I'm Done!!!

Today was my last day of work! Woohoo! After just over 20 months of working at my job, having put in my 2 weeks notice 10 months ago, I have come to the end of my run at Northwestern Mutual. I leave with an increased respect for the company that helped raise me, and a greater appreciation for the awesome reputation held by the company I grew up with. I'm glad I could add my story line to "the family business."

But I'm also glad I'm out of the family business. I learned a lot from working as an administrative assistant to two financial representatives. I learned all about the different kinds of life insurance, disability insurance, and old person insurance (formally known as long-term care). I understand so much more about investments and all the different types of accounts you can set up. But I also learned I hate dealing with money - namely, other people's money. I hate customer service jobs. I don't like having my phone ring, just to hear that someone needs me to do something, which I generally don't know how to do in the first place. I learned I don't like the financial arena. It's all very important, and I'm glad to have learned it, but I don't want to deal with it daily.

Ultimately, I didn't feel the satisfaction of a job done well like I wanted to. I'd get excited about things - a case that finally got completed, a form that came in after months of tracking, etc. - but I didn't feel accomplished or like I played any part in the successes we had in our office. I did play a part, but it didn't hit me the way a well-written paper I would submit did. Call that selfish or self-centered, that's just how I work.

But I did enjoy it there, and I worked with some really fantastic people. Today was a fun day - we went to lunch at Thai Lotus (sooooo deliciouss~) - and then I spent the afternoon working on cleaning my cubicle. It felt like the last day of school! I was cleaning out my space (locker), and I ended up staying later to move everything back to co-worker Elizabeth, and saying hi/bye to people. It was such a wonderful feeling!

I'm so excited about these next few weeks! I'm sleeping in and going to be late...like tonight! But first things first. My job is now over. Time for job two - church. I better go write my talk for Sunday...I just found out I was speaking Wednesday, so this is going to be interesting. And my talk is on patience...awesome. What do you say about that? Well, I guess I'm at least lucky that I've perfected the skill of patience over those last 8 months as I waited to decide when to go back to school, when to move, if I should move. If that doesn't show patience, I don't know what does.

Any good ideas beyond Elder Uchtdorf's great talk on patience? Because I could use some good ones!

3 weeks vacation, here I come!