I did not work outside of our home after we moved from Kansas. I began volunteering at Starry Elementary School when Patti and Tony were students there. I subbed for the secretary and this led to being hired to work short term in several of the district's schools. Then I was hired to help supervise the students in the lunchroom and after lunch, on the playground. Some of the 5th and 6th grade students were taller than I (5'4"). This made it interesting in keeping everyone playing nicely. Some of the sassy girls were more of a challenge than the tall boys!
Patti graduated in 1977 and went off to college. That left Tony and me at home. Chuck was traveling for Collins at that time.
So I decided it was time to find a job. LeFebure, a company that made banking equipment (safe deposit boxes, ATM, modular safes, etc.) hired me as a clerk in the Traffic department on a half-time basis. There were four fulltime clerks; 2 were younger, one about my age, and the last was an older widow. We were involved in getting the papers to ship the equipment to customers. I worked half-time about five years.
Late in 1981, I began selling Mary Kay Cosmetics as something to keep me busy in the evenings. I took the opportunity to attend Mary Kay's annual convention and heard Mary Kay Ash talk about her company. It was all very positive and uplifting.
I was still at LeFebure and needed to go fulltime. A job opened up and I applied for it and was hired fulltime. My friend Janette began training me. Within about ten days the job of supervisor of Office Services opened up. Both the Traffic supervisor and Office Services supervisor worked for the Traffic Manager.
I interviewed with the Traffic Manager for the Office Supervisor's job. He asked me if I had any supervisory experience. I told him that I had supervised 36 fourth graders! He offered me the job and I accepted.
This was a very stressful time for me being in the midst of a divorce, going from part time to full time to being hired as a supervisor. There was no description of my duties. So I began writing a manual of my duties. No one told me that paying for the post office box was one of my duties. All my training was certainly on-the-job.
I dealt with telephone techs when there was a phone problem; ordered stationery and envelopes for sales, service, accounting and engineering; took care of office machines; supervised files personnel, the mailroom clerks, the telephone operators and the ladies in word processing. There were eleven or twelve people in office services - all women except for one man. In a personnel cut the man had been bumped from his job in tech service. When he applied, I hired him. He was one of my best employees and the most loyal.
My boss, the Traffic Manager, and I were given the task of replacing the phone system. We contacted the different phone companies with requests for proposals, went over them and decided on An AT&T System 75. LeFebure sent me to Chicago to AT&T to learn all about the new system.
I enjoyed every minute of the week's schooling.
The AT&T folks came in on a Friday night to install the new switch. My boss left about 10 p.m. The AT&T techs, salesman and I were there until about 1 a.m. They installed a computer on my desk so I could troubleshoot the system, also to assign phone numbers and make number changes when an employee moved to another job he/she could take the original phone number to the new location. The new phone system was the most fun of any part of the job.
When I left LeFebure in 1989, there was a binder filled with the duties of the Supervisor of Office Services. The next person to sit in that office would not be surprised that she was to see that the post office was paid for the post office box!
No comments:
Post a Comment