I have been working for the man for the better part of my life, now. Twenty. Five. Years. A quarter of a century. Holy smokes!
For my constancy and dedication, there is great reward. Yes, the coveted parking pass. Now I can park in a general parking spot, inside the gates. This privilege is somewhat moot– Or rather, lucky for me, my office is not in the gated campus and happens to have covered parking already. I’ve been living the sweet life for decades!
But I have a dedicated parking pass, by golly. Neener neener.
Yes, my company goes all out. I get the pleasure of dining with the executives and sharing some highlights of my career. My, oh my, am I ever looking forward to that. What story will I share?
The time the VP introduced me as Mister Maximus?
The time the director told me that I couldn’t work in the field because there’s no telling when I might get married and have kids and leave the job after they’ve invested so much in my training and relocation etc etc etc? (If I had been half smart, I’d have had a killer lawsuit. But I’m just not that smart. And I’m non-confrontational. And if I’d had a crystal ball, I could have told him that I have a hostile womb and an uncooperative reproductive system and I just won’t be having little ones for another twenty years or so.)
I could talk about the time I went to Manchester, England as the lead on a technical assist team, much to the team’s chagrin, because having a woman around seemed to cramp their style. When the cat’s away, the mice will play, and that time, the mice didn’t get to play (as much as they’d have liked to).
I could talk about the time I was training a new guy, and he fell asleep as I was talking to him. I know, I’m riveting.
I could talk about my love triangle and probabilities – what are the odds that my ex-boyfriend would take an internship with my company prior to going off to grad school, and land a job in the very same group as my new boyfriend? Further, that the Casanova coworker who trained me would also transfer to that very same group? This group of twenty in a company of over one hundred thousand (at that time). Awkward!
I could talk about my experience working on a tech assist with the Koreans, and how they ignored me and wouldn’t let me help for most of the night, until I finally was able to break through to them (or they just gave up or gave in). I can be persistent– I’m part Korean too! Actually, I shared with them that I am half Korean, and they shook their heads with disapproval and disbelief that I don’t know or speak any Korean. Unthinkable! One kind man took it upon himself to explain the Korean alphabet to me, and by the end of the evening, the technical crisis was resolved, the Korean alphabet was neatly written, and we thanked each other and parted ways with smiles all around.
Maybe I’ll talk about the time I transferred to another organization against the advice of almost everybody I knew, bent over backwards to completely overhaul things and single handedly obliterated the entire backlog, only to be rewarded with a goose egg at the end of the year. That was the time that I posted my salary chart publicly with a big red caption, “What’s wrong with this picture?” and wrote a lengthy impassioned email about [not] valuing employees, researched the entire management chain from my first level to the CEO, put them all on distribution and hit send. Then thought, oh CRAP, I’m going to be fired. Only a few middle managers made any comment. I was just a voice crying in the wilderness.
I have no complaints. The company has been good to me. Unpleasant hiccups in the journey caused me to change paths here and there along the way, and ultimately propelled me to the sweet spot where I now earn my bread and butter.
I work with a fantastic bunch of people. We have grown up and grown old together. Marriages, divorces, births, graduations, retirements, joys, sorrows, tragedies, triumphs. We have been through so much together.
It has been a worthwhile twenty five years.
And to commemorate this fine moment? I treated myself to some bling. Yep. The railroad watch. Didn’t the railroad companies reward their employees in days of yore with a gold watch after a notable tenure? My company wouldn’t do that for me –they already went all out with the parking pass– but I can do it for myself! A whole bunch of teeny tiny diamonds and pretty dials and buttons that I’ll probably never use. Form, fit and function. The engineering trinity. It’s nice to know that it does have function to accompany its fine form and fit. I like it.
say cheese - it's the railroad watch
Happy Anniversary to me!
