Hola desde Mexico, amigos!

Team salaUno2 is off to a dynamic, whirlwind start here in the Roma Norte district of Mexico City. Our client, salaUno, is fantastic, and they have us working on a critical project related to company culture and HR. We are working hard, but truly enjoying our work – salaUno is an inspiring eye-care provider based on India’s Aravind eye clinics, that provides an innovative model to help eradicate needless blindness in Mexico and beyond.

Teams salaUno 1 and 2 in the office with founders Carlos & Javier

It was co-founded by Haas ’10 alum Carlos Orellana, who has shown us amazing hospitality and is wonderful to work for. We are lucky to be here with Team salaUno1 – expect some joint posts up here before our time is up!

 

Our first 5 days have been tiring but great – here’s a rundown on our lives thus far:

 

 

 

Much <3 to Starbucks. Our caffeine provider, free internet savior, office away from the office, and common breakfast stop (though we’re thinking our time with SBUX breakfast food is about up…).  Our indicative first day was 14.5 hours (can anyone beat that??). We started the day by going through the same induction process salaUno uses for new employees, which served a very informative dual-purpose for us.  Dan and I then got to sit in on 2 eye surgeries, live in the operating room in front of a big screen view of the microscope (!), witnessing first-hand the replacement of a cataract-affected lens with a new, clear lens via two different surgery methods.  Pretty amazing.

Our full workday ended with a 2-hour session with a Deloitte HR consultant at our founder’s apartment, where many of our strategies were validated and we gained some great new insights. Tired but strangely energized, we ended the night roaming the streets in search of local Mexican food… which paled in comparison to what we found the next night, thanks to Christian Barsakov!–>

Deliciousness at El Califa

When not working or eating, working out sometimes crosses our minds… see below. This is the view from street-level.

We made fun of this place every time we passed it, seeing everyone doing their awkward (and kind of awesome) aerobics moves. Then on Tuesday, Tara, Tina and I were invited to meet a coworker here for a workout—we were told there would be salsa dancing.  It ended up being a crazy aerobics workout dictated by a really intense muscley guy yelling “ARRIBA ARRIBA ARRIBA!!” …and finally, after 30 minutes of the most intense workout I’ve had in years, we began “salsa” moves — probably 70% super-intense torso-shimmying and 30% pelvic thrusts and high-knee butt-kicks to a salsa beat while doing salsa dance steps. HILARIOUS. and all visible from the street.

Meanwhile, we’ve conducted ethnographic interviews, led surveys, diverged, converged, and Post-it’d…

Distilling interview and survey insights

…Clement turned 30….

we got introduced to Mezcal…

 

 

 

 

 

 

…we have yet to work shorter than a 10-hour day…

…we visited & climbed the Teotihuacan Pyramids this weekend…

…and we’re exhausted – but looking forward to the rest. Stay tuned!

–salaUnoDos!

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