1993 - My HR Career Begins

In 1993, I was feeling more confident about my skills. I was still only 25 years old, but I had confidence. With no formal training, I became the "go to" person for HR in our management circle of our little company. I think I was different from my peers, because I really dove into the human resources factor of the business. I really was fascinated in small changes that could have a big impact on the operation. In an industry with over 100% turnover, a job in human resources was a challenge, and I became energized by this challenge.

Though I think I may have been a little hard on my former boss, nerdy "Lurch", I enjoyed meeting my new boss, who came from a large company, and seemed to really appreciate my passion for people. He would humor me a lot, listening to my ideas, and building my confidence. I worked hard, but I really had an interest in persuing some more formal training or education in human resources. This task seemed impossible with my unpredictable schedule, so I started to search for a human resources job that would allow me to work a normal office work day (Monday -Friday, daytime) so that I could try to go to school at night.

I was an easy date for a company looking to hire a hard worker. I had an interview with a company who was hiring a human resources manager for a contract security (security guards) company. On the day I had the interview, I had stayed up all night, conducting inventory for the restaurant. The hiring manager told me that the turnover in this industry is about 100%, and to keep up with needs, they place regular Sunday Classified newspaper employment advertisements. Because of this, Mondays are very hectic, and I might find myself eating lunch at my desk on Mondays. "I get lunch - and I have a desk" I thought. This sounded pretty good to me! I soon became the HR Manager for this Houston office of a company based in California that was in the business of providing security guards. This company actually had a pretty large corporate office with real live professional HR people. I was in heaven. Every time these corporate folks came to visit, I would latch onto them like I was one of them. There was this great training professional who I loved, and a super professional, beautiful corporate HR professional who had attended Berkley and I was totally in her fan club. Looking back, they probably thought I was so wierd. Looking back, I know I was wierd. I was just like a kid though. Coming from a company with no real role models, I was so happy to meet people who were like what I wanted to become.

The next thing I knew, I was signing up to start my Master's Degree in HR program. I was so excited. I kept my day job, but attended school most evenings. Even with school in the evenings, I was still sleeping more than I had in the restaurant life. I never realized how tired I had been until people would tell me how rested I looked once I was out. I loved every minute of that career in restaurant management (minus the time when the employee turned off my power at my apartment and scared me to death or the time the diswasher threw a plate at my head because I disciplined him for his temper), but I also loved having a life and an opportunity to go to school to grow my career.

By now, John and I are still dating, and he has finished his MBA, and is working in a bank, so my new career allowed me more time to spend with this boy that I certainly did not move to Houston for.