Work Milestone

Earlier this month, I hit a significant milestone at work!  Imagine, thirty years with the same company!

When I graduated from college in Ottawa, I had three job offers.  It was the early eighties and there were quite a few jobs for Information Technology folks.  I actually chose consulting, hoping to see a variety of different workplaces. In the almost three years I was with Ultracom Consulting (I don’t know what happened to them), I mostly worked for the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Commerce.

During that time, rather than programming, which is what I was trained to do, I learned to be an ADABAS DBA, on the job.  ADABAS is pretty much gone, I‘m afraid.  But, while in Ottawa, and through user groups, I met Ted Hillis.  Ted worked for Consumers Gas in Toronto, and they were known for the most efficiently run ADABAS database in the world.  I decided to go there, learn from Ted and return to Ottawa in two years.

Well, Consumers Gas turned out to be a great place to work.  I met my husband to be, who moved into the townhouse next to me, and after marriage, two lovely daughters, divorce and a myriad of other things in my life, I am still here

I have worked with a lot of great folks over the years.  I have also worked with a few not so great people in that time.  But I’m still here and as I write this, I could even retire in 13 days.  Mind you, as I pointed out in the last blog, one of those lovely daughters still has another year of university left and then two or three more credits to pick up.

I’m okay with staying for a while yet.  Oddly enough, for the first time in my working career, I seem to be relatively indispensable.  This is not a good thing and never should have happened, but I will work on fixing that over the next year or so.

So, I have unfinished business I guess, but then I shall look forward to sleeping in every day, reading, writing and relaxing!