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[ I didn’t choose the safest start.
I chose the possible one. ]
I had dreamed of an American university campus.
But circumstances and conditions kept making it impossible.
So I made a decision.
If the system wouldn’t allow me in, I would solve it myself.
Before school, I needed a way to survive.
Fortunately, I was hired by a U.S. company.
But as someone unproven, I did not start at headquarters.
Not San Diego,
but across the border "Tijuana"
Tijuana is a border city connected to San Diego,
where factories of global electronics companies like
Sony, Samsung,and Panasonic are concentrated.
It is also known as one of the most dangerous cities in the world : once ranked first in homicide rate, and still near the top in recent years.
In my early days there,
I was choked unconscious from behind
on a downtown street before sunset on a Sunday evening.
When I woke up, all my belongings were gone.
I was lying on the ground, homeless people staring at me and soon the police arrived.
One homeless man told me I was lucky to be alive.
Later, I faced an armed robbery once more.
I survived that too.
At the time, I had no friends,
no understanding of which areas were dangerous,
and no sense of where not to go.
I was careless and inexperienced.
I started at the Tijuana branch office in the purchasing department.
On the factory floor, it was obvious :
materials were not properly tracked,
and both the materials and purchasing teams
were constantly struggling.
Someone had to fix it.
And it was something I could do.
I worked through weekends,
stayed up overnight,
checked every material item one by one,
and documented the entire system.
That was when I learned something fundamental.
Work does not move by title.
Everyone sees the problems,
but when responsibility is pushed aside by role or hierarchy,
nothing gets solved.
Building a system is painful at first,
but once it exists, everything becomes more efficient.
After work,
I learned Spanish from my coworkers,
played basketball with them,
and shared meals on the street.
Fish tacos, eaten together on the sidewalk.
Even now,
they remain the Mexican food I miss the most.
Looking back,
I was fearless, inexperienced,
and driven by pure momentum.
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