Ending Year # 29

Today I am joining Lynnett Kraft on Walking Down Memory Lane.


TODAY is the last day of my 29th year working for the same company
Tomorrow morning I start year number 30.

Had anyone told me years ago that I would stay in the same job, working for the same people and have as much responsibility that I have now, I would have told them they lost their minds.

But, we don't learn everything in one day. We add to our knowledge day by day a little at a time.

When I first started I had a five week old baby. And I can remember lots of incidents that were very challenging to me in those early years of being a mother and working full time.

We look back now and laugh at glasses and hair styles. (After all it was the 80's)



Also back then the shop was located on Railroad Ave.
How many times I have taken a ribbing about being a working girl working on Railroad Ave. (Normally Railroad Ave, In Decatur, IL) was known for the working girls on the street corners.

Outside our front door was the railroad switching yards. You heard trains banging all day long. Someone ask me about the railroad explosion that was in town and what would happen if one exploded outside our front door.
My reply was, " Well if there is an explosion here, I'd best just lean over and kiss my butt goodbye". Thank God there were no explosions and no robberies while we were at work.

Robberies--we were broken into once while there in that rough neighborhood. They laid our safe on it's back and tried to get in. Unsuccessful they left with only the candy box money and the bosses calculator (which they lost a key off of when they crawled back thru the window from the office into the shop).
But what a mess they left us. We had to break into our own safe. And it was payday.
The fellows thought it was funny until I reminded them, There would be no paychecks until the safe was open and I could get to the checks and payroll books.
For months upon end I was shaking concrete dust out of my checks as I used them.

March 1993 we moved to our current location. Franklin Street.
Just down the street from the police station.


My desk is inside the 4-5 window from the front door. I hardly hear or see the traffic going down the street but let someone come south down the one way north street it always catches our eye.

I have not seen my little furry friend from last year yet this year. Wonder if he got hit crossing this busy street.


He used to come up on the front porch and stand up looking in as if he wanted to see if I was working at my desk.

Lots of memories, and people ask "How many more years will you need to work?"
My answer is: I do not want to work so long that I look like this:


I do not want to die sitting at my desk.
Tho my co worker, Julie (who has been with me over 11 years) stated she would stop by my desk every week to dust my bones. Very Generous of her!!!!

So my answer is "God will tell me when the time is right and help me make that decision as I get older year by year."
So if it be 62 then I have two more years. 65- five more years.
Whichever it is I am sure the time will go rapidly.
But I definitely do not want to work 20-30 more years here in this sometimes very fast paced office.

So how much better to start my 30th year with Tica, Inc. then to take a weeks vacation and leave here on Friday and go to Arizona for a week?
Come on Friday.