To put this in perspective, this mostly windowless building housed the Office of Personnel Management, a division of the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration, and this story occurred in the spring of 1977, just a few months before Elvis died.
Computers were still a science fiction dream in those days.
They were mostly housed at NASA, and took up a whole room. We did have electric
calculators with rolls of white paper that piled up on our desks as we added
columns of figures in an effort to make sure everything in our sight was
balanced.
One of the most important functions of the employees in that
building was to approve the payroll every two weeks for the thousands of
workers employed by the State of Arkansas. This involved someone from each
agency carrying stacks of paperwork and actual checks from one place to
another, collecting signatures and stamps of approval. One very famous incident
occurred in the elevator shaft when a trusted employee lost his grip on the
precious papers, which slid into the gap between the elevator and the third
floor landing, and went all the way down to the bottom. That brought progress to a clunky, damp halt for awhile. Of
course, due to the dedication and hard work of all involved, those employees
were paid on time anyway.
My specific role involved opening mail to begin the process of
accounting for health insurance premiums deducted from the paychecks of State employees.
I was the backup typist in the office as well, and although I believe there was
one photo-copier on another floor, carbon paper was still the preferred method
for producing more than one copy of correspondence. An indelible memory
involves a green felt-tip marker that my boss used to mark up a letter she had
dictated. That wouldn’t have been unusual except for the pronouncement at the
end: “No, I think it was fine just like it was.” No problem, just stick another
triple-decker carbon paper sandwich back in the IBM Selectric and start again,
right?
Fast forward over thirty years to the tenth floor of
another repurposed building, a former bank with expansive views of rooftops and
parking decks. Here, I helped train the people who process the payroll for
their agency’s employees. Their job mostly involves reviewing the work done by
other employees in their division, running reports to be sure that every hour worked
by every employee is properly accounted for. Then, they push the right buttons
to be sure that money is transferred to the bank accounts of those employees in
time for an ATM withdrawal to finance the weekend’s activities, and to enable
transfers and online payments to take care of household bills. Paper paychecks,
green felt-tipped markers and IBM Selectrics are all dim memories.
One of my proudest moments was when we traveled to the
Headquarters of the National Federation of the Blind. My friends and I were
chosen to prove our agency’s commitment to making sure that everyone who wanted
to work for the State of Arkansas would be able to take advantage of the latest
technology to perform their daily job. We represented all of the hard-working
analysts and programmers back in Arkansas who took their work very seriously. I
believe that the folks in Baltimore recognized this, and we all came away with
the feeling that we could make things easier for all workers, regardless of
physical limitations.
Imagine how excited that nineteen year old young lady would
have been to hear where her career would end up.
Today at a retirement party, with hugs from her friends and
family, she stands ready to take a new leap of faith. With all of the knowledge
and confidence they have given her over the years, how can she fail? With God
providing the wind beneath her wings, she’ll soar to all sorts of new
adventures. The story is getting more and more exciting!
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