The University of Akron holds a Service Awards reception each year for employees that have reached a milestone – 5, 10, 15, etc. \u00a0– year with UA.<\/p>\n
One of the committees I’m on volunteered to help this year and I was asked to prepare the powerpoint that will play in the background, listing all the names of the recipients.<\/p>\n
To my surprise, I’m on the list. I started full time at UA in August of 1997 and figured I’d get my certificate next time around. I’m in my 20th year, but I haven’t really finished<\/em> my 20th – more like 19 and 7\/12 years. \u00a0Or something. \u00a0I did a little math, but didn’t really care about the result. It looks good, anyway.<\/p>\n But, according to Human Resources and their vaguely inaccurate reckoning, I’ve been at the University of Akron for 20 years.<\/p>\n 20 years.<\/p>\n It’s a little tough to wrap my head around. I started out on the computer help desk, moved to client support, then a brief stint in the computer store, then lab support before moving to the webteam. And no, we didn’t use punch cards when I started in computers – though I was on an early Mac with a CRT screen connected to a mainframe for a while.<\/p>\n Over the years the job, and most of the people, have changed. Some things are better and some are worse, but mostly things are just things.<\/p>\n I haven’t lost that excitement over helping our students. That might take the form of teaching someone how to use the online survey tool, setting up an e-commerce site for a student group, running an election, or writing a letter of recommendation for a student employee. \u00a0And, as as side note, one of my student employees just turned 21. \u00a0She was 1 year old when I started at UA.<\/p>\n I like solving problems and helping people and so the job doesn’t get old. There’s always something new to do and I’m happiest when I’m busy. I get cranky and frustrated too, sometimes. Mostly when I have to solve a problem more than once or I’ve got a problem that can’t be solved – but I’m mostly happy with my job. And I realize how lucky I am in that regard.<\/p>\n So, next week I’ll attend the reception. I’ll have my name read aloud and shake hands with some people. There may be a photo op with Zippy and I’ll get a certificate – that I’ll keep with the 5, 10, and 15 years ones I still have. In another 10 years, I’ll get a rocking chair and…<\/p>\n Okay, let me stop right there for a moment. The gift that the University gives people at 30 years of service is a rocking chair. Because, by that point, you’ll be so damn old<\/em> that you sitting around in a chair and rocking slowly back and forth will seem like a good time.<\/p>\n Or, you can get the Captain’s chair that is essentially a rocking chair that doesn’t rock. I guess rocking in a chair is too much for some people.<\/p>\n How about a laptop? Or a skateboard? I’d love to learn how to shred at 54. Or a skydiving trip? Or a freaking shark with a laser?<\/p>\n Nope, rocking chair. I’ll have a listing on Ebay so fast there won’t even be time to unpack it.<\/p>\n But, I digress.<\/p>\n 20 years of being “quietly awesome” and saving the damn day, every day.<\/p>\n I dare you to keep up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The University of Akron holds a Service Awards reception each year for employees that have reached a milestone – 5, 10, 15, etc. \u00a0– year with UA. One of the committees I’m on volunteered to help this year and I was asked to prepare the powerpoint that will play in the background, listing all the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2186"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2187,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2186\/revisions\/2187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}