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MY WORK
I love my job. I do quite a few things, which
are all very cool. Working for the Oklahoma
Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, I am a data
analyst, a project manager, and a web designer. I also do legislative analysis,
prepare graphical presentations for the executive members, and supervise the
work of five others. What does that all mean? Well, it mostly means that I sit
in front of a computer all day, writing reports or writing programs (SQL Server
7.0, FoxPro, Excel, & PowerPoint). Usually, it is extremely interesting and
challenging work.
I probably have one of the best bosses in the
world. He is extremely flexible about my time off, and he makes sure that I get
to travel a lot. I hope to have his job once he retires (I think in about four
years). I get along great with most of the people in our department. There's
always one or two in a crowd that just don't seem to be with the program, but
that's life.
One of the things that I've done recently,
which I'm very proud of, is develop a program that matches people from two
different databases. Actually, Becki did almost all the programming; I just like
to take the credit for it. You would think you could do it on social security
number alone, but that misses about 20-35% of the people. The number of times
one of the numbers is wrong or inverted is astounding. The original program I
wrote with one of my co-workers, took seven days to run. I've now got it down to
2.5 hours, which is amazing impressive (if you a computer geek). Becki has
presented this procedure at a couple of conferences.
I will have been at my job for over ten years.
Because I use to work A LOT of hours in the past, I have about ten weeks of
vacation time accumulated. During the legislative session, we work a lot of
extra hours, which gets a little over-whelming at times, but it is very
exciting. Over the past few years, our section has become recognized as a
national leader in the development of performance measures. Most of that is due
to my boss, and my co-worker, Tracy. Tracy and I started on the same day. She
know managers all the federal grant projects, which makes her a nervous wreck
some times, but she is great to work with.
All my friends keep telling me that I should go into
the private sector or into web design. My salary would be higher, but I really
doubt if my job satisfaction would be as high. I'm know that were ever I went, I
would succeed, but my current job always has new challenges and
responsibilities. I know that it would have to be less stressful at a new job,
but the stress provides motivation to be the very best at what I do. I AM the
best at what I do!
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