Four days without water: lessons learned
By Jim Karger

Before leaving for a brief holiday to the coast recently, I put in several calls to SAPASMA to report a water leak on our street that kept growing, indeed forming small whitecaps as it passed in front of our house. With the well-publicized water shortage, it seemed the right thing to do

SAPASMA’s response? Repeated assurances the leak would be repaired that day—each day we called—and each day no one called and no one came. When we backed out of our drive and headed to the beach, the leak was stronger than ever. 

Five days later we returned home—there’s no leak. Fixed! Well, not so fast.

Our house sitter tells us she hasn’t had water for two days. Now I know we have a problem since we have a pressure system and a 5,000 liter cistern. One person couldn’t possibly use that much water which means we’d been shut off for several days, perhaps a week or more.

And, yes, our house sitter had dutifully called SAPASMA on several occasions only to hear “tomorrow at 11am” two days running which, like the promise to repair the leak, turned out to be nothing more than wishful thinking. On Saturday I telephoned both SAPASMA numbers listed in the Juarde, no answer.

On one try, in a moment of comedic relief, I was transferred automatically to an extension which no one answered, nor was the call sent to voicemail. In other words, “call someone who cares” and I would have had I known anyone who did.

I called one of those services that trucks water in. “No lo tengo, amigo,” he said joyfully. Seems they don’t work weekends, either. No service, but with a smile.

We set out buckets with hopes of rain.


It mercifully rains Saturday night and we take a shower of sorts on Sunday morning by pouring buckets of rainwater over each others’ heads, after which I call SAPASMA again and it’s the same auto-transfer to nowhere. I try again later and lo and behold, a person answers. She agrees that being without water is not pleasant, repeats my address, and says she will tell the men in the field and “they should be by today to fix it.” At noon, we try again—same person, same message.

At 2pm, we call and get a whole new story—“Perhaps someone will be out early tomorrow morning. There is something wrong with the well that services your area.” I knew that couldn’t be right (since I had already confirmed my neighbors had water) but it was the kind of convenient fiction used by those with no power or knowledge to divert attention away from themselves, and to her credit she was successful.


Monday morning arrives. I am ready to drive up and confront SAPASMA directly. I check the cistern once more. It is full.

What is the lesson from this experience? Some of my apologist friends will repeat the all-too-common mantra, “It’s Mexico. Things just don’t work here. It’s just the way they are. Get used to it.” Five years ago I found that explanation, well, cute. Now, I find it paternalistic as do most of my Mexican friends who are professionals working for companies that are trying to compete in the global marketplace. The answer is not to make excuses that suggest Mexicans are incapable of being efficient, responsible and credible, but to hold company and government officials and employees fully accountable for doing their jobs and doing them right, regardless of ethnic background.

Having done business in Querétaro, Puebla and other industrialized Mexican cities, I often wonder whether this may be a San Miguel anomaly. More than one businessperson outside San Miguel has told me, “San Miguel employees are spoiled and you (meaning we expatriates) are at least, in part, responsible.” “Why?” I ask. “Because most of you expats try so hard to be ‘culturally sensitive’ you forget that no one is served by being overcharged, accepting shoddy service, a late response and poor workmanship.” Indeed, one of the global companies I work with tells me their factory in Puebla is one of their most productive, which seems inconsistent with what I have seen in San Miguel where nearly anything is acceptable, even the obviously unacceptable.

If this is wrong and the “SAPASMA problem” is endemic to Mexico, then all the worse for them. Mexico’s institutions, public and private, must be held accountable if they are to be able to compete in the global marketplace, beyond its current ability to provide cheap labor to its northern neighbor.

“Mañana” may work a few more years, but like oil, that dog will not hunt much longer. Mexico is due to expend its oil reserves for export in approximately 10 years and it isn’t the only game in town for cheap labor, not anymore. Last year, I traveled to China, Malaysia, Brazil, Belgium and Singapore for a global chemical company and spent time working with their management teams. When it comes to cheap labor, Mexico can’t compete with China where good help is 62 cents per hour (US). When it comes to intellectual capital, global companies look to Singapore and India for a reason—because that’s where they find it.

I wondered what I should pull from this experience, just one in a long line. Perhaps the lesson is that a cold bucket of water over my head is pretty refreshing and patience is a virtue. Perhaps it is that the next time I see a water leak strong enough to float a 110-foot yacht without so much as nicking the hull, I will think twice about picking up the phone. Why? Because if I do, SAPASMA won’t fix it, again. They will just cut my water off, again, and hope no one notices for a while, again. And, when they are reminded of it, again, they will just ignore it, again, and I will be without water again for a long time, again.

Ironically, it is the relentless repetition of history that makes Mexico “quaint,” a euphemism for old, amusing, and poor. And, maybe that is just fine for some expatriates who want to keep it the way they found it, but there is a growing professional base in Mexico ready to move on to modernity. They understand that Mexico will remain “quaint” forever unless those in charge peek into the 21st century, check out the formidable global competition and develop a plan to be relevant after the oil and the cheap labor gig have run their course.

Epilogue:

When I found the cistern filled with water that morning, there were no lights in the garage. The water was on, but the electricity was off. I called CFE number. No answer. I knew that when I did reach them I would be comforted to know that all would OK by “tomorrow at 11am” But, alas, it was not. After the water and electricity returned, I noticed the water pressure in the house had dropped. It seems the submersible pump had been damaged as the result of a safety float being placed too low in the cistern by whoever was in a hurry when it was built, an 8000 peso mistake, cheap for the lessons learned.



Jim Karger is a resident of San Miguel. He writes the “Business, Real Estate, and Investing” column twice a month. The opinions expressed are his own. 





Doing business in San Miguel—the missing link
By Christian Gutiérrez Sierra 

Seminars, conferences, workshops—all excellent tools used by business owners and entrepreneurs world wide. They provide an opportunity to share experiences, successes and failures and to learn from each other. A tremendous amount of creativity is generated in the brainstorming sessions that take place in these forums.


It’s important for business owners and those aspiring to become business owners, to take advantage of all the resources available to them. These meetings help clarify goals and develop both a vision and a long range plan.

Successful enterprises world wide take advantage of these opportunities which are abundantly offered in large cities. It is more difficult in San Miguel where most businesses are small and have not had the opportunity to develop a cohesive plan. On the other hand, San Miguel has been chosen as a great place for corporations from other cities to hold their conferences. Incredible, but true. They are congresses that consider our city as an ideal place where small businessmen can converge to exchange training and knowledge 

Small businesses here generally don’t invest in training courses, seeing them as unnecessary. In large cities, however, even small businesses invest a certain percentage of their profits in training and/or consultants having seen the resulting increase in growth and stability which is so important in this competitive world.

There is no logical reason not to take advantage of these tools which are within everyone’s reach; the obstacle is in the mindset of the local businesses community. It is very important to learn from the successes of others and recognize that success is due in large part to a strong management team, one that allows them to expand and improve from year to year.

Cristian Gutiérrez Sierra produces the radio program “Mundo Ejecutivo” provides commentary on “Entérese a las 2” on radio XESQ and Horizontes de TV4. He is also a business consultant and can be reached at crisconsultores@yahoo.com.mx.