Walk Away

My "office" is a cube. A corner cube with a window, but nevertheless, an open cube.

The across the way cube is occupied by an older, more experienced woman. Okay, to be blunt she is elderly, in her mid to late 80s.

This wonderful, wise, fascinating woman was a well-regarded PhD in archaeology in her previous life. Now she does data entry for my company. She has been here a long time (20+ years) and made the dramatic career shift for personal reasons.

She has watched the world change dramatically and has worked hard to keep her skills at the necessary level. To go from being part of a typing pool for VPs to each person having their own computer was obviously a game changer to someone in her position (or really anyone working anywhere).

That being said, she is not necessarily the most tech savvy person. She is very good at her job and has all of the technical capabilities necessary for her position. But she focuses on those systems and programs that are required to accomplish her job. I just heard her on the phone for half an hour (cubes rock!) trying to give someone direction on how to get a client's email address from our database. She spent 20 minutes taking them down one path to learn that they didn't have access to the same things she did, "Okay, let's try something else. Can you go to Google? Do you know how to Google something?..."