New Home, New Jobs ...

Now that I was in Denver, things had to be done.  I had to find a job.  Jimmy and Lisa were supportive and didn't push me into getting a job or worry about paying for anything until I did.  I think I got a job 2 weeks after moving out there.  Now I don't recall the exact order of the jobs I had, but I do remember some incidents while there, worth noting. 

At one point I worked part-time at Kmart, where Jimmy's Mom worked.  Let me say this unequivocally.  I HATED THAT JOB!  I didn't like standing on my feet all day in one spot and there was no time to meet other coworkers and get to know anyone.  This was back in the day before sliding credit cards through card readers.  This was the time when you had to get the credit card machine and a carbon form and slide the gizmo over to imprint the card info on the form.   Very time consuming for customers to wait, and if you messed up any of it, you had to do it over.   You had to call a number to make sure the card was valid.  I got plenty of denials...aggravating that's all I can say. 

Later on while still at Kmart, I got a second part time job with a real estate company, working as the receptionist.  My schedule was set up where I worked a Kmart in the morning, and the real estate office in the afternoon.  Why the RE office didn't want a full time receptionist, I don't know.  But in the morning Evelyn would be in the office.   I'd take over for her and things rolled on along.  Now, I cannot say I hated this job, but it wasn't the most efficient place.  Real estate agents coming and going, and giving me notes about things I had to remember.   I had to print off MLS records of new listings, and I had to do a lot of other things. 

The big problem came after I was there maybe 2 or 3 months, when Evelyn came through my line at Kmart one day.  I had no idea why she was at the store I worked at.  I don't think she lived anywhere around there.   But one day I had mentioned to her that I got paid every Friday in cash.  Why Kmart did that, I don't know.  Why I told her that, I don't remember.   So one day I showed up at the RE office on a Friday, put my purse in the drawer next to Evelyn's and then went to retrieve some MLS reports off the fax machine.  I came back and Evelyn was leaving.  Didn't think a thing about it, until later.  I went in my purse sometime later in the day and realized my income from Kmart, the cash I earned from the prior week's work, was gone!  Now I knew good and well I didn't actually see anyone take it.  But Evelyn was the only person in the office up at the receptionist desk during the short period of time I was away from the desk.  My thought was she took it.  I went to my boss in private and mentioned that I suspected she took my money, figuring he'd help find out.  Well, was I ever wrong!   The next day after he had spoken with Evelyn, I was surprisingly LET GO!  I was stunned and livid!   The president gave me my final check and said I was not needed anymore. 

The next day, Evelyn calls my home saying SHE was sorry that I was let go.  I told her that I thought she was the one that took my money, she of course denied it.  Then for the top shocker of them all, she told me that she had gotten hired to work FULL TIME at the office.  When I got hired a couple months prior, they told me they didn't want a Full Time person cause they'd have to pay full benefits, now they hired her, after she possibly stole from me.  I felt like I had been kicked in the gut and then stomped on.   I hadn't done anything wrong, in my mind.  I accused her of stealing from me, and I get fired?   What the Hell?

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Another job I had was working at Silo, with Lisa.  Which was very convenient.  We rode together, she taught me my work, and I got to meet a bunch of fun and interesting people.   We had to enter purchase orders and invoices into their computer system, and periodically do inventory.  I did like this job a lot.  It was more up my alley of work, and it provided me with good money to live off of.  I actually worked for a Temp Company, Lisa actually worked for Silo.   They told me my assignment was for 6months to possibly permanent.  So I wished and wished it would turn to permanent.  It did not.  But I enjoyed the camaraderie amongst the crew I worked with while there.  The one person that stands out to me was Tony.  He was gay.  But a funny gay guy at that.  Everyone loved Tony!   He made the room light up with his awesome humor and his knowledge about so many things.  He'd hang around all us girls and just have us cracking up, every time.  I love that about work environments.   Laughter is so much needed in the business environment, when stress is at an all time high, laughter helps chill the mood.  And it is always contagious.  :-)


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I had one job that didn't last long and it was a 2nd shift position.  I started at 3:30pm and got off at Midnight.  It was working with student loan applications and loading information about each student and loan in a system.  That was it!   The most boring job I had ever had in my life.  Thank god it didn't last long, I found a full time job as a data entry person in a CPA firm.   This would be the job that I loved the most and hung with the rest of my time while living in Denver. 

The company was called BMW Financial Inc.  Had nothing to do with the car manufacturer BMW.  Instead those are the initials of the last names of the 3 owners of the company.  The office crew was small, I believe 7 or 8.   And we shared office space with another company, though I have no idea what those folks did.  Their receptionist was the first person anyone would see. Yours truly was in the far back office, entering data for each account we had, everyday. 

I loved this job because I was like a bookkeeper in training.  It was mellow enough that we were allowed to listen to a radio all day, and busy enough that I never got bored.  And challenging enough that I got to use the really cool IBM computer to create new forms for the clients that needed them.   I was in a place that let me create, do work that involved a lot of math, and did not have too many distractions to upset my balance, so to speak.  Jim's daughter Coleen worked there.  She was sometimes a pill and half.  She was married to a guy from Pakistan I think and they had a little boy.  And Jim's wife would stop in every so often.  She made me nervous for some reason.   Deana was the lone woman owner, and she wasn't there the whole of my employment there.  She ended up with some severe headaches but not sure what from.  She ended up selling her part of the company to Jim and the other male owner (name escapes me) and leaving.   She's the one that hired me and so I was sad to see her go. 

Diane was the actual bookkeeper.  She sat in another room, connected to the one I was in.  She was a force and a half.  I was at BMW for a little over a year, until I left Denver and moved back to Missouri.  Diane left the company before I did.  She got offered a job somewhere else, by one of our clients, and took her Rolodex with her, and attempted to convince many of our clients to go with her new company.  Some did.  Of course the owners were pissed with that whole thing.  It got a little tense in the office when all of this went down.  

Cindy was our lone sales person....garnering new accounts all the time.  She was in the office sporadically, and I have to say I loved Cindy!  She had 2 kids both of which that were allergic to wheat.  I heard and learned a lot about how difficult it was (back in 1989) to find foods that kids could eat that were Gluten Free.  She explained how long it took to figure this was the reason for her kids constant illnesses.  That had always made an impression on me, surely why I remember that story until now.  She was a good Mama and a good Sales person. 

At some point Lisa, my roomie, lost her job at Silo.  My boss was looking for another data entry clerk, I think I mentioned the opening to her and she came on board.  This was one of my biggest mistakes.  But to understand why, you'd have to hear the story of how Lisa ticked.   It didn't take me long to realize I shouldn't have told her about the job.  I know she needed a job, for many good reasons, but working with one's closest friend can have repercussions at home and in the work place.    Something to talk about in my next post.  



.....  when you go off on your own for the first time, things are new and fresh, and sometimes so thrilling you don't see all the ramifications of your new choices and new options.  Where some things seem logical, other things seem to interfere with your plans.  And some things come out of nowhere to upset the whole life you had created.   I had plenty of that type of thing going on while living in Denver.  Plenty.  And you'll just have to read on more to find out what else went on.   These were the days of much of my life's learning.....

First job in Aurora Co

 

 

Aurora on a map, East of Denver proper