I teased in my “Five for ’15: The Year to Chill” that, in reference to building towards the future, “Things are looking promising already, so we’ll consider this a tease until next week’s post titled “Last Stop.””
I’m sure you’re all dying to find out what I was referring to. Am I right? Don’t answer that.
Last week I secured a position with Liberty Mutual Insurance working at their service center a block from my house. Yes, a block from my house. Did I mention “The Year of Chill!”? Well this most certainly helps!
Not only does this save close to $200 on fuel (and wear and tear on our new van), but this position offers me a sizeable pay increase, more benefits (like my two favorites – vision and retirement!) and opportunities to move up in a company.
Unfortunately when you work for a small insurance agency, room for growth is rather rare. You need to hope someone moves on (which they often do), dies (which they often don’t), or hope that their son or daughter doesn’t want to take over the family business (which they often do).
As much as I enjoyed the five months I worked for my current agency, and especially the people I worked alongside, the opportunities were too great, and as I inch closer to 40, I’m thinking more about how I need to start setting aside some money in planning for the future (three kids possibly headed to college; Lis and I being able to enjoy retirement).
Working for a large corporation is just another thing I can check off the “Jobs in the Insurance Industry” list that I’ve done. I’ve done personal lines, commercial lines, life insurance and, most recently, hardcore agriculture. I’ve been an office manager. I’ve had my own little office. I’ve worked for small agencies. I’ve worked for large agencies. Other than the two things I don’t care to do – claims and underwriting – I’ve pretty much done it all. Except taking a shot at the corporate world.
I actually enjoyed my last corporate job, with Eddie Bauer/Spiegel, and I liked it, not only for the friends I made but because I moved up through the company, from call taker, to contact person in the .com department. And then they shipped all of our jobs to Canada. Those darn Canucks!
I’m thankful for the opportunity I received from my current agency.
When we decided to move here last summer I didn’t have a job in mind. In fact, we were going to head over, job or no job. They were the only ones, out of the few that I either interviewed with or applied with, that offered me a position.
The people I’ve worked with are awesome, and I fit right in. However, it was my first drive into work that I realized how close I am to Liberty Mutual, and how I wish I had tried to find a job there. Months later I applied for a personal lines service agent, and was denied for lack of experience. Um … sure.
It’s fine, the hours would be all over the place. Holidays, weekends, nights, overnights. I wasn’t too bummed, like I said, I enjoyed the place and people I worked with.
Then my current position popped up. It was a day job, offered a higher pay, so I applied, and two long months later I was offered the position.
But before I left my old gig, there were some things I had to do first – like pull out a few pranks.
SIDEBAR: I truly believe I have a top-10 wife. Meaning she’s one of the top 10 wives in all of the land. Not only has she done an incredible job of raising our three kids, supporting me through tough times, fighting off cancer, and putting up with my crud, but she’ll also use the roller to crush Alka-Seltzer, so I can replace it with creamer for tomorrow’s coffee run. Oh, and she also makes Jell-O mold so I can put someone’s calculator and favorite pen in the middle of it. Yes, she’s clearly top-10 status, and I’ve learned that when you have that you need to not take that for granted. Oh, and she also thought of the idea to super glue the foam animals that my co-worker likes to throw at me to my co-worker’s desk. Brilliant!
Yes, so I replaced the creamer with Alka-Seltzer, I stuck a calculator and pen in Jell-O (though it didn’t work out well), I super glued a farm animal to a desk, I set the fart machine in the office next to the only other dude’s cubicle, and I changed the keyboards to US-Dvorak so they can’t type properly. How did it go? Ugh!
I was hoping to give a timeline of what happened, but since they (fine, I) sucked I’ll instead explain how each prank played out:
Jell-O: The calculator gal walked in and immediately tried to put something in the desk that had the not-that-solid mold with her calculator sort of inside of it. “What the …?” was her first question, followed by, “This better still work” and “You’re going to clean this up right?” FAIL! Later I employed her to ask the other Jell-O mold gal for a pen. She was nice enough to play along, unfortunately, when she reached for a pen it was in the wrong drawer, and then another wrong drawer. “Um … how about you try that other top drawer,” she suggested. FAIL!
Fart Machine: Not bad except that an hour into the day it started going off, fart, after fart, after fart, after … you get it. The two that heard it found it hilarious. I was disappointed that I wasn’t able to push the button when I wanted.
Keyboard on US-Dvorak: This was probably the winner of the day. The new gal tried to sign in, and seconds later when she couldn’t, was ready to toss the keyboard. She grew frustrated until 15 minutes later another gal used Google to solve the issue and I whispered to myself, “Newman!” Oh, and I guess I never selected US-Dvorak as the default on the other two computers because it never worked. FAIL!
Creamer: Turns out three of the four coffee drinkers drink it black. Translation: We don’t use creamer. The other gal brings her own creamer, and the other gal uses the liquid creamer in the fridge. So who uses the powdered creamer that now rests in a Tupperware container in my drawer? Nobody! So my wife’s time crushing the tablets was a waste?! FAIL! (By the way, tried this with water and AWESOME if you can pull it off!)
Super Glued Farm Animals: The lady that throws them at me wasn’t there today. I think this one will be the best yet. Go figure it’s the one my wife came up with. I can’t wait!
Yes, I’ll miss these ladies and the jokes we played on each other. But I also look forward to the next batch of co-workers I will meet on Monday!
In the last year we’ve blown up a lot of stuff (SEE: Year in Review). Here’s hoping this will be the last KABOOM! Here’s hoping this will be my last stop!
