Saying Goodbye

Son, Eric, and Grandson, Eric, Jr.
 

A mother's heart can be mixed with many emotions when she says goodbye to her son and grandson. And as happy as I was to spend some time with each of them on their visit to State College, it's hard to hold back the tears as I write about saying goodbye to them on my blog.

Our son, Eric, flew in to BWI in Baltimore where we picked him up on Sunday. During the short four days he was here, he spent most of his time with his other son, Frank, who is building a amazing tree house in a hundred-year old oak tree. His other son, Eric, drove up over a week ago and spent a lot of time hiking with his family.

When I left for class this morning, I said goodbye to my son, Eric.  His son, Eric, was planning on picking him up at 7:30 a.m. I decided to make a quick trip home after my ten o'clock class and found them at my place in the car ready to leave. This is the only picture I have of them on this visit.

They are their own journey now, a father-son bonding trip. https://goo.gl/maps/98G4JJvjkvG2. They plan to camp tonight and tomorrow tonight, and be in Bluffton, were my son lives, on Saturday. Grandson Eric will leave for his home in Florida on Sunday.

Happy travelling, son and grandson.  Love, Mom and Grandma

My Compassion For Customer Service



Mary, presenting, fellow students, and Mr. Gates, our teacher
 

I have always felt a compassion to help others and believe my work in customer service has been a good fit for me.

At the South Hills School of Business & Technology, where I am now a full-time student, we are learning about teamwork in our management class.

Today, we were presenting our answers to teamwork questions assigned to us by our management teacher, Mr. Gates. It was great timing to share with my classmates about my role in customer service with my previous employer, ARRIS Solutions, a global telecommunications provider.



Nate, presenting
 

It was both exciting and an honor to share with the students how customer service is an important core value at ARRIS, and how fortunate I was to be on their customer service team for five years.

Since we are learning about teamwork and the importance of helping each other in our workplace, I shared with my classmates how our supervisor, our coworkers, and employees from other departments at ARRIS helped the customer service team be successful.

My fellow students gave impressive answers to our homework assignment on teamwork this morning. I love to listen to them present their ideas and answers. Here is a picture of Nate who captures his audience with his wit and persuasion. We voted him to be the captain of our ship on the first day of class.  Nate is still our captain, and we are his team!