Happy Anniversary to Me

So a few days ago I had an anniversary. Not a romantic one, that has never been in the cards for me. But a professional one, I marked 23 years with the same company.

I think that is somewhat of a milestone. Not a huge one, but one nonetheless.

I started out as an operations clerk, what is that you ask, good question. It is basically a secretary, it was literally one of my favorite jobs in the phone company. It’s where I learned that I cannot be entrusted with any amount of power. I had the best boss and met a lot of great people. As a matter of fact I am still friends with quite a few of them.

From there I went to be a service rep, upgrade in pay, downgrade in power. But I loved it, once again, great coworkers and I learned a lot. I loved that job so much, I had a lot of fun and learned a lot as well.

But alas all good things must end and that job went up north, way up north. So then I worked in pay phones, writing the orders for them. As you can imagine it was incredibly boring as that was a dying department. Cell phones were becoming more ubiquitous so there wasn’t a huge need for pay phones. Except in prisons and hospitals, so that didn’t last too long.

Next up was a stint in orders, not residential, thank goodness, but writing to orders for T1’s, voice grade and data circuits. Which was ok and I learned a lot.

Then I made a huge decision and moved to a different subsidiary within the company. I made the jump to DSL. Talk about a huge difference in jobs and responsibilities. The first two weeks of training I came home and passed out, I was so mentally exhausted. But I loved it and once again met great people and made lifelong friends. A couple I’m convinced I’m actually related to.

After a while that job ended, the whole department went away. I didn’t know what I was going to do, then the decision was made for me. I was moving to a different department in the company. I could still use my internet training but television and phone was added to my repertoire.

There I made more friends and discovered more family. I really love what I do, I love helping people stay connected. Now more than ever, even when people yell at me. I still have a feeling of satisfaction when I fix someone’s problem.

I’ve often said the job at the phone company saved my family. It enabled me to raise three children to adulthood. It has given us so much, I’ll be forever grateful they took a chance and hired a single mother of three. Here’s to 24 more years.