Live the year with thankfulness, gratitude, respect, patience, charity, and kindness; don’t forget to laugh and smile often, as they are infectious.
HAPPY 21st BIRTHDAY TO OUR GRANDSON KEVIN – STAY WARM OUT THERE AND HAVE A GREAT DAY!
My wife, back in 1989, got an older model Dell, Amdex. You know, the kind that had the black screen and gold writing prompt that only went as fast as your fingers could type. She went back to work after being a stay-at-home mom, working for a woman who ran her own headhunting business from her home, with many big clients, including hospitals and Computer support companies, and one of her clients was the Franklin Mint. She worked for her for about two years when her boss took a job solely for the Franklin Mint. She was there about a month when she insisted that they hire my wife as her Executive Secretary.
She went on to have an illustrious career in Information and Documentation, Health Benefits, and, finally, Payroll, becoming the manager of each department. The final step was bringing in PeopleSoft 7, with a very successful install under my wife’s direction. She left then and went to work for Genesis Health Care in Kennett Square, where she ended her career as a Sr. Business Manager about 2.5 years ago.
Meanwhile, back in our basement, while all that was happening, I brushed up on my computer and typing skills. An opportunity at my company helped me land a job at our corporate Headquarters. I went up to help build a new program to boost sales of party trays, holiday meals, and the well-branded meat, selling them through a delivery service similar to Omaha Steaks. That turned into a career working with Corporate Customer Service and supporting our company’s efforts to build community-based services for non-profits, e.g., MDA, Variety, Ronald McDonald House, Gift of Life, and many others.
The moral of this story is to make the best of your knowledge, learn something new, and take a course or two to help brush up on skills that can advance your career path, as you never know when an opportunity will arise. Don’t make excuses; neither my wife nor I have a college degree. So, be prepared, as you never know when opportunity comes knocking. My only advice is, when it does, to…Challenge Yourself to Say Yes!
So, looking back to that old Dell Amdex sitting in our basement, we owe it a debt of gratitude. I still see my wife and me both diving into manuals and Computer for Dummies, learning as much as we could at the time to secure a financial path to success. It was the catalyst that helped us both start down, in the words of Robert Frost’s poem, The Road Not Taken. We are both comfortably retired now, in a very nice home, and we just celebrated our 50th Wedding Anniversary. Along our paths, we both shared and enjoyed many of the perks, and we did very well and have a wonderful life. Showing our children and grandchildren that they don’t accept the people who say you “Can’t” do something without a college degree when a few pinpointed courses or skill sets can go a long way.
Point to Ponder: One person’s trash can be another’s treasure. Make the best with what you have, and with a good work ethic and a few courses or learning a new skill set, you too can have a wonderful life. You just have to do it, and when opportunity comes, say yes!
Leave a comment