Southside Building Center

Cabinets, Flooring, Roofing, Lumber, Doors, Building Supplies

Cabinets · Flooring · Roofing
Lumber · Doors · Building Supplies
3410 Thomasville Road | 336-784-0396

  • Home
  • Cabinets
  • Windows
  • Building Supplies
  • Lumber
  • Flooring
  • Paint
  • Contact
    • Location

Hola Israel Mejia!

Israel MejiaWe are blessed to have a full staff of honorable employees at Southside Building Center – people like Israel Mejia. Israel is known to many of you because of his amazing people skills, and his eagerness to give you the customer what you want. But you may not know of his outstanding woodworking skills…or his fabulous life story.

When Israel Mejia was growing up in Mexico City, Mexico, he often helped his father and uncle build cabinets – an activity that their family saw as a hobby rather than a job. As a young man, Israel followed his heart from Mexico City to New Mexico, Texas, Michigan and eventually North Carolina.

The American dream may have beckoned him to the US, but it was old-fashioned hard work that paved the path to his success. Israel’s always shown a strong work ethic – whether it’s for building cabinets, cleaning milk machines on a dairy farm, babying chicks on a turkey farm, or working on a factory line for $6 per hour.

Today he jokes about how little he understood the English language when he first arrived to the country. During one interview for working on a turkey farm, he politely answered “yes” or “no” to the interview questions that the retired Army colonel asked him. Today, he laughs and says he wasn’t exactly sure of the meaning of all those questions.

At another time he was unsure of his language skills, his factory supervisor asked if he’d like to work at night. He was a bit concerned about exactly what that meant. Fortunately, a couple of ladies from Guatemala who worked there could translate and let him know that it was because the boss liked his work that she wanted to offer him a better paying job on the night shift. For a dollar more an hour, Israel would be responsible for preparing the lines for the day shift line workers.

The extra dollar per hour didn’t go very far; Israel desperately needed a car to get to work so he started a second job at the laundry in a local hotel. He would sleep in the morning after his factory work and wake up in time for his 2 pm job at the laundry.

Sometimes the very best jobs can almost slip through a person’s fingers. Israel had met another SBC employee, Augustine, through a mutual friend. Although he was interested in working for Southside, he asked just when someone else had been hired. Eventually Augustine let him know about another opening and introduced him to Joe Rogers who interviewed and hired him.

Israel started to doubt himself and wonder if he would make more money by going back to one of the farms in Michigan. Without telling anyone, he started planning and didn’t bother to show up for work at SBC for what should have been his first day. Once his family discovered what he was thinking, they asked him why he didn’t at least try working at SBC before he ruled it out.

On the next day, Israel showed up to see Joe Rogers and sheepishly said he missed work because he couldn’t find a sitter.

Joe wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily. “You don’t have a telephone? You don’t know how to use a telephone and let us know what’s going on?”

Israel tried again. “Could I have another chance?”

“I don’t know.” And then Joe pulled a balled up piece of paper from the nearby trashcan. The piece of trash turned out to be Israel’s balled up application. Joe started to open up the paper and straighten it out again so he could read it one more time.

“One more chance” ended up being a good thing for Israel, Joe and everyone else at Southside. He worked hard and was promoted to assistant manager in the warehouse. All the skills he learned in two countries have come in handy.

He still enjoys building cabinets, meeting and helping people and doing a job well. The next time you’re at Southside, say hello to Israel. He can help you find what you’re looking for or show you how to get your next project started.

Share:

Share on X (Twitter)Share on FacebookShare on PinterestShare on Email

Filed Under: Bargain Blog Tagged With: Our Staff

Southside Building Center

We've Combined Locations!

Cabinets · Flooring · Roofing
Lumber · Doors · Building Supplies
3410 Thomasville Road
Winston Salem, NC 27107
336-784-0396
M - F 7am - 6pm
Saturday - 8am - 3pm

financing
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • YouTube

Flooring & Cabinets
flooring options  

Vanities & Bathrooms
  

Building Supplies & Roofing
  

Lumber & Doors
lumber  

Vinyl Siding & Windows
  windows

     While we make every effort to ensure accuracy, prices and stock availability are subject to change without notice.

Southside Building Center

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • YouTube
Location and Hours

Cabinets · Flooring · Roofing
Lumber · Doors · Building Supplies
3410 Thomasville Road
Winston Salem, NC 27107
336-784-0396
M - F 7 am - 6 pm
Saturday - 8 am - 3 pm
Contact

About our Store…

Founded in 1988, Southside Building Center carries a great variety of home building supplies like shingles, flooring, tiles, cabinets, bathroom fixtures, lumber, lighting, paint and hardware at competitive prices.

That commitment to a consistently good product and excellent service at a fair price keeps customers coming back. Come by and find out for yourself what you’ve been missing.

Southside Building Center | 3410 Thomasvllle Rd. | Winston Salem, NC 27107 | (336) 784-0396

Copyright © 2025 · All Rights Reserved · Privacy Information

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.AcceptReject Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT