Retirement! 12/12/12

After working for over 40 years, I'm punching out for the last time today.

I'm retiring to a slower pace of life, more time to exercise, and time to enjoy my family who are finally all in Portland.  It's a bittersweet day. I was raised to know that you work to earn what you want.  We were never given anything; we earned our first bicycles (mine was a one speed when everyone else had 10 speeds!), and bought most of our own clothes (except for what my Mom made for us).  So, earning a paycheck has always been a big part of my life and independence.  Luckily, I am married to a true partner who knows the value of other things in a marriage besides earning a paycheck.  I am looking forward to taking care of Mark.

What will I do?  The questions is what will I NOT do?  I have so many projects on my list, places to travel, and things I want to do with my husband, grandkids and kids. I will continue to volunteer my Thursday mornings with Meals on Wheels, manage our rentals, and I am looking forward to not being in a hurry to be anyplace.

Here's how I've earned my keep for the past 40 years:

Berry picking in Hillsboro: I think this was in 6th and 7th grade?  Earned less than $1 a flat and maybe picked 3 flats a day?  Best part was eating the berries and the berry fights.  And, my Mom had free child care!

Dairy Queen, West Slope:  First "real" job.  I earned $1.15 an hour.  Minimum wage was $1.25 but I was under age, so they were allowed to pay me less.  Best benefit was making "custom" sundaes  to eat. I lasted three months here.

Insurance Examinations Inc.: my Dad was a partner in this business and I did office work in the summer.

Meier and Frank: Senior year of high school I worked as a "floater".  Most memorable time is working in the Young Oregonian shop and listening to the Blazer game as they won the NBA championship in 1977.

Emporium: Summer job between years in college.  Worked with my buddy Kelly Mills.  She worked in the makeup department and I worked in Kids.

Standard Insurance:  http://www3.standard.com/
With the help of my Aunt Elizabeth I got this great summer job downtown.  The job involved data entry.  We were inputting all the insurance policy information into the NEW computer system.  Most vivid memory is the hangnails I got from filing when the system was down.

Instromedix:  Got this job through a temp agency and assisted the Production Manager.  Another great office job.  I met a great mentor here, Linda Ladd Harrington.  It was the summer after I graduated from college and was looking for a full time career job.  She was a great resource.

Oregon Business Magazine: www.oregonbusiness.com
My first job in my field after college.  I graduated from U of O with a Journalism degree.  This job was very entry level.  I was the office manager, circulation manager, sometime photographer, sometime layout assistant and advertising traffic manager.  Worked on my first "computer" here, a Compaq that was basically a CPU with a screen with orange type.  The office was located on Interstate Avenue back when prostitutes walked the streets there. A great learning experience!

Nike:  Landed a job in their temp pool and worked in the Employee Store for the winter.  This was back in the day (1984) when the store was in a non-heated warehouse in Beaverton.  I remember wearing three layers of clothing.  I also remember the dollar bins of rugby shirts!  Those were the days.

American Southwest Financial Services:  Moved to Phoenix and landed a job with this company that bundled home mortgages into bonds.  Sound familiar?  This was way before the sub prime mortgage crisis.  It was a cooperative of home builders who sold their mortgages to Wall Street and a CMO (Collateralized Mortgage Obligation) was born. Worked with a great "family" of young people, what a great time.  I worked in Operations and Marketing.

Consulting work for the RTC: I was on a "break" from ASF and spent three months doing consulting work at Bluebonnet Savings and Loan in Dallas, TX during the Savings and Loan crisis.  I lived in Dallas and commuted home every other weekend.  We audited the mortgage files.  Fascinating work!

Oregon Garden Products:  Moved back to Portland and got a job at this nursery in Hillsboro.  I worked in Marketing and handled our trade shows and catalog.  The best part of the job was getting in the company van and touring the farms to take pictures of the flowers, trees and shrubs.  I learned a lot about plants that still sticks with me today.

Dr. Martens:  www.drmartens.com
Worked for this awesome, cool, hip company starting in Customer Service, but soon moved to Marketing.  Worked with so many fun people.  My favorite position was the Website Content position that I held before I left.  It allowed me to use my love for writing and I also got to travel to England to tour the factory.  This also may be where my love for Las Vegas was born :)

Merrill Lynch: http://wealthmanagement.ml.com/wm/system/ViewFAPage.aspx?pageurl=SSG_TEAM Left full time work at Dr. Martens to be home more while my kids were in high school.  I assisted Mark at ML with his marketing and customer service efforts.

Linwood Elementary School:  I had thoughts of returning to school to get my teaching certificate, so I got this job as a teaching aide to see if I really did want to be a teacher!  I had the pleasure of working with awesome teachers, other aides, and parents during my time here.  Worked with Kindy's, 1st and 2nd graders.

Priority Footwear: www.priorityfootwear.com
 I was wooed here by a former Dr. Martens colleague and stayed for seven and 1/2 years! Three days a week allowed a flexible schedule and time to travel with Mark.  We provide shoes and inserts for diabetics and I did the insurance billing.  I will miss my "family" here.

A new phase begins!