Work Connections

I am living proof that when you have lived in the same town for so long and have stuck with the same line of business, the adage of "don't burn bridges" rings true.  For me it is also important to "keep some bridges".

Work has been a roller coaster for the past 25 years.  But what I wanted to write to join Gretchen's Spin Cycle about is how important it has always been for me to bond with some people at work.  I have kept friends with one person at least from my many past jobs.  It is a very strong connection when together you weather much change in an organization and wackadoodle bosses, I feel, it is similar to how women connect with others when they share a pregnancy group or a new moms group.

There was a time back in 2004 that Hubs and I considered moving away to another state after I had to leave a certain crazy job.  We didn't though.  My coworkers sent me flowers and a card that I still have that said, "This is your opportunity to touch others the way you have touched us.  The Team."

Now that I am in my current job (for almost one year!) I have re-connected with some of those people I knew back then, which has been wonderful.

At my prior job which ended in May 2011 (thank God), it was a small office and I did not bond with anyone--which is not good for me.  What I did do to cope is tell my family at the dinner table some stories of things that drove me CRAZY so that we could all laugh about it.  One story the boys still bring up--particularly if they are eating a yogurt and we laugh our heads off....which feels great.

In the office next door to me was a much, much older man, a nice man.  He brought his lunch every day, and ate in his office and I could hear everything.  When he finished crunching away on his very loud crunching, chomp, chomp carrots, he then got out his yogurt.  He ate his yogurt every day with a plastic spoon and when he got to the bottom, he scraped.  He scraped the bottom of that small yogurt cup over and over and over.  I can understand two scrapes but it was about 8 scrapes and then a pause and then about 10 more scrapes.  I wanted to take the four steps to his doorway and yell, "I think it's all gone!"

So--it has been a year and 3 months since that time and sometimes the boys scrape their yogurt just for me and we have a good laugh and probably always will over it, which is a different kind of connection...it is a connection to my family for knowing me, just like some authentic coworkers from my past know me and vice versa.