised with. I tried that the first year, and it got me nothing but trouble. You can’t apply your culture to their country. You have to play by their rules. And a lot of it you might think is immoral, or not legal, but you can’t judge it. You just need to play by their rules. The ones that fight the system are the ones who have all the problems, too.

...

CM: OK, we were just talking about how hard it is to fire an employee. Why is that?

Kris: Because of the labor laws – a lot of them date back to the Revolution and haven’t really been modified because no one in the country wants to go there. The masses would be in an uproar if the labor laws changed. It’s very hard to fire someone, so in the Mexican culture you don’t fire someone, you just make them want to leave. (That is) so you don’t have to pay them off, because if you fire someone, by law you owe them three months’ salary for every year they have worked for you.

CM: Oh, really?

Kris: Yeah. For example, if you have an employee for five years, you owe them (about) a year and a half of salary as a severance pay... plus other stuff. That’s just a base pay. Firing people is very, very expensive, so most Mexicans don’t fire people. The just get rid of them by making them want to leave.

CM: That seems like it may have kind of a perverse consequence. I mean, I wonder if the Mexican workers would be better off if they modified the law.

Kris: I think they would. I really think they would because it creates all these lawsuits.... not lawsuits like we have (in the United States), but employee lawsuits, the employee lawsuits.

CM: Is that a special court or something?

Kris: Yeah, it is. It is a very big court. I’m being sued right now by a former construction worker of mine... and I knew better from my experience here. But... he was smoking pot on the job, and we finally fired him. I didn’t do it. I had someone do it. I know the law quite well, and there are only, like, six reasons that you can fire someone legally and drug use is not one of them. But I thought... considering it’s illegal, we could get rid of him on that. He wasn’t working. He was just stoned all day long.

So, we finally fired him after a few months of him not dropping the pot (use), and now he has sued me, saying that he has been working for me for two years and that I’ve never paid him. (That is)... what they do. When they file a lawsuit, they basically say they’ve never been paid – which is ridiculous because who’s going to stay on a job for two years if they’ve never gotten a salary? I mean common sense tells you it can’t be true.

Then we introduced the fact (that he was)... bringing illegal drugs onto my property and consuming them, and (the court said) “that’s beside the point.” That doesn’t matter.

CM: Oh really!

Kris: Does not matter at all.

CM: Is this in front of a judge or a jury?

Kris: This is from a judge. You don’t have juries in labor disputes.

CM: OK, and the judge said it’s irrelevant.

Kris: It’s irrelevant. It doesn’t matter what drugs he’s doing in your house. Because I fired him without just cause, I’m the guilty person. Illegal drug use is not just cause.

CM: So, what happened?

Kris: It’s still in court. We have had two meetings and we’re trying to work out a settlement. We also have the argument that of course he was paid. Plus he was only there for nine months; not two years.

CM: OK, even if you work out an arrangement where he agrees to say, “Yeah, I was paid for one year,” you are still going to owe him three months’ salary and benefits?

Kris: Oh, yes. I’m going to owe him a lot of money. No matter what happens I’m going to owe him a lot of money. And I knew the law... but I had someone else I was working with who was basically in charge of the construction, so I could kind of let him take care of it. That was my mistake, but I really didn’t think that with the drug use we would have a problem. I thought once that got out in court, he would back away....

CM: Did you have a written contract with him? Without a contract it’s very difficult to prove an employer-employee relationship. How is he proving that?

Kris: There was a pile of paperwork involved and, I was relying on another person to take care of it, and I did not double check every single thing they should have been doing. They did not have the paperwork in order because they had known these guys, they were friends – “we’ll deal with it later.”

CM: If you had hired an attorney would it have turned out differently?

Kris: I do have an attorney.... I have to have an attorney in these cases and what he is trying to do is get me the best settlement possible. So I’m paying a lawyer on top of everything that I’m going to pay the guy who was stoned every day at my house and not working.

CM: You must love it here.

Kris: That’s when I get into my “I hate Mexico” thing. This is my third lawsuit.

My first lawsuit... I was very naïve, and  I didn’t know the law. I just reacted. I saw an employee steal money out of the cash register. I fired her, because where I come from that’s legit. I saw her hands on the money. Then she came back a month later with a lawsuit, and I found out that (in a case of) my work against her word, my word does not matter. In a case of an employer-employee dispute, the employee is right. I am wrong unless I can prove myself right.

Because I was the only witness to the theft, my word didn’t count. I had no witnesses other than myself, so basically I was in the wrong. I had to settle with her, too. So, I caught her stealing and then I had to pay her off to leave....

Who’s going to steal money in front of witnesses? That’s ridiculous.

CM: You know, I can understand the roots of this in the mentality of the Revolution because they were reacting against capitalism and exploitation.

Kris: Well, you see what happened. It needs to be updated. And no legislature will go near it. I understand because...

CM: It’s sacrosanct.

Kris: Yes. And that’s the problem. It needs to be overhauled for this whole country.... It’s just so unfair against the employers.

CM: You know it’s very funny because I’ve never heard (in Mexico) of someone working, say in construction, filing a lawsuit just because the boss said, “Go away.” I’m wondering if there is something that comes with working for a foreigner, and if they think they can get some advantage out of it.

Kris: I’m sure that’s part of it.... Maybe it’s because this is a foreign community, but there are lawsuits here constantly. I know so many people in lawsuits. And in my case, since I own a business, they probably think that they can get a lot of money out of me. Especially from that class of Mexicans who equate us with millionaires. They think we have an endless supply of money, and that they deserve a part of it.

The Mexicans would handle it differently, as I talked about earlier, with how you just get rid of people. So I don’t think a lot of people would challenge a wealthy Mexican. They would be too scared to. Whereas the foreigners are very naïve; they try to play by the rules. They would never lie about something usually. They would never make up a story...

CM: Beat somebody up?

Kris:  It’s just a different tactic. They wouldn’t make someone want to go away. They would never do that because they think that’s horrible. Because they try to play by the rules all the time, they get screwed a lot – a lot! Every other customer I know has been sued by their maid.

CM: I want to talk about that particular example because when we have our house built (in Mexico), we’d like to hire someone to help us on a regular basis. We have already spoken to her and we like her, and we know we want to hire her. But we did ask an attorney if we had to withhold social security, or if there were any kind of labor obligations on our part. A Mexican attorney said, ”No, the labor laws do not cover domestic workers.” They are not protected.

Kris: Well, I have heard that they are trying to encompass the maids in social security.... Social Security is going broke, and they’re cracking down on businesses right now because it’s either do that or go under. They’re in a desperate situation from what I understand.

My social security tax has tripled this year. It’s just outrageous.

CM:  How do you pay?

Kris: Per employee – a percentage per employee. But now what I’m having to do that’s so crazy is that they are bothering everybody so much. I have my workers listed at a salary above what they actually make.

My accountant’s reasoning is – well, it’s the same thing as with the taxes – you’ve got to give them something. They’re not going to just walk away. They aren’t going to come in here and say that everything is by the book. They are going to want something. So I’m paying a lot more than I should, by law, just to keep them away from me.

His reasoning is, and I believe him, that if they come knocking on my door they’re not going to leave until they get something. So he said, “Give them what they want up front. Give them more than what they want up front.” It makes no sense, but, yes, it does....

The labor is cheap, but you have to pay five taxes per employee. So, when you look at the big picture, the labor is not that cheap.

Let’s there are social security taxes. You (also) have to pay what’s called Infonavit, which is like public housing. What happens in Mexico is that all the employers pay this tax, and they create low-cost housing communities. So if one of my workers wants a house, she can go to one of these Infonavit projects, and she’s eligible to buy a house. It’s discounted housing...

CM: Do you pay AFORES (Administración de fondos para el retiro)?

Kris: Yes. Social Security is health care. Social Security in our culture is for retirement, but here it’s health care.

CM: It used to be retirement, but they went through the process of privatizing social security; now retirement accounts are separate.

Kris: There is also a requirement for a Christmas bonus of two week’s salary per year, per person. I have 13 employees, and (the bonus) is basically all my profit for the month of December, which is a good month for me.

So, we can talk about minimum wage and how cheap labor is, but we’re not adding on all of these other things.... The minimum wage in Guanajuato is 300 pesos per week, but no one will really work for 300 pesos a week. Because this is a tourist town you have to pay more. Maybe if you go out to Delores (Hidalgo) where the cost of living is lower, people may be earning 300 pesos a week. People couldn’t live on that in this town.

CM: Can they live on 300 pesos a week in Delores?

Kris:  I’m sure a lot of people do. I read somewhere that 70% of the Mexican population earns minimum wage – living on about 300 pesos per week. You can’t judge by San Miguel. It’s too expensive. Puerto Vallarta would be way too expensive. You have to go out to the normal little town somewhere to see what the cost of living is.

...

Kris:  I think part of the problem that Americans get into is that they see a lot of their workers as their friends. You know, in our society – our culture – we can be friends with our employees. And I learned my first year here that I could not do that. As soon as you do it, it just changes everything. You need to keep that professional relationship: employer and employee. I think that’s where most foreigners make a mistake. They think, “Oh this is my new best friend.”

CM: That’s how they get taken advantage of.

Kris: Exactly. The first time their maid comes to them and says, “I need 1,000 pesos for this reason or that reason,” and it’s “here, honey, here you go.” That’s the end of the relationship right there. And for them 1,000 pesos is a lot of money, and for you to just take it out of your purse and give it that easily.... That’s the mistake. I see most foreigners do it.

 December 28, 2004