CHESSNOID

I met up with an old friend who was my manager 20 years ago. We both did real estate loans and collections together. It was my first job after college and he had been a manager at that company for 5 years. We reminisced about the old times and talked about the current state of the economy and how it has affected us personally. We see each other only about twice a year to catch up. He basically stayed in the loan side of the business and I went into the collections side of it. I do enjoy our get togethers because it reminds me of where I started from in the business. He was one of my mentors.

When I first started in loans and collections, I hated my job. I felt like it was beneath me because I went to college and earned two degrees to get an analyst or research job. I wanted to deal with numbers and produce reports. This was nothing close to what I wanted to do and went to school for. Unfortunately, I had no job experience in those fields. In the early 1990’s, there was a bad recession and jobs were truly hard to come by. After 3-4 months of countless job interviews and turn downs, I took this job hoping to just put it on my resume and move on from there. The things I learned from my friend were things that I couldn’t learn from college classes. He taught me people skills, the art of speaking on the phone, and instilled positive motivational thinking in all that I did. After 2 years under his tutelage, I went on to bigger and better jobs and succeeded mostly on what I learned from him. At one point in my career, I had become an upper middle management executive at a national company with 5 departments under my span of control and I was responsible for 80 employees. It came with a corner office with a view and my job was just about making decisions.

I don’t think about this stuff often, but when I remember the things I have accomplished I also remember who influenced me in a positive way that helped me reach my potential. I guess that’s one of the reasons why I enjoy our get togethers so much because I really did appreciate what he had done for me. Even though I have expressed my gratitude to him, my mentor is modest and doesn’t take the credit he deserves. He is just happy for me that it worked out. Was there anyone in your school or at work that influenced you the same way?