I've been tagged for a meme by Susan at Knitters Delight and so I thought it would be fun to play along and would give me something positive to talk about here today, as I have no other news, good or bad, about the other situation.
This one is gonna be a long one, so buckle up!
From Susan's blog:
The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.
1) What was I doing 10 years ago?
Let’s see….1998: I was 26. I had just bought my first condo the year before, had been dating Jim for three years, and had just been promoted to Assistant VP at a mid-sized bank (but still wasn’t making any money yet.) I had one more year to go on my MST (master of science in taxation) at DePaul University.
2) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today?
1. conference call about the tax implications of an indirect maquiladora structure in Mexico
2. review analysis comparing the tax attributes of Louisville, KY vs. Memphis, TN - DONE
3. lunch with Maggie, my client service partner and friend at the Big 4 firm we engage for tax consulting help, at Volare
4. sushi at Blu Coral
5. chat for Understanding Knit Fabrics class at 8 pm
3) Snacks I enjoy:
1. if being good - Yoplait Light yogurt, especially in the lemon and banana cream pie flavors; Jell-O light puddings in butterscotch/chocolate swirl or vanilla/chocolate swirl; Ruby Red grapefruit sections in the little plastic cups
2. if being naughty – Combos (evil little cylindrical shaped pretzels with either peanut butter or cheese stuffed inside – yum), Reese’s Peanut Butter miniatures
3. not really good or bad, in moderation – cashews, macadamia nuts, sesame pretzels
4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
Take a world cruise first; then go back and stay for a longer time in some of the places I visited previously and enjoyed. Spend my days knitting outside on a beach or by a pool, my nights sewing and eating sushi and drinking wine. Buying whatever shoes and purses caught my fancy (I still wouldn’t buy clothes though.) Trying expensive wines and discovering my favorites.
5) Places I have lived:
They’re all in the metropolitan Chicago area:
- Born in Evergreen Park, Illinois (1972)
- Lived in Chicago, Illinois (far southwest side in the Beverly neighborhood) til 6th grade (1984)
- Lived in Oak Forest, Illinois (southwest suburb of Chicago) til college graduation (1994)
- Lived in Orland Park, Illinois (next southwest suburb over from Oak Forest) with my ex until we divorced the next year (1995)
- Lived in Naperville, Illinois on my own in an apartment from 1995-1997
- Bought my first condo in Naperville, Illinois and lived there from 1997-2001
- Bought our current house in Downers Grove, Illinois with Jim in 2001 and plan to live here for the rest of our days
6) Jobs I have had:
Oh boy. Lots. I'll tell some other stories along the way with my answers to these.
1. Receptionist at St. Damian Rectory – answered phones, sorted and stapled bingo cards
2. Switchboard operator at Gately’s Department Store; also helped out in the office with bizarro tasks like collecting manual register tapes from the various departments and adding them up on a 10-key, checking packages at the back door and operating the “will-call” department
3. counter help at Jr’s Hot Dogs – this didn’t last long. It was hotter than Hades in this tiny little hot dog shop, so you had to wear shorts while avoiding 3rd degree leg burns from the steamer tables and fryer. It was mutually decided that I would find other employment as I didn't like getting too close to the fryer or the steam tables and was generally a teenage priss. The main attraction of this job was that I could walk there and my mother wouldn’t have to drive me or lend me the car.
4. counter help/sandwich maker at Submarine City – this was fun. My friends and I all worked there, and it was open til 2 am on weekends (which we stupidly worked by ourselves – two sixteen year old girls. It was a safe suburban area, but still. Once there was a break-in and we had to identify the robber. My friend cut her arm on the slicer and we had to call an ambulance. I cut a half-circle shape into my palm while slicing bread and I still have the scar and am still afraid of knives, which is kind of an impediment to cooking.)
5.Walgreen’s – “second cosmetician”. This meant that I was second banana to the the woman who worked weekdays and was in charge of the cosmetic department. It was kind of a cool job for a 17-19 year old. I got to go to training with the various cosmetic companies like L’Oreal, Revlon, and Cover Girl, and got a lot of free products. I also got to make displays, one of which I won an award for, and I earned commission on the products I sold. I eventually did the ordering for the department, and “reset” the shelves when we would get new plans from the corporate office to move the shampoos or some other section around to give different product placement and facings to the various products we were trying to sell. That was fun as I got to tear everything apart and start fresh. All the shampoos would immediately go into a bunch of shopping carts and I would start fresh, cleaning all the shelves and using a razor blade to peel off all the mylars off the shelf. Then I would use the “plan-o-gram” and pictures to set everything up the way it was supposed to be. For some reason this appealed to my innate sense of order and OCD tendencies that I think I had then.
6.I now needed to make some actual cash, as I was in college and was paying half of the other half not covered by my 50% academic scholarship so I started waitressing. Waitress – Nancy’s Italian restaurant. The stories would fill a book. This was a very unprofessionally run place, and was super short staffed. There might be one inexperienced waitress (that would be me) in charge of a dining room of maybe 20 tables, plus I was supposed to make my own drinks. I had no idea how to make drinks (I was 19, not that I hadn’t had a few Miller Lites or tequila shots by that time, but had no idea about “cocktails” like a Vodka Gimlet or a VO Manhattan) so I’d end up getting someone older and more experienced to do it, with much complaining. Then I was supposed to garnish my glasses and I had no idea what garnish went with what, nor was there any reference to consult on the matter. I also ended up starting a love triangle drama with two of my co-workers, first dating one of the pizza delivery guys, then dating his co-worker and friend who I didn’t know was already dating one of the older (mean) waitresses that also worked there (who already didn’t like me as I was younger, skinnier and cuter than she was. Sigh, to look like 19 again, but live my life now. I wouldn’t go back if I had to take the whole package.)
7.After causing this whole controversy at the restaurant, I decided it was best for me to make my exit. I applied as a waitress at Chi-Chi’s Mexican Restaurant in Orland Park, and got the job. Unlike the last restaurant, this one was very much a corporate operation and I had a week of formal training. Classroom time, menu tests, menu item identification in the kitchen, food running to learn the table numbers in the four dining rooms and tray handling (this was the first time I’d dealt with large trays and eventually I was carrying them over my head, as a sideshow to the restaurant patrons - "Lookit that little girl carrying that huge tray over her head" - while exiting two differently oriented doors, with a tray stand in my other hand, and navigating stairs) and shadowing another training server to gain confidence throughout that week.
This was also a “training restaurant” so we had an ever-changing revolving door of managers in training who were about my age or a little older, going through the various jobs in the restaurant for 2 weeks to a month at a time at each job. It was interesting to see the MITs develop through their work in the kitchen at the various cold/hot prep jobs, the line cook jobs, then to the “front of the house” with work at the hostess desk, dining room service and bar service, then they would take on overall management responsibilities. I don’t know if this is how all of the chain restaurants approach training, but it was a good way to do it, and it built credibility with the staff as they knew the manager had actually done their exact job for a good amount of time. It was also interesting to work side by side with the MITs as peers while waiting tables, and then see them as bosses a few months later.
I’ve been avoiding the biggest thing that happened during the time I worked here – I met and got involved with my ex-husband, Scott. I can’t be too philosophical or generous about that relationship as all it did was teach me what I never want a relationship to be. There was a lot of drama with him and people were trying very hard to tell me that he was “up to no good” but to no avail. I married the fool anyway in 1994.
8. Which brings me to my next job at Arthur Andersen LLP at 33 West Monroe, as one of the members of the tax staff. This was my first professional job and I had felt while interviewing that I might be at a disadvantage, as I didn’t have any internships in my field of accounting (mostly because they didn’t pay anything, or if they did pay, they didn’t pay even a quarter of what I made waitressing, which only really required me to work about 30 hours a week, mostly all on the weekend, to make it. This worked well with my full time school schedule during the days. There wasn’t any time for screwing around or partying for this girl during school.) Actually, the people who interviewed me told me later what a benefit it was that I had worked to put myself through school, and that they were convinced by my bridging of the multitasking and people skills to dealing with clients in the accounting profession. Yes!
So when I started Andersen, there was a lot of socializing and for many people it was a continuation of college. For me, it was kind of the college and “downtown Chicago” experience I never had, so I took advantage of it, much to my jealous ex’s chagrin. I was doing well at work and was recognized as a promising new hire, with a lot of leadership opportunities presented to me, as well as studying for the CPA exam. The final straw was when I passed the CPA exam and my ex said, “Big deal. You’re a CPA.” After spending blood, sweat and tears on that exam for a year, that just clinched how little regard he had for my efforts and how little he thought of me in general, which was said to me, every day. I was told I was fat at a size 2 (because I was an undernourished 0 when I met him, even though I was still seriously underweight – this is at about 30 pounds less than I weigh now.) Finally he left our apartment and I never felt such relief.
9. Next job – Mid America Bank. In which I meet the love of my life, Mr. Jim. I walked in the door, saw him, and it was love at first sight for both of us. The actual job was “Tax and Financial Analyst”, so I did some tax, finance, investor relations and corporate governance type work. I learned a lot as I was thrown into the deep end of the pool, and was promoted to Tax Manager a few years later. I then was promoted to Assistant Vice President, and got my MST from DePaul a year later. A year after that, I left to get my first real paycheck.
10. Porsche was my next job. I was hired in as Manager, North American Taxation, at the U.S. headquarters, and for the first time I was dealing with a lot of multistate tax work as well as Canadian taxes. I also did a lot of system related work as I had really gained a knack for that while at Mid America and had created some databases to do various tasks at that company, which I also did here. I was able to pay $50 a month for a white 2001 Porsche Boxster S as a perk of working here, and I loved that car, although after awhile it becomes no big deal. After two years, I found the opportunity at my current company.
11. Current company is a mid-sized public company that I probably shouldn’t mention the name of due to anti-doocing concerns, not that I think they would, but better safe than sorry. I started here in 2002 as a Tax Manager, with the plan that I would take over as Tax Director (the promotion I had been wanting for awhile) for the current director who was traveling back and forth from another state and wanted to stop doing so. That materialized in 2004, and then I was promoted again to Senior Tax Director last year, as some of you I’m sure remember when Jim posted it on my blog for everyone in his excitement!
7. ) Bloggers I am tagging who you will enjoy getting to know better:
I'd rather have a surprise - if you're reading this, consider yourself tagged. I'd love to read the responses of anyone who answers this one.
