On Sept. 9, 2001, I accepted the job offer from the Fort Worth Star Telegram with a start date of Oct. 1. Two days later, I dropped Katherine off at school and went to McDonald’s drive-through for a routine breakfast stop. “A plane just flew into a building in New York” the young man told… Read More Home Again
Domestic Engineering was not what I expected. Friends, family, and school knew that I “didn’t have anything to do all day,” therefore I was a target for errands, pet care, and school parent duties. For years I dreamed of a freezer neatly stacked with storage bags containing meals prepared days ahead of time, all boasting… Read More Blessings
The Year 2K problem, or “Y2K” as it was known, revolved around speculation of what would happen when software written with dates expressed using only two digits for the year rolled from 99 to 00, making the year 2000 indistinguishable from the year 1900. Most companies had plans in place to avoid disaster by implementing… Read More Nothing to Fear But Fear Itself
This is the last leg of my journey. I will post tomorrow about my last few weeks and my last day. My personal blog, containing my Journey to Retirement series and other stories, is still “under construction” but will be shared soon. Thank you to all who followed this posting and for all of the… Read More Endings and Beginnings
By 1999, the world in general seemed to be spinning out of control. The year Jon and I married there was an attempt to bomb the World Trade Center. The Oklahoma Federal Building bombing happened while I was carrying Katherine. Throughout the decade, reports of terrorist attacks overseas escalated in frequency. Violence in the workplace… Read More Madness and Memories
The work that Jon and I did for American Airlines pertained to Sabre, the reservation system owned by American but used by other travel entities. Jon’s contribution was of such significance that he received national recognition and became a target for headhunters hoping to lure him from American Airlines. One of these firms made him… Read More Best of Both Worlds
Windows 95 welcomed me back to work after maternity leave giving a very different feel to my work flow. I also started using something called Front Page for my web page work. Front page gave me the ability adopt themes and design tool bar placement. I learned new terms such as .jpg, .gif, “click-through” and… Read More Candid Camera and Year 2K
November and December of 1994 was a whirlwind of celebration and juggling work schedules. My mother-in-law enjoyed Thanksgiving with us and returned home, apparently a little warmer toward the “older woman with a bunch of kids” who snared her adored son. A particularly memorable day among this busy time was Sunday, December 10. I woke… Read More Dreams, Surprises, and Bifocals
American Airlines had a pesky little nepotism policy stating that husband and wife shall not work in the same department. This was a bit of concern with inter-company transfers on hold because the company was undergoing a “restructure.” This venture was orchestrated by an outside consulting firm. Perfect strangers with New York accents gathered 25… Read More Clouds and Bicycle Horns
The 90s brought a new set of common terms to the business world. There was “reorganization” and “downsizing” instead of “lay-offs.” There was also a new term for good office manners. “Politically correct” or “PC” for short (or should I say vertically challenged). PC became a major focus and many companies required PC training. American… Read More The Perils of New Terminology