Flashback Friday #23

Since May is rolling around... I thought I'd post a flashback from last May.

When I was 20, I got a job at a local welding and fabricating company. I was a clerical assistant. I did all of the grunt work of filing and data entry. There were days that I loved it.... and days that I HATED it! My supervisor was... um... shall we say... not very nice sometimes (to put it mildly). She would go ON about having stayed at the office until 6PM catching up on work... but she failed to mention that she came in at 9 or 9:30AM. The rest of us came in at 6 or 7 (sometimes earlier) and left at 4 or 4:30 (sometimes later). We had little sympathy for her "long" days... especially because the majority of her days were spent planted in her computer chair.

Anywho... as the years went by, I started taking on more and more responsibilities. Business was BOOMING and luckily, my supervisor moved to a different department, so I got a new one!

WOOT!

It was the bosses son. Intimidating? Not at all.. considering we went to school together (although we were a few years apart... and he was the best friend of my cousin). We got along well. He actually listened to my ideas and concerns about the workplace, etc.

As business grew, the need for shipping grew. I had been given the duties of Shipping Clerk early on as a part of my clerical assistant job... but it started to take on a life of it's own a couple of years in. We ended up hiring a new girl to take on my data entry stuff... and created a full time shipping position for MOI! Again... there were days I loved it and days I hated it. Mostly I just tolerated it. The best part was getting to go down to the warehouse to give them paperwork and sometimes help with packaging. I made some really good friends in that warehouse!

About a year after I took on the full time Shipping position, the guy who took care of Receiving had to have surgery on his eyes (he was going blind). My supervisor came to me and asked if I would be interested in combining the Shipping & Receiving... UH. YEAH. I got to move out of my cubicle into my own office in a different building! Yeehaw! It was so nice to be out from under the thumb of the office chums... and I really enjoyed what I did. I got to check in parts and boxes, do computer work, deliver items to different parts of the plant. Plus, I could get away with wearing jeans, boots and hoodies. Of course, there were some annoyances along the way... but that was just part of the job! I got to learn how to drive forklift and was soon loading and unloading trucks. Eventually, we were so busy that we split Shipping and Receiving AGAIN... and I got my OWN mini-office! SAAAWEEET! It was right outside of the warehouse, so I was able to be RIGHT there with my warehouse workers. Plus, I had my own heat and A/C control, my own laser color printer/scanner, microwave, mini-fridge, computer, filing cabinet, bulletin board, etc! I definitely couldn't complain..... OK... other than the fact that people would come in and there was pretty much NO room to move around! Anyway... I was in my little office for about a year and then came the time to give it up! I had gotten engaged to Cory in October and our wedding was in May of 2009. We had already planned to move an hour away (closer to his job)... so I was going to quit mine.

Around this time, the company was doing a BUNCH of lay offs. The economy, as you well know, had turned to CRAP. It just so happens that the day we took these last couple of pics... was the last day we were all together. I'm so glad we got them... even though we look like dorks! (We HAD to wear hard hats... LOL!)

Here are some of my friends from those 5 years.
(The guy second from the right is the guy I trained to take over my position)

This last picture is of the actual "classic" warehouse crew... Me, Bob, John and Sandy!
I miss those guys! But thank goodness we can keep in touch via Facebook! And sometimes I stop in just to say HEY!

Join in the Flashback FUN over at Christopher&Tia's!!