Bitter Sweet

Today is my last day of work. I can not believe that I am on my way to Utah tomorrow. I am very excited to move to Utah and I can't wait to see what the future brings. I already have some good leads on jobs for the summer. I really will be happy when I get some interviews to teach for the upcoming school year. After all that is why I am moving to Utah.

The past two years have been challenging. I remember my first day of work and going around to the stores and meeting all the employee's. There were some real losers working here at the time and I knew that my first task would be "clean-up" It took me about a year of lots of hard work, long hours, and firing and hiring to clean this place up. I am so happy that we have such a great class of employee's working for us now. I put in way too many 60+ hours a week shifts, but I think it was all worth it. I have learned a great deal from this job and I can leave holding my head held high. I am sad to leave all of the friends I have made at work. I sure do work with some great people. Monday night they had a party for me. It was really nice. Not everyone was able to make it, but I enjoyed my time with those that were there. I took my camera with me so I could take pictures and then forgot about it. Here are some pictures I took yesterday. I will take more as I go around to all the stores to say goodbye and post them later.

Me working in the Granite Bay Store. Ready with a smile for the customer that walks in.

Getting customers clothes off the rack. As you can see there really wasn't a customer, but it was a fun pose :)

Owner, Ben Combs. What a great man. He first hired me when I was 20 years old back in 1996. I worked for him for about 1 1/2yrs. He has also hired all four of my brothers. Gideon worked for him for 3 years before he went on his mission. Now Gideon is working at Judi's again, but just for the summer. When I originally left Judi's he tried everything he could to get me to stay. 10 years later he succeeded in getting me to come back and work for him. Perhaps in another 10 years I'll be back again. Who knows...

Two of our great Route drivers. Jen and Sergio. Jen has been with the company longer than any other employee. She knows it all. Sergio has a lot of family in Salt Lake and I told him he better come visit me when he is there :)

Good Old Ali. Not that he is "old" but he is such a kind man. He is so devoted to his job and always has the best interest of the company in mind. He is the one that gets all of the clothes to all the stores. He is always on the go and being pulled in a million different directions by about 40 different employee's. Everyone thinks that their request is most urgent, so he really has to multi-task and he does a great job. I will really miss him.

I am going to post this for now. I will try and post more tonight after I get more pictures.