Becky Poe, she was something. She worked in the sales department. There
were six of us up there. Mildred Trips, Sue Isley, Shirley Stout, Becky
Poe, Patricia Jarret, and myself. Becky, Patricia, and I were kind of
like in an open area. Becky was doing customer service and she was just
crazy. We laughed at her more than we laughed at anybody. She works at
the outlet store now. She moved to corporate office. She was part of the
transition up to corporate. We used to laugh at her. She'd talk on the
phone and she would say, "We'd just tell them anything to get rid of
them." Of course, she was kidding.
Patricia and I knew exactly how you were suppose to take care of the
furniture from listening to Becky on the phone. She was fun and
hilarious. We would pick on her about giving her husband a hummingbird
feeder for Christmas. [Laughter] She was
funny. We admired and respected her but she was a piece of work.
Of course, all of us got along well and that makes a difference. Once in
a while we would plan a menu and everybody would bring something and we
would have lunch up there. Sometimes we would go out.
When I turned thirty they sent me balloons, you know, over the hill
balloons. Patricia and I took a cake decorating class together. For
about six weeks we had plenty of cake up there to eat. We would always
take turns on birthdays bringing cakes and decorating. We probably had
more fun than is allowed in a workplace. All of them were special.
Page 17
The guy that was in the shipping department his name was Harvey Durham.
He retired before the closing. He had nicknames for us all. Patricia's
name was chigger. Becky was O.D. for Off Drunk. Of course, she wasn't a
drunk at all, but he would call her O.D. I was Mama because I think I
was pregnant with my second child at that time. Shirley Mae, I think he
called her something else like Blondie or something like that. It was a
lot of fun.
When he left all of us in the sales department took him out for supper
one night. We didn't have to have much of an occasion to celebrate.
Of course, we would all have our little gripe sessions together and we
would get through it alright and things would be O.K.
Now I'm working with younger people which is fun too, but Shirley and all
of the them were older. I was the young one, of … Patricia was actually
younger than I was. For a long time I was the youngest one there. You
learn a lot from their experiences. They are fun people and I called
Becky last week and talked to her for just a few minutes. It's nice to
talk to them.