The job I was at was the first real corporate job I had ever had. The day I walked in for the interview Gingham had driven me to the interview as I got out of the car he said “They’re never going to hire you” I walked out of that interview with the job. I was so proud of myself even though I wore a blue suit that was clearly old and tattered with a bad pair of low blue heels that were a different shade of navy then the suit. Little did I know at the time, but that job gave me more than I could have ever dreamed of. It gave me purpose, it gave me knowledge, it gave me experience and it gave me a group of life long friends. My title when I started was Traffic Coordinator, which sounded really cool at the time, but in the advertising world all I really did was push paper along to ego centric buyers waiting for them to sign off on artistic detail of which they had no real knowledge of. I walked jobs around the building, making sure this one signed there and that one saw that. I got to bring the jobs back and forth to the copy department and the graphic design department and I thought their jobs were so much cooler than mine. They went to college to learn how to do what they did and I was just learning as I went. As my affinity for the job grew so did the relationships with a certain group of “kids” in the work place. I always felt like the one on the outside. I had kids, was divorced and already a hot mess and they were just starting out in life, learning their way through their early twenties as I felt I was already approaching old age. Every day I would stop in the copy department and chat with one of the gals which became part of the ritual of my day. If she took a day off or was too busy to chat I can remember feeling lonely. The group was made up of 7 women and 1 guy. Each one of those girls had such different personalities and somehow this job was the common thread between all of them. One love to dance, one loves to do yoga, one loves to do weird voices and laugh a lot, one loves to be dark and twisty, one was so proper that I could tell my sexual escapades made her blush, and one was so level-headed always sounded like the voice of reason. They did plenty of activities that not only could I not do cause I had kids, but I had no interest in. They went camping and snowboarding and all sorts of outdoor activities. My idea of camping was going to a hotel that didn’t have room service. Winter sports were never my strong suit as I can remember I’ve skied three times in my life and broke my right wrist all three times. I was much better watching from the lodge and cheering on after the camping trip was over and I got to see the silly pics about a time I hadn’t even been a part of. I was however at all the weddings, the births, the birthday celebrations, the drinking parties, the late night conversations the deaths, the joy the sadness and everything in between. We spent day after day with each other in a tiny space doing our jobs, little did we know those days would be the catalyst to a friendship we all still hold fifteen years later. Over the years at different points in time I was closer to one then the other, they came in and out of my inner circle without boundaries. They have seen and heard and watched and experienced many of my life’s main events and still every time I see one of them we hug and kiss and laugh as if we were still those kids in those tiny cubicles not knowing all that life would hand to each of us. That job gave me more than I could have ever imagine I would receive when I walked through those doors to that first interview. If someone told me then that these people would be in my life in the way the are now I would have never believed you. Life is all in the perspective you take. That place is our common thread, the place that brought us all together, the place that built what I hold close to my heart. That job, gave me confidence, that job gave me my independence that job gave me freedom. That job gave me what I consider to be life long friendships. Go back in time to one of your firsts. What did it give you? What did you walk away with not knowing that it would be so important to you so many years later. I walked away with 7 of the most incredible people to cross my path. That job gave me them.