A lifetime of work within the Las Tunas Territorial Division for Fuels Commercialization (CUPET in Spanish) makes Mercedes González Peña, a chemical engineer, an enterprising woman in the way of fuel and technologies related to this important sector of society.
Las Tunas, Cuba.- Within the commercialization company she has a lot of responsibilities; everyone knows her for being the technologist in charge of watching over the operations, balances, and maintenance of operations. A constant challenge that she has taken on for many years and about which she has never been heard to complain.
"I have been working here for more than 20 years and when I started, I didn't have the technologies that exist now, I also entered through the physical control of the product, taking inventories, which are now done through computer programs."
"The work commitment of those years was incomparable, I live in Yariguá, and I would arrive at 6:00 in the morning and before noon I had made all the calculations manually. I still have that habit, even though technology has arrived to improve the quality of the work, I prefer to check the accounts in pencil as it was done in my times."
Mercedes is just a few days away from retirement, and she has already prepared her successor: "he is a very good engineer, he made a work tool to make the calculations in this area quickly and save time."
As the years went by, she improved in different specialties within the unit, she went through the quality part of the certification, a very cumbersome job, but at the same time beautiful, which allowed her to be accredited as an auditor of all internal control standards.
Each goal imposed does not represent a sacrifice for her, the satisfaction is seen in her eyes when she tells her story, of the years that have passed. "I love this place and I have a great sense of belonging, I'm going to leave, but somehow I'm staying. I will be present until everything reaches its level, I will continue to pay my union, I will come even after I leave."
CUPET has an incalculable value in Mercedes' life, and she feels that the town should see it in the same way. "All the fuel in the province is moved here, and it is really in these times of such scarcity that one learns to value this place. Not before, when half a million liters came in almost every day."
"It is now when it is difficult to reach hospitals, service centers, warehouses, and even workplaces. Supplying the points of sale of liquefied gas is another complex task, satisfying the demand of the population is not easy; it is in those moments when it is necessary to give importance to human capital. Our drivers sometimes have to stay in other provinces to be here on time with the assigned cylinders and we have to recognize that."
Her family has been the driving force behind this "guajira" for so many years, and this is how she speaks of herself. "I am from the countryside and I am known as the guajira of Las Tunas in all the CUPET units in the country."
Her affection for this place transcends generations, she says that her grandchildren also aspire to work there, that on vacations they want to go with her to the office, and that her husband is the staff that allowed her to perform so many functions at the same time, without him she does not know what she would have done to carry out the work and the family.
Mercedes says that if it were not for diabetes, retirement would never have come to her, because her greatest desire is to work there. "But I have already made my projects for when I am at home, I have sewing and embroidery workshops with girls, a study house where I give Chemistry reviews."
Leisure will not come into her life, at least not while she has the strength to do good things in her community and feed her soul.
