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The Admin's Blog! You can also read more about us on our new blog at http://linniepies.blogspot.com/ !
Saturday, April 19, 2008 I have spent the last 30 plus years of my life in customer service and administrative work! I truly love this type of work and hard work does not scare me at all! I worked in life insurance for 17 years handling customer service and administration with a large life/multi-line insurance company. I loved this work and was very sad when the company that I worked for laid my department off. But.....it was the beginning of WordLee! I was paid for almost one year in severance pay and my husband and I used some of that money to buy an electronic typewriter. In 1991 that was the thing to use before home computers were as common as they are now. It only held 8 pages of text and I spent much time typing and retyping. It was great fun. I did everything from typing term papers to legal papers for individuals. I also did transcription for insurance fraud investigators, telemarketing for insurance agents, worked part-time for a local church as their admin, and most of all I did lots of mystery shopping. I have shopped everything from restaurants, gas stations, housing, to hotel meeting planners. That has been a great learning experience. In 1992 we purchased a WANG (yes, I am serious) Computer from Wal-Mart for $800 because it had a Windows 3.0 operating system. At the time that was a real deal!! It was so exciting when we fired that computer up in our little dinning room turned office. The white glow of the screen and the color monitor was just too fabulous to explain! I didn't even know how to turn it off or use a mouse. I have never had anything like that in my previous computer use. The guys and I still laugh about that computer - but it was a workhorse and the people at Wang were wonderful and spent untold numbers of hours on the phone teaching me how to use a PC and a mouse - it was a very exciting time. Oh my gosh - Prodigy online and chats with others like me - you can't imagine. Prior to leaving my insurance background, I took a few college level courses on Life Office Management from the LOMA Association and received my Part 1 completion certificate. This gave me a good bit of background on how to run an office as well as a business. But.......wow did I have a lot to learn!!! If I can stress anything to anyone starting a business in any state is read, read, and then read some more and research as much as you can. I will list some great resources here as we expand. The other interesting thing is that I have worked from a home office for the past 16 years. That alone is challenging but so well worth it. For me it is a necessity as I am disabled and find it almost impossible to keep up with the rigors of working in a traditional office setting. So...this new way of working that has become so popular in the last 5-10 years is a great alternative for many. I will begin to touch on that here more and more and to offer what I have learned the hard way to those who may be young and inexperienced - maybe you won't have to learn the I did. My best advise is to research what you want to do and be sure you are a good fit and then don't let anything get in your way - it can be done. Sometimes it takes lots of time and even more patience but if you really want it - you can make it work!
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