April of 2016 was an extraordinarily busy time filled with homeschooling, keeping up with teenager schedules, and trying to excel at the busy life of a stay-at-home mom who rarely stayed home.
Since our move the year before, our finances had not taken kindly to the shock of moving to the city which created an extreme hike in our cost of living. It had become painfully apparent that continuing to live on a single income was no longer feasible…at least as long as we wanted to enjoy the luxurious lifestyle we had become accustomed to. You know the one. It consists of food on the table, a roof over our heads, and an endless supply of gasoline which allowed me to rarely stay home. Not to mention the never ending clothing purchases for our ever growing children. First world problems, I know.
So, arriving at the conclusion that the only way this luxurious ship was going to stay afloat was if we had a second income, I decided that I would need to seek employment outside the home. I had never had a problem finding a job when I needed one, so I set out in search of the perfect position to utilize my skills. A month later I accepted that maybe the perfect job probably wasn’t necessary and just a job would do. Not being able to stomach the idea of backtracking into the world of fast food or waiting tables, I got a call from a temp agency who saw my resume online and wanted me to join their “team of professional temps” filling administrative positions. By now it was June and I was far less picky than I had been in May, so I took the leap. I had worked for a temp agency previously and loved it. Working for different companies for a few days or weeks at a time gives you a pretty good idea of what you like and dislike in a job. I even got to be a “Runner” for a couple of months in Las Vegas. I haven’t encountered this job anywhere else, but in Vegas it is basically a person that runs errands for a company. I made deliveries, pick things up, and even transported people back and forth to the airport. Not a bad gig for someone 6 months pregnant with few employment opportunities jumping out at them. Plus I got to drive around all day…score! I love to drive, and I’m awesome at it, just saying. Don’t believe the naysayers.
My new temp agency loved to place me in receptionist positions. As astronomically fantastic as I am at driving, I am even better with the phones. I rock the phones. Anyone who knows me, knows that I HATE talking on the phone, so it only seems fitting that I would be so good with them.
It came as no surprise in mid-July when I got a call asking me to report as soon as possible to a company in need of a receptionist right away. The office was in a part of town completely unfamiliar to me. This was not unusual. It’s a very big city and I hadn’t spent a lot of time venturing out of God’s country in the north. I pulled up to the office, nestled next to a gargantuan Union Pacific rail yard, and wondered what kind of company had a commercial office in an industrial area of town?
I walked into a reception area that more resembled a teenager’s bedroom than a professional entrance to a place of business. It was complete with a hot pink blanket, an animal print pillow, a desk wallpapered in personal pictures, and every pink office supply you could ever imagine. Stapler, tape dispenser, scissors, post it notes…literally everything was hot pink.
I quickly discovered that the hot pink princess was on her way out but had no idea. Holy awkward situation! I was told by the agency that this was a very busy office and they had gone through several receptionists because they couldn’t handle the phones. The office manager took me to the back to train me how to file. It isn’t that hard to alphabetize, but this poor group of individuals had been so scarred by incompetents who had messed up their files that it took them twenty minutes to explain the filing system to me. The file trainer was probably the MOST energetic red-head I had ever encountered and I found my mind wandering, as she spoke using big gestures and wild facial expressions, wondering just how many shots of espresso she had consumed by eight in the morning? Finally alone with the files, I spent the morning putting away an absurd amount of files stacked over months of neglect, probably out of fear that if anyone touched them the situation might be worse than if they just left them stacked on the tables.
By mid-morning, the hot pink princess found out that she was leaving and we packed up the rest of her belongings (which included laundry detergent and fabric softener) and I got to be trained on the infamously busy phones. It took 45 minutes for the phones to finally ring. I secretly wondered if I had lived in the bizarro world of phone systems all these years. These were the least active phones I had ever encountered. As a result of the lull, I got to be trained on other things they told me they had never trained someone new on ever before. Who had they been hiring, I wondered. This was the first place I had ever worked where someone sat with me the entire day and didn’t actually let me touch the phones for about two hours…seriously. I have this sickness where I find something that is completely weird and broken and instead of running in the other direction, I think to myself “I can fix this!” Which is exactly where I found myself on that incredibly strange day. I could tell this office hadn’t had a decent receptionist in a very long time and had completely lost any hope that one existed. They were so impressed that I could handle the phones and learn how to use their system, they trained me on more and more things until I finally didn’t have the pleasure of a constant companion at my desk after THREE days! Really, so bizarre. Most companies show you the phones, teach you the basics and set you loose to ask questions when needed, as they run back to their offices, just grateful there is a warm body to cover the front desk so they don’t have to.
I could tell they needed me and I knew that I could help their office be better and work the way an office should. Without the hot pink princess coming back, it was only a matter of time before I could have a permanent position there and eventually, I might get off the phones and be able to do something that challenged me. Being a construction office, it was much different than the stuffy professional offices I had been working in up to that point. The production staff were dressed in polos and jeans. They were all very kind and welcoming, but very relaxed, and seemed like the kind of people you could hang out with and enjoy some good laughs.
I discovered that the office was deep into a huge turnover. A new regional manager had taken over about six months prior and the previous general manager had been fired. Several of the employees had left in the following months and a new general manager started the same week I got the call from the temp agency. There was a lot of unrest in the office and uncertainty of what was coming in the weeks that followed. The first week I was there, they lost another longtime employee who went on vacation and called to say he wasn’t coming back…it was dark times.
I came to work one Wednesday only to find out that everyone was awaiting the arrival of the Assistant Regional Manager. The great and terrible Wicked Witch of the West…she was from San Diego…seems like a fitting description. Since the turnover had begun, her job was to retrain employees and ensure that the office was doing things the corporate way and no longer doing business like a bunch of cowboys from the Wild West. Change is hard. When the moment of her arrival came, she swept in as gorgeous and put together as one might imagine someone in their twenties who had achieved a position of influence could possibly be. She was all business. She went straight to the GM’s office and they went to lunch. When they came back, they fired the Office Manager, a cute and very endearing girl, however misguided her loyalties and willingness to evolve may have been.
So there I was, barely a temp at a company in the midst of a massive turnover, and my boss had been fired. At first I was angry. What could this girl have possibly done that was worthy of such an abrupt dismissal? So I filed, and answered the phones, and kept my head down…for about an hour. Then it hit me. They needed an office manager and I was more than qualified for the job! What was I doing sitting there answering phones when opportunity was banging on my door?!?
I got up from my desk and marched back to the GM’s office. He politely invited me in. I quickly laid out my qualifications, told him I wanted the job and I was highly qualified if they would give me the opportunity. It was bold. I thought I might hyperventilate. Or throw up. Maybe both…at the same time. He looked at me, amused, and said they would be happy to interview me the following day.
That afternoon, a migraine hit. Not just any migraine. The mother of all migraines. Pounding head, blurred vision, searing pain from the lights, nausea, the whole kit and caboodle. How on earth was I supposed to prepare for an interview in this condition?
The next morning I dragged my aching head to the mirror to see if there was actually a pick ax sticking out of my eye. To my dismay there wasn’t one, so I knew I had to go on living and get ready for my interview. I drank red bull, took Tylenol and Motrin, nothing touched it. Off to work I went and put on my most charming smile and can do attitude as I sat through the most terrifying interview of my life with the amused GM and the WWOTW. She told me she wasn’t sure I could handle an office full of construction guys who needed a firm hand, but she would let me shadow her the following day and see if I had what it takes to do the job.
Relief…anxiety…panic…pain. I don’t know how I made it through the rest of the day, but after months of nothing in my job search, I knew I finally had a shot at a career that didn’t involve serving the general public and I wasn’t going to let anything get in my way.
I went home , hoping the pain would dissipate. It did not. The next day was day three of an intense migraine, and my only chance to prove I could handle running an office. I always thought I had a bit of a flare for acting, but let me tell you, Meryl Streep would have had a hard time keeping up with me on that day. I smiled, I laughed, I picked up processes and new software, took pages full of notes, and marched around that office like it was mine, all the while thinking I might actually need to go the emergency room because my head hurt SO badly. I honestly have no idea how I remembered a single thing I learned that day. Cohesive thought seemed like a distant dream. However, I did discover that the WWOTW was very much like me…or I was very much like her. We might not have been the same age, but we were just alike. Just. Alike.
We were both extremely organized, kicked butt at problem solving, had a sick love of accounting, no interest in people’s drama, no time for nonsense, loved knitting, and the paradox all that created. Ah yes, I was sitting in a room with my younger and prettier self.
I had this huge moment when I realized how other people viewed me. For two weeks I had worked in that office. The sweet, helpful receptionist, eager to fix what was broken and help wherever I could. All the people in the office discussed the WWOTW ad nauseum. I knew all the details of what she had done to offend them, all of their inner jokes, and all the good gossip about things she may or may not have done to get where she was in the company. For the first time in my life, I knew why a lot of girls didn’t like me…and I was totally ok with it. There is something about a strong woman with confidence who isn’t afraid to get things done, and make sure they are done the right way, that sends people over the edge. I finally got it.
I knew the WWOTW and I were kindred spirits and it scared me a little, but I liked it. Did that make me the Wicked Witch of the East? Man, I hoped I would get some show stopping shoes out of this gig.
Lucky for me, I get along with guys way better than girls. Less drama, less hurt feelings, and they don’t mind when you tell them the truth in a blunt manner. In an office that is predominantly male, I knew I would be just fine…as long as I could impress the WWOTW.
At the end of the day, the amused GM stopped by to say hello. We all chatted and laughed for a few minutes, wishing my head would fall off the whole time. As he was turning the go, the WWOTW announced he had a new office manager. Elation…relief…excitement…excruciating pain in my head.
I went home that day and slept. Like really slept. When I woke up the next morning as an office manager, I was pain free and so excited for this new chapter in my life.
In life, there are things we want and things we need. Very rarely are they the same thing. I had no idea that day just how much what I wanted was EXACTLY what I needed.
You see, the company I work for is a property restoration company. If you don’t know what that is, it’s ok, it just means you haven’t had anything really terrible happen to your house. Our job is to be there after something terrible, like a flood, or a fire, or a car driving into your house (way more common than you might think), or a death in your home. We clean up and restore everything to the way it was before the terrible thing.
I didn’t know such a company existed before I started working there. I didn’t know that just over a year later I would call my boss to come to my house and clean up the terrible thing and make it like it never happened. I didn’t know that the CEO of this multibillion dollar international corporation would call my boss and tell him to take care of me, whatever I needed, or that he would then pen a handwritten card expressing his sympathy for my loss. I didn’t know that this office full of construction workers would one day replace their company polos and baseball caps with suits, ties, and freshly shaven faces, as they shut down the entire office to be there with me on the day I laid my husband to rest. I didn’t know that the same GM who was so amused at me, as I stood before him telling him why he should let a temp run his office, would open his home a year later for all my friends and family that he had never met, so they could be with us during the darkest time of our lives. I didn’t know that the little office in the midst of chaos next to the railroad tracks would change my life and become my home.
As highly unlikely as it seemed that first day, it wasn’t them that needed me, it was me that needed them, and they have been there for me in every way that matters.