Essay and Conclusions

In this essay we will analyse the main contents of the interview, which are, first the background of the creation of each one of the two businesses managed by the narrator, and later the main experiences she lived during that period. To finish, we will analyse the conclusions obtained by the narrator and me at the end of the interview.

If we talk about the background of the creation of the two business, is important to highlight the humble origin of my grandparents’ families, and for this reason they did not have lots of money. Because of it they had to make the first business, the fish shop, in their own house, in their garage. It is so curious when the narrator tells that this was a so normal thing, to make businesses in the garages, and that there used to be a lot of families who make it too, since fruit shops, to butchers and shoe shops.

Every morning at the sunrise, my grandparents had to go to the market to buy the fish they used to sell in their shop, but after 7 years my grandfather got a job in another city, in Valladolid, so he couldn’t go with my grandmother to the market, and due to her couldn’t drive, she had to close the fish shop.

Continuing with the second business, they opened it in 1973 in a better neighbourhood. They opened an atelier and a shop to create their second business: The glassware. They could open it thanks to the money they had been saving during 13 years of hardworking. In this case, both worked in this business, my grandfather in the atelier, and my grandmother directing and managing the shop, and attending the customers. This business was successfully opened during 30 years.

During the interview the narrator show many curious circumstances and experiences she lived during the years she managed those two businesses. She didn’t have a noteworthy bad experience with any customer nor provider during the years of the fish shop, and I think that this fact is a curious thing per se given the decade it was. In the glassware she lived some more things, for example, that many customers didn’t pay them on time for the glasses and installations, but as they didn’t want to look like usurers in the neighbourhood, they didn’t use to ask to those customers for the money, and after years, many of them never paid the debt. Another “special” circumstance was when in 2001 a car hit me the day of my tenth birthday, in front of the glassware, and my other grandmother, Ángeles, get into the shop screaming that a car had killed me, and all the people in the shop got in panic. It was a strange day for everybody.

CONCLUSIONS

To finish this essay talking about the conclusions obtained with this work, probably the main conclusions are, that the women were so respected (generally) as businesswomen by the people of the neighbourhoods where they lived and worked, in spite of the fact of women having less rights than men in the 60s and 70s. Also that the most important thing for the success in businesses is not your gender or age, it is the hardworking and your sacrifice capacity. For me and the narrator another important conclusion is that it is good and important to keep a good and kind image with your customers, but is also good and important to make them pay you when they have to, or you can lose a lot of money. And finally, the last conclusion is that, if you work to maintain or help your family, you will find energy to keep working when you are more than 70 years old, but I wish we don’t need to do it, don’t you?