This Reminds Me

Archive for the ‘ViewPoint’ Category

Monday, I celebrate 30 years at AT&T.  People are losing bets all over Houston, where I started.

5’11″ no more….Hannah is taller than me now.  And as for 150….well, maybe in each thigh…..  Here’s what I look like now.

For my corporate anniversary gift, I chose diamond-crusted bling .

I love the big analog dial.  I can read it!

Very early in my career, I read three op-ed pieces in the Wall Street Journal that influenced me greatly.

First, I read a piece by Peter Drucker (the father of modern management, we learned at UH) that espoused co-workers had taken the place of neighbors.  He advocated human investment in the work place – to remember we were really people – neighbors, as it were.

The Ones to Call On:  Dennis – creator of the “Disbursement Family Feeling” – and long-suffering Vicki, who tolerated many  jokes and jolts in the 9051 Parkwest neighborhood.  I’m glad we’re all three still virtual neighbors.

Second, I read the results of a decades-long study that concluded children with two parents who worked outside the home were no more or less happy and productive than children with one parent working outside the home, providing a single critical condition was met:  Mom had to be happy at work.  If Mom wasn’t happy, nobody was happy.

Mom Lisa – who helped get blood donors at work for me and preemie Lois – has always been the best at finding something in which to rejoice.

Finally, I read an article that basically said, “You can’t do everything for or with your kids.  Find what is most important to them – do that – and don’t stress about the rest.”  Easy to say.  Hard to do.  But I’ve tried.

Early on, I noticed Mom-friends like Konen planning wonderful family beach vacations, baking for the school, etc.  Konen taught Vicki how to curse,  me how to be a gracious winner and everyone else how to quilt.   She claims no credit for imparting my mad fashion skills, like wearing vintage political campaign buttons (William Howard Taft with campaign ribbon shown here.)

The 1986 set of 40th birthday nails I painted in Konen’s honor bemused her.

Here’s what 30 years at AT&T has taught me.  Don’t expect to view this litany in the Wall Street Journal, as I did those three influential articles

1.  The 70′s divas were wrong.  You can not have it all.

When I graduated college, I  passionately embraced the feminist mantra of “You can have it all.”  I could birth or adopt brilliant children with naturally straight teeth, sprint the corporate ladder with book-smart ease, enjoy  leadership positions in a dozen community organizations, grow spiritually and support my church piously, whip up gourmet meals effortlessly every night – all while completing my MBA in my spare time.  Nothing could stop me.  Except,  of course, reality.

2.  It all has to balance, but family rules.

It is very, very tough to keep work life and home life balanced.  How late do you stay when your kids expect you to not only eat dinner with them but also to cook it?  And what’s more - you want to.

When Rachel was seven years old, she contracted a rare case of strep throat.   On the way home from the pedi, we had to pass the office….so I thought just a few minutes to check e-mail…..next thing I knew, it’d been a hour and Rachel was asleep on the floor of my cubby with give-away T-shirts cradling her feverish head.   I was disgusted with myself.  What was the matter with me?  I coded vacation, scooped her up and hurried home.  And never forgotten it.

You do your job.  You do it well.  But the job isn’t life.

3.  If you can’t be with the ones you love – love the ones you’re with.

I’ve often been uprooted from jobs, people – even a city – I really liked.  The strange thing:  There’s always been somebody good on the other side.    I would have missed meeting some really neat people if I hadn’t moved around – voluntarily or involuntarily.  My closest friends – the ones who have embraced me at my lowest – started out as work buddies.

4.  Have fun when you can.  Because you can’t always.

Look for the fun.  Take the fun.  Make the fun.  Be the fun.  While you can.

Looking for more bars in more places:  Dancin’ in the Dark with the Station 90.51 crew – Natalie, Me, Gaye, Tim & Linda

Reach Out and Touch Someone:  “Ghostbusters” debuted  while we were preparing for Divestiture.  My unit danced through the building in our hand-decorated T-shirts, jam-boxing the movie’s theme song and handing out candy on Halloween. For Christmas, we stuffed pantyhose with wadded paper, affixed a pair to each of our heads like reindeer antlers and shared candy canes.

Our units gathered for doughnuts when Natalie snipped my hot pink rat tail before I interviewed for the Rotary trip to India.   My rat tail matched my eye-scorching pink jellies and florescent pink tie – which my boss Vicki endured with raised eyebrows and a bitten tongue. That’s Margaret looking on fearfully, probably afraid I’d leave the dyed locks on her desk, like “someone” left (and photographed) the Baby Ruth in the women’s room to taunt that month’s beleaguered “Quality of Work Life” manager.

I had to be at the Astrodome for a promotion anyway….so why shouldn’t Rachel and Lois run the bases?!  Rachel also fondly remembers my pulling her out of school early for us to go “check the signage” at SBC’s “Race to the Red Planet” promotion at Space Center Houston in 1998.  She also flipped the symbolic light switch at Uptown Holiday Lighting in 1996.  And clapped for Byonce and Destiny’s Child at the Southwestern Bell African American Arts Festival.  Big fun!

5.  Do what you have to do when you have to do it.

There is never a convenient time to have or adopt a baby.  Or take vacation.  Or visit with extended family.  Or attend a funeral – as I failed to do for Judy’s  father-in-law on a Saturday afternoon when I thought SBC would crumble if I didn’t supervise cleaning up a payroll mess.  What an idiot.

6.  If you’ve not had your time in the barrel – you will.

Everyone has an “off” time at work.  If it’s not happened to you yet – it will.  Sales declines.  Monthly close bombs.  Grievances.  Outsourcing.  Health problems.  Significant issues at home.  Whatevah, baby.  It will happen.

7.  Even when things aren’t so great – take deep breaths – you don’t know what’s around the corner.

In 1984, I truly thought working on Outside Plant Divestiture would be the “biggest thing” in my career.

I worked every day from early August 1983 to mid-January 1984 with two days off – Thanksgiving and Christmas – thanks to Divestiture, Hurricane Alicia, late September flooding and a three-week labor stoppage.

Well, in 1987, I represented Southwestern Bell with Rotary in India for six weeks and even spoke to a crowd of 5,000.  “Well, that’s it.  That’s the big one.”  I thought.

Enterprise magazine featuring my favorite photo

In 1991, I politicked hard to be sent to do stories and a photo shoot on the combined Bell forces working Hurricane Andrew restoration.   Got it!  Multiple telcos ran my stories and photos.  “Wow, that’s it,” I thought.  “It’s all downhill from here.”  I could have stayed in Employee Information for many more years.  I loved it – my favorite job of all time -  but later came sports and events marketing, and I loved that, too.  And then launching up2speed in 2001 – my baby.  Plenty of jobs between all this stuff but finally -  U-verse.

U-verse has been the bomb.  It’s the culmination of everything I read more than 30 years ago, when I was slugging through books and magazines for the owner of Remco TV Rental.  Not every day is a picnic, and I don’t know what’s after U-verse – but I know the potential for something good is out there.

We may have been the only Comptrollers  Section Staff  in town, but we tried not to act like it.

The potential for something good has always been there.

This has been my 30 years – my career to date.  Delivered.

Keith, Lois and Hannah bugged me for years to read the “Harry Potter” series. They always devoured the latest edition within a day of its release. Me?   I perpetually stalled.   My reading time is limited, and there always seemed a more enticing book at the ready. Keith finally goaded me into reading the seven-book series over three weeks this summer, and I loved it. (Thank you, Brother Bob, for preaching such an excellent sermon in 1998 about the first book’s popularity. I’ll never forget your saying, “Your children will not become Satanists by reading this book. If they’re old enough to read it, they’re old enough to understand the difference between fiction and fact. Give them some credit.”)

Our girls are in Houston visiting family this week, so Keith couldn’t bundle us all off to the midnight show of the newest movie opening, as is his custom. He was stuck with just me – a somewhat reluctant partner, I will confess, until he reasoned, “Look, you don’t want me going by myself at midnight with all those kids and looking like a creeper, do you?”

So I couldn’t let him look like a creeper! I had to go, too.  Along with  9+ completely sold-out theaters full of fellow fans at the Quarry.

Quiddich, anyone? I think decades served in corporate America have prepared me for a career as a Beater.

Rachel and Lois borrowed Sarah’s car to go see it in Pearland.  The texts were flying between the four of us.  In fact – the theater auditorium sported scores of cell phone lights before the movie started.  Keith said, “Can you imagine the data streams going out of here?”

I loved those books, and now better appreciate the movies. In fact – like all great books I’ve read – I’ve even learned something from them.

10 Things I’ve Learned or Had Reinforced by Reading “Harry Potter”:

1. Not all witches ride brooms.
2. If you poke a dragon – expect to get burned.
3. What’s accurate is not always what’s true.
4. Home is the place you’re safest. Or should be.
5. Howlers are to be avoided.
6. It’s our choices that define us.
7. You might die for your friends, but the only thing worth living for is an ideal.
8. The past is always part of the present.
9. “Good” is eventually going to win. The last book was a Revelation.

And finally….
10. Nobody loves you like your mother.

Hope you enjoyed this blog.  After all…….”Nothing like a nighttime stroll to give you ideas.” Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Summarizing your life in six words.

Can you do it?

Lois read this book last week, then insisted I read it.  Hannah quickly snatched it.   We alternated reading our favorite six-word memoirs aloud before deciding to compose our own.  Drum roll, please – here are our original creations:

I didn’t let you depress me. Keith,  a Ronald Reagan conservative who insists on working hard and being happy

People think they know.  They don’t. Rachel, mysteriously collegiate

And she played like never before. Lois, who treats play like work and work like play

Family.  Friends.  There to the end. Hannah, always 9 oz. in an 8-oz. cup

Asked my sister and niece, too:

Never what I plan or expect. Judy, my Houstonian sister who knows we only think we know what we’re doing tomorrow

Aimlessly wandering.  Deepening faith.  Boundless joy. Sarah, my brilliant niece who’s a stay-at-home mom and Junior League volunteer

And a few friends:

Laughed lots.  Licked Cancer.  Loved Always. Shelley, a healthy San Antonio business professional and devoted wife/mom/grandma/(great)friend

Excited to see through her eyes. Kate, a blogging buddy in St. Petersburg and mom-wanna-be who’s just been matched with a six-year-old girl

Procrastination, silly jokes overwhelming good intentions. Konen,  an AT&T survivor, wife/mom/grandma/(great)friend and generous volunteer extraordinaire

Living to be worthy of life. Brooke, a friend of Lois’ and president of her sophomore high school class

Molded by parents.  Loved by God. Mike, a Christian community Service Center volunteer in Houston

Self:  How did I get here? Eileen, a Chicago MD, wife, mom, and Sarah’s friend of forever

The greatest thing about aging?  Grandchildren! Johnnie, the face/voice heart of our church

Life imitates art.  Mine is finger-painted. Rachael, a Michigan blogging buddy MD, wife and mom of three bios and one from St. Pete

And finally – mine.

Got the write stuff.  Thanks, Mom.

More about the book here.

And now – please write your own!  Click the blue comments link below.  Then come back and let’s read each other’s six-word memoirs.

Just in case you were wondering what Ted Nugent sounds like when he’s playing the National Anthem at the home of Texas liberty – the Alamo.

Keith was one of the 16,000 at the San Antonio Tea Party last night.  I would have loved to have gone, but someone had to manage the home front.

Keith’s video reminded me of when I talked my way into a press pass at 1986 San Jacinto Day festivities because I really wanted to to hear – and be near – Jerry Jeff Walker.

Read my lips:  #41 (to be) was there, too.

But Jerry Jeff was da man of the hour.

That was then.  This is now.  And now it’s time.  Really – it’s time.

Add hot water.  And stir.