Thirty Days of Thankful - Day 4 - Employment

Note: Today is day 4 in my series "30 Days of Thankful."

Today is my 10 year anniversary at the company I work at.  10 years!  Holy cow!

10 years ago today, timid, 21 year old Roxanne was sitting in the lobby of a big scary office building, in a brand new outfit from Express, anxiously waiting to get her ID picture taken.

My original ID photo. I wonder if I'll EVER get a new one.

I was hired in for what seemed like an ok entry level customer service position.  Through some sort of paperwork snafu, I had interviewed months earlier, but no one ever bothered to tell me that I was hired.  So...I found out the Friday before I was supposed to start that I had gotten the job.  At the time, I was an assistant manager at a retail store and my manager was not pleased when I told him I'd gotten another job.  Being young and because I was taking a huge pay cut to go to the company I work at, I agreed to continue to work full time at my retail job.  Let me tell you how fun it is to work two full time jobs at once!  That was rough.  I went to new hire training by day and worked in the store at night.  And then I worked pretty much all weekend.  But it was ok.  I loved my friends at my retail job, and a lot of the time that was more like fun than work anyway. 

In new hire training, you have to take a series of tests in order to keep your job.  I had a migraine on one of the test days and flunked with flying colors.  It was devastating.  I thought I was going to get fired.  Thankfully, I took a retest and passed with flying colors, and was eventually able to graduate into my job. 

Some days I still wish I had that job.  My friends at work called it the most uninteresting video game ever.  Basically you processed paperwork all day.  My forte was address changes.  We were supposed to be able to complete 30 of them in an hour.  I was able to do 100.  At one point, my boss told me I really needed to slack a little because I was making other people look bad.  I was lucky enough to get promoted after 6 months for good performance, though.

Most customer service jobs in my company have a one year commitment rule, and as soon as I hit that one year, I applied for a communications job that I was completely unqualified for.  Sure, I had a communications degree...but it was a huge leap up from where I was.  Through some sort of miracle, I was able to get that communications job and finally quit my other job. 

In the 9 years since I got that first "big" promotion, of sorts, I've had many jobs. Instructional designer. Analyst. Manager. Almost took a severance package when a rotational program I was in went ka-boom.  Another stint in communications. And now I currently work in emarketing.  I honestly think that my most favorite job was my first communications job way back in 2003.  I was in that role for a few years and made some great friends.  Actually, that's been the best thing about all of the jobs I've had so far - the people I've met.  There are people I've met through work who I couldn't imagine living without, honestly.  Even as I've moved around the company, I've been able to keep in touch with so many fantastic people I've met over the years. 

In the past 10 years of my life, the only thing in my life that has remained constant is my place of employment.  Who knows where I'll be 10 years from now, but I can say I'm very thankful to have been employed for the past 10 years at the company I prefer to not name.