An Excuse for a Post

I was out of town all week for work and have enjoyed being very lazy so far today. Tonight we're going out (!!) to celebrate Cimbriel's birthday and see her HUSband's band play.

While catching up on some blog reading that I missed during the week, I found this post at Beth's. My comment ended up being so long that I thought I'd make a post out of it here:

My first paying job (other than babysitting) was at Wendy's the summer after I graduated high school. I was smart enough to make change without the register telling me how much change to give, so I got to work the drive through window instead of the fry station. Back then (only 15 years ago) the registers could only handle one transaction at a time.

A brief stint at KidsMart saved me from Wendy's. Still had to wear a uniform and didn't get free fries or Frostys (-ies??), but I worked with some cool women and the store was rarely busy.

Student worker in the Dean's office for the College of Science. I was a student in the College of Liberal Arts, but knew a woman from church who was the Assistant to the Dean and she hooked me up. There was much copying, filing, flirting with my fellow co-workers and it was the first job during which I slacked on the internet (circa 1994-5).

My junior year of college I also started working at Casual Corner over the holidays to make more money. Soon after that, Donna and I were roomies. I'm sure that my working there led her to take the HR job with their parent company in another state years later. Ha! I wore the nicest clothes to this job than any other including my post-college jobs.

After college, I spent a year in Japan teaching English through the JET Program(me). I was in a small town and most of the other native English speakers I hung out with were not from the US. It was a wonderful year.

I made the decision not to renew my contract for a second year for two main reasons: (1) I was in lurve with a guy that ended up being gay (he wasn't "out" then and was just trying to decide if he wanted to out himself) and (2) My grandmother was good with guilt. How could I possibly be so far away from the family? Especially when she's going to pass away soon? I've been back for 9 and a half years and she's still going surprisingly strong for an 83 year old.

Moved back to TX in 1997 and missed out on this whole tech bubble thing. Somehow didn't notice everything that was going on with Dell right in my back yard and went to work for Manpower in Austin. Stayed there for almost a year and a half and learned a lot about the game of temp staffing.

Through some of my former Manpower cohorts, got a job at a computer company as an entry level benefits person. Stayed there 4 years or so and did all sorts of other HR stuff including getting a certification.

Got tired of doing layoffs and took a job as an HR Rep at a company in Austin well known for being on Fortune's 100 Best Places to Work list for many years (nope, not Whole Foods). Learned the hard lesson that the people you work with and for matter more than the company sometimes and went back to the computer company a year and a half later, this time as an HR Manager.

I'm now a Sr. Manager and now have people working for me in four different states. When we're not watching budgets so closely, my job involves more travel. I just started working primarily from home a few months ago and am really enjoying working in my PJs a couple days a week.