From Clancy's Wednesday Jar pull...

What is your principle occupation and what circumstances led to it?
*Please refer to Clancy's blog and feel free to join in on the fun!

Currently I am on maternity leave enjoying my real job as a Mom! It's by far the most challenging and easily the most rewarding! I am very much enjoying my time away from the office but will admit that I am still logging in and checking on things at the office daily from my laptop. The bottom line is that I would be a stay at home Mom in a heart beat but it just hasn't ever been in my cards so I've always tried to make the best of it, make the most of it and enjoy (notice I did not say I was good at this!).

When I was 17 my brother and I were obsessed with AOL Online and had a blast with it. The internet was pretty new to us in 1994 so it was quite a novely that consumed a crazy amount of time and money. I made a friendonline named Akbar from Pakistan. "Apple Jacks" and I remained friends across space and time. He's an amazing person with an incredible series of stories that make up his life. He's one of those special friends in my life that I will always cherish and carry with me. I love these kind of friendships!

In 2005 I quit my job working in the IT Department at St. Mark's Hospital. I was on call and it was too much for me as a newly single Mom with a 1 and a 2 year old. My Apple Jacks made me aware of some openings at his company. He lives in CA but there was/is an office in the SLC area. I applied, was offered a position and officially began work at Siebel. Siebel was acquired by Oracle shortly there after and hence I currently work for Oracle in the OnDemand Customer Care org for their Customer Relationship Management application as the Solutions Release Manager on the Advanced Resolution team. Say that three times fast and then know that it doesn't make me important!

I started out supporting the application and have evolved into various postions given my performance/advancements (Support Engineer Level I and then II, Queue Manger, Aging SR Analyst, Escalations Manager). I now manage all of the knowledge objects on our internal Knowledge Base and also our customer interfacing resource as well. I liason with various groups around the world (Tech Support, Product Marketing, Hosting, Operations, Training, Customer Advocacy, etc) and also work with our off shore support groups in Romania, China and India.

For me this involves technical writing, analyzing, updating and publishing content. Initially this was a little overwhelming as it was literally starting from ground zero but I have absolutely loved figuring things out, asking questions, defining/documenting processes, working through bugs and providing accurate information to both our internal and external customers. I love that I can measure my progress and have really enjoyed kicking the crap out of deadlines!

I have had the benefit of working from home and the flexability has been invalueable. My boss is in Cali and I really enjoy working under him as he is extremely knowledgeable and very much a perfectionist. I love my work, the people that I work with and the challenges that it presents. In that respect it is extremely satisfying (as satisfying as life gets outside of being with your family).

I will be honest and tell you that I miss the crud out of my kids and as much as I love my job it never gets any easier to be away from my them. Dayton starts 1st grade next week and Ellie starts full day Kindergarten after Labor Day. That puts them both in full time school BUT the very thought of leaving my new baby girl puts me in instant tears :(

On the B Side: I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to pursue a formal education after HS. While it wasn't easy it was definitely worth it (and I could have never done it without Amanda and Krystal!). I love knowing that I am able to support my family and am thankful to be gainfully employed and find it so rewarding. I am determined that if I must be away from my children that I am going to bust my butt and make it count!

I'm also really grateful for precious friends such as my Apple Jacks!