Closing Doors

OMG!!! Can you believe it? I actually retired from AT&T on December 30, 2010! It happened so supernaturally that I knew it was time for that door to close in my life. After my successful journey through breast cancer I was confronted with several things, changes actually, that happened in corporate AT&T that quite discouraged me. OK, they made me angry! Afterall, I had invested 35 years with the company and I surely deserved better treatment than that. I won’t go into all the gory details here because I have much more exciting things to talk about, but suffice it to say one of the catalyst was losing 20 days of vacation time simply because my disability, my disease was not resolved during the same calendar year that it started in.

I had a bad attitude … no other way to say it; I was angry. On the day I reported back to work I met with Crystal (my money girl) and asked her “Can I get out of here?” She came and looked at the numbers and we discussed my plan forward. It was a good meeting but having a bad attitude was really bothering me. I had to pray about it. “Father God, right now I have a really bad attitude and I know it is not your will that I be angry or upset – worry. I ask you Father to help me get over this feeling. I did not spend 35 years with this company performing successfully to go out on a sour note, I’ve worked too hard. God help me get my joy back.” And I knew that when I did indeed “get my joy back” it would be time for me to leave.

BTW, a critical piece – I have a wonderful boss! She ‘cared’ for me from San Diego as best she could and because of it I decided that I was going to do everything she asked of me in exemplary fashion. And I did and the projects she gave me were things I liked so I dove into them with excitement. It got to the point where she would think of things she’d like for our team to do and I would figure out how to get it going and we’d work together on it and she’d say “I love it!” I got quite used to hearing that and forgot my prayer about getting my joy back. Well, it was back! It was now October/November and I was already thinking about how we were going to accomplish her plans for next year since I always vacation out the end of the year.

It was also time for my first mammogram since the end of my treatments. It showed there was no more cancer in the left breast but there was a blip – calcifications – in the right one and I had to have a stereotactic biopsy. And as I was whining to God about it (read my last blog) I was reminded that during the cancer journey He told me to start a publishing company. I was reminded that I was supposed to leave when I got my joy back –code word for ‘got my attitude together’. So in the face of these reminders I accepted the fact that it was time for me to retire.

I had no sooner decided to leave in March than we got word that our team was going to have to reduce; we NEVER had to reduce before! And fortunately or should I say supernaturally I was allowed to opt for a severance letter. Ordinarily, severance is at the discretion of the leadership team – you don’t get to choose to go! But my boss knew I was ready to go because I had asked her if I could get a severance letter earlier but there were none at that time. Anyway she worked it out so that I would indeed get this letter! That means I got a severance – bonus – of a year’s salary AND I got to retire with full retirement status/benefits!

I thank God that I’ve grown, as a person, to the point where I can go to God and say “Father, help me get my attitude together!” I asked, He did it and I retired from AT&T in good standing, leaving a great boss and a great team with a good attitude and a fat check to subsidize the pension which was a shadow of its former greatness, LOL. In any case, I closed the door on a 36 year career with joy and excitement at living in the manifold graces of a God who is SO providential that all I had to do was trust Him and live as He says and ‘forget not its benefits’!

Bless the Lord, O my soul...