Three different lives share an unrelentling labor

Calendars aside, Labor Day might not be a holiday. It depends on how hard you have to work. And it seems people often are working harder than their parents or grandparents did 40 or 50 years ago.

Kayla Herrera, a 27-year-old college graduate, is one of them. She holds down two jobs to make a living, working 55 or 60 hours a week.

Herrera packs eight shifts into five days. She works 32 hours at Ecco coffee and gelato shop and almost as many at Coyote Cantina.

She maintained a seven-day-a-week work schedule for two years until deciding that was too much for anyone. Still, she couldn’t cut her hours appreciably.

“The only way I can survive is by working two jobs,” Herrera said.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in anthropology. But, she said, she probably would need an advanced degree to find work in her field.

Herrera once dreamed of studying indigenous tribes in South America as part of a teaching job at a research university. But attaining a professorship leading to this exotic career would mean accruing debt for student loans. That prospect was frightening enough to stop her from going back to college.

She completed her bachelor’s degree at Eastern New Mexico University without being burdened by loans.

“I am officially debt-free from college,” she said.

She wants to keep it that way. So her new aspiration is to own a coffee shop.

She will compete in a barista event in Denver next year, something she hopes will provide helpful connections toward her goal. And she is working on a business plan, thinking ahead to what it will take to open her own store.

At 87, George Bayless is 60 years older than Herrera. He is still working and happy for the opportunity.

A part-time courtesy clerk at the Sprouts grocery in DeVargas Center, Bayless bags goods, sweeps floors and rounds up shopping carts strewn across a sizable lot.

I first wrote about Bayless nearly two years ago, when he started at Sprouts after many careers. He had worked as a teacher, a librarian, a reporter and a newspaper ad salesman, to name a handful.

Bayless sought the physically demanding job at the grocery because he needed money. He has found it rewarding in other ways.

“I like the work. I like the people I work with. I like the customers,” he said.

He doesn’t think about retirement.

“I’m amazed at how often people ask me how old I am. When I tell them I just turned 87, they say, ‘Well, good. Keep it up.’ ”

That is his plan.

August was a bad month for Damian Muñoz, owner of Palacio Cafe.

He works 12 to 14 hours a day, six days a week. He worked every day until eight months ago. Then he started closing his restaurant on Tuesdays.

His relentless routine — managing the staff, cooking, waiting tables, then cleaning the kitchen and dining area to do it all again — isn’t weighing on Muñoz.

A thief slipped into his cafe one night and stole $6,300. That is a mighty sum for a family business in Santa Fe’s expensive downtown district. Now he is considering installing security cameras.

“These people broke my heart,” he said.

In seven years of operating his restaurant, a criminal had struck only once before. An employee of the cafe stole $300, leaving behind a note announcing that he was a drug addict. Muñoz had not known of the man’s troubled life.

This time was worse, and not just because the monetary loss was greater. The burglary was a calculated strike against a business that Muñoz, 54, runs with his wife, Maria, and their two older kids, Marisol and Marcos.

Damian Muñoz immigrated to the United States 33 years ago from Acapulco, Mexico.

“In Mexico there was very little opportunity. They pay very little for too many hours,” he said.

He worked as a sous chef for 20 years in Santa Fe, saving for a restaurant of his own.

The burglar and the endless hours haven’t killed his enthusiasm for being the boss, even though it means working longer and harder than anyone.

“I take care of people with all my heart,” Muñoz said.

Herrera, Bayless and Muñoz, raised in different generations, share the same strong work ethic.

None shies from a hard job. Not on Labor Day. Not on any day.

Ringside Seat is an opinion column about people, politics and news. Contact Milan Simonich at msimonich@sfnewmexican.com or 505-986-3080.