Educated to protect [Week 123]

Many years ago, when I was working as a support engineer for a software consulting firm, I got my good friend Tito as a co-worker.

In fact, the company's policy was that we were assigned sectors of the country with their clients and those clients would be served by pairs of workers or engineers.

Tito and I were assigned to the central western part of the country and also to attend Central American countries, from Panama to Mexico.

The headquarters of the firm we worked for specialized in the sale of computer equipment and administrative applications.

Our clients were stores, supermarkets, clinics, private and state-owned companies.

We were all contemporaries, about 40 years old, and we all had a family to take care of.

We men were the ones who made the long trips and who had to live in hotels.
The girls were protected because they were mothers, because their presence at home was more indispensable; it was a consideration of the company.

I liked that job a lot because I got to know many cities, many nice people and I also learned a lot because I had to know about all the departments of a company. I mean I had to have knowledge of accounting, payroll, inventory, sales, accounts receivable, accounts payable and all that because you had to connect it with the application or software sold.

In other words, we talked to the client about what he expected from the programs, the information obtained was passed on to the programmers, who, once everything was ready, gave us the programs, we tested them and if everything was OK, we delivered them to the client, who gave the final approval.

It was many years in which Tito and I cultivated a good friendship until today.

Since I was the oldest of my siblings, there were six of us boys, I was given (without my permission) the responsibility of taking care of my younger siblings.

I went through changing diapers, bathing them, feeding them, taking them to school, and on and on. I even recently took care of my brother Enrique in his last days until he passed away due to a brutal illness.

Without realizing it, I began to take care of the whole family and when I founded my own family, this continued to happen.

Once, while talking with Tito on one of those business trips, we touched on this subject and we realized that we coincided a lot, that we had experienced similar things and Tito said that we were [providers] of our homes, of our families; I added that we were also providers of non-families.

I never complained about it, in fact, without realizing it, I enjoyed it. My parents, siblings, children depended on me and I gladly provided them with that service; they were family. But that also happened to me with my friends, no matter if they were women or men.

This led me to work very hard, I rarely took vacations and could not afford to go without income.

Until one day I exploded.

I needed a break, to isolate myself, I felt misunderstood, I was the one who took care of the others, I supported them, I listened to them, and because of that I forgot about myself.

The same thing happened to Tito.

Both of us separately, when we made the decision to stop, we felt a great relief, but we also felt a sense of guilt because we wanted to shake off those responsibilities for some time, to take a sabbatical year. It was necessary to rest.

The family did not understand that, in my case I was accused of being selfish and as a consequence they left me alone.
They say that when circumstances are really horrible, that's when you know who family and friends are.

The only one who has always been there has been my good friend Tito.

Anyway, by breaking that situation, by no longer being the provider or the being that everyone depended on, something good was created, everyone took care of themselves and I learned to live alone and something tastier; sleeping until 10 am.

Now I work the hours I want or the days I want and I feel liberated, but I don't forget anyone, from time to time I check on everyone to see if they need some help.

It's inevitable, it's in my blood.