The other part of my life when i was not doing necessary family duties or karate.

 

I see another National holiday is upon us. But the truth was that none of them made much impact on me or my work.

 

 I had a variety of titles over my career in various companies.

I was a Special Assignments clerk and a Benefits Officer in Personnel. I was a worked on the phones as a Customer Support Representative for a Software Firml I was the manager of Payroll for a fortune 500 company, I was the Manager of Payroll Systems for another fortune 500 company. Then I became a Business Analyst for the company that took over that one.  I was a Contract Analyst for another software firm, and finally I was a Senior Quality Assurance Technician for another fortune 500 company.

 

 

All of which used skills I built over my career life, learnt on the job and not because of my education at college . And in none of the above did my Job Description or Job Title really describe what  I actually did.

 

 

Essentially I was not told what I could do, I defined that for myself. In my functions I supported Personnel, Treasury. General Ledger and the Trust Department in my varied roles. Simply put I was an Individual Contributor who could get things done, many numerous things.

 

 

I worked into those positions by not following orders. Instead I got whatever was required done, on time. And frequently I did not follow instructions, just did whatever was necessary.

 

 

Over my career I only hired 4 individuals. Looking back on it those hires would fulfill all affirmative action dreams. But I only hired on competence and no other reason. I did not train anyone else in what I did, None of those companies wanted that. I had no control of what those individuals were paid, just worked to let them do their jobs.

 

 

All of those companies always observed all of the National Holidays. I was never told to work them, But I always got my job done, and have no idea of how many weekends and holidays I did work. I was always committed to getting the job done.

 

One of the positions I was hired for, they had been using the payroll system for 10 years, but in an exceptional minor way. The MIS group installed the system, but the use was up to the division and they had never understood what was actually required. They wanted to use the system for their entire payroll, which was not being fully used.  They hired me to do  the job. I oversaw the system coming up to date, worked with various MIS groups to feed data to the payroll system. Over saw a consultant to develop documentation for use in each payroll location around the company, then I developed a training program for those locations and ran the training programs to teach them how to use the system.

 

 

That system went live on the exact date intended. Then I was overseeing the system function. And of course that was only part of the job.

 

 

To get all of that done that first year I literally went to work 365 days, Ever national holiday in a row. I viscerally remember all of them, even leaving for work on Christmas Day. Losing knowing where I was driving home from work some evenings even to backtracking exits on the  Interstate.

 

 

 

And after that system went up there were even more challenging tasks. One night I drove home after picking up the W-2s at the MIS location to drive into a blizzard. Hours later I reached the Company Headquarters to stop there as the roads were almost impassable, to wait there for 4 hours, then to slowly make my way home for more hours, even passing uncountable abandoned cars on the interstate, till I finally got home.

 

And through it all I still did my share of work at home, and found time to teach 5 karate classes a week.

 

 

Then four months later I received an offer for a better job. When I told my superior about my leaving, he went to the Comptroller, to be told let him go he is not worth the money"". Leaving I still left detained instructions how to get  through year end processing and gave 3 people copies of what they had to do.

 

Later I heard they had to hire 3 consultants to do what I had been doing to keep the payroll going. Before they really never understood my competence with the system, so I built it to allow me to get the job done.

They later begged me to come back and help them through the year end processing. I told them my new position was to challenging to have any time to do that. I then reminded them of the 3 copies of instructions I gave 3 different people including my former superior. All three of then denied them having a copy.

 

 

I have had many other challenging experiences at all my employers. Each one of them unique and different.

 

 

All of them required my giving more time to those companies.

 

 

It is just what I did. That is why a mere National Holiday means less to me.

 

 

Up to the time I has to face disability, my record stood I always got things done.