Mike and I decided his engineers needed to know the rationale behind the organization’s structural change, and to apply that knowledge to handling building issues as they arose. The engineers needed to be clear, not confused. There were 995 employees in the Engineering function (993 of them men), scattered across the US in large to …
We’re back to winding down the series of things I’m proud of. With this one, I’m more proud of the other person than I am of myself, but I held up my end of the bargain. I was a new employee at a commercial property company, responsible for training for every function except Sales, primarily …
I am surprisingly proud of a fight I had with my first husband, the man in the purple suspenders. I disagreed with him and held my ground, didn’t cave. I’d never done that before. Six or so years into our marriage, things weren’t going well and we both knew it. His suggestion was for us …
Writing about my $26,000 salary triggered a memory. Or maybe I’m still not over it. At Andersen, we sat in cubicles, in pairs. It was an odd arrangement because it put two people in one cube. Yes, we had our own desks and file drawers, but there was no privacy. One day, ‘Jason,’ my cubemate, …
I left Minnesota and the financial aid office behind when I accepted an internship, followed by a full-time position at Arthur Andersen in Chicagoland. The job was a prize. Yes, because it was a plum position for an instructional design graduate but also, because my salary more than doubled, from $12,500 to $26,000. But. But …
I loved May in the financial aid office, not just for the weather that didn’t yet require air conditioning the building didn’t have, but because it was the slowest month of the year. The school’s fiscal year was July through June. July was the start of the financial aid award season and April was the …
I had been a financial aid counselor for only a few months when the manager of the bullpen had a disagreement with his boss and stormed out of the office, never to return. After three days, a colleague and I were named the temporary co-managers of the bullpen. We were the two newest, youngest counselors …
Because my goal was to get promoted from secretary to financial aid counselor, I decided to dress like what I wanted to be, instead of what I was. Only secretaries wore sweaters. The sweaters had to go. After I’d saved enough money to go shopping, that’s what I did. The two new, inexpensive suits could …
The first year I worked at the University of Minnesota, I didn’t know what program I wanted to enroll in, but I did want to take advantage of free classes. I took drawing, and ceramics, and graphic design, and weaving. Those classes felt like the opposite of dental hygiene classes. I fluffed my damp wings. …
To tell this story, I’m making up some names, using ‘Brenda’ for my boss’s pretend name, and ‘Doug Russo’ for the pretend name of a patient. It was a Tuesday morning, and while the Transplant Clinic was hustling on their side, the Derm side was uncharacteristically matching their energy. The derm docs were abuzz—it was …