Monday, August 1, 2011

Retirement and How it Happened~ Part One: Two Jobs.

First of all I had no intention of retiring from either of my full time jobs. For the last 21 years I had worked in education as an ELL (English Language Learner ) instructor at an elementary school. I had been doing this since 1989.

In August of 2000 I decided to get a "summer job". One of my daughter's friend's husband work at a luxury hotel by the Portland airport and said it was summer and most of the front desk had quit. Why not apply there. Now keep in mind the only experience I had in this field was I had stayed in a hotel. So I applied for the job. What did I have to lose?

I then left for Spokane to help my former Mother-In-Law place her husband, who had advanced Alzheimer's, in a care facility. A very long two weeks. While I was standing in the lobby of the first "home" I got a call on my rather new cell phone from the hotel. Could I come in for an interview? Keep in mind it had been years since I went on a job interview and with no experience in the field.

The hotel was impressed, guess the fact that I could string an English sentence together, add 2 and 2 without using my fingers, had way more than a 10th grade education, not to mention a level of maturity they didn't see very often. I was offered the job. I loved it! It was everything education wasn't. It was corporate America!

When summer was over I thought I'd be quitting but they were very flexible and I decided to stay. So for the next 10 years I ran from one job to another four days a week.

To be continued . . . . . . . . .

3 comments:

  1. Julie! I didn't ever know that you worked another job besides at Riverview! Yikes! It makes me tired just to think about it!

    I'm looking forward to the "rest of the story".
    Oh, are you Julie or Julia???? Have I always called you by the incorrect name??

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  2. I kind of changed my name back to the more formal Julia. People who knew me and worked with me for years and years are more than welcome to call me Julie and I'm comfortable with it.

    I was Julia at the hotel and Julie at school. If I met you today I would introduce myself as Julia.

    It took me a while to start calling Debbie, Deb. It fits the "new her".

    Thank-you for the comments. I so darn new at this.

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  3. Hooray - a story! You're getting the hang of this.

    I love that you became Julia at the hotel. I became Deb when I moved to Ridgefield. Don't you love how grown up we are?

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