Well, well, WELL......I've been waiting for this time to come and it is all good. Mark is retired from American Airlines May 31, 2012. Great advise came along for him to work out a departure package.....ya know.....fair and reasonable.
What a year 2012 has been. SUCH eye opening revelations. So many friends to leave behind at AA.....oh wait, not really. Such a rewarding job it has always been.....oh wait, that was stress for me as well as anyone working there.
But, none the less, I have recapped such memories of Mark's career at AMR, that I feel is a company bankrupt of sense. And a lot of that has rubbed off on my husband over the years. For staying there 28+ years makes no sense. But how loved and respected he is speaks volumes.
As one of the first new hires into administration (Budgets) in 1983, Mark worked for a couple of old timers that finally got to a desk job after 20 years. Plus, Mark worked for a dweeb of a man, Pete, someone who attended Dayton University. Not well received, but challenging. Budgets and Costs required massive overtime every quarter as well as yearly. One can imagine the fun I had with two pregnancies, then two babies then moving to a second home. If the city shut down due to snow, sleet, flooding, ice storms, Mark was the only car on the road. Let's move to Orange County. Hey, American Airlines is a great company thus far, and they want Mark, a young man, officer in the making, to get "field" experience. Sometimes the best part of moving was that our only friends were the Secret Service.
Such a beautiful place in which to live, we went right into the small townhouse as the only thing we could afford due to the most recent BOOM. So after owning 3 homes and making some equity, we go ahead and lose everything because what went up in OC real estate came crashing down. Oh well, lets rent......but not without a probable lawsuit from one rental that fell through. Again.....fun.
But that's OK, because I was able to return to work for the company in which I worked in Chicago....only to go through sexual harassment situations that made it unbearable. Therefore leaving me little room to start my own concierge business to include travel with the best commissions.......only for American Airlines to spearhead a "cap" commission reducing my income by 70%. Loving this company thus far? But we do what we can, because eventually our goal was to move back to Chicago. Nev-va happened.
Orange County led to LAX, getting promoted along the way in such career fulfilling ways like "hide your title name plate......no one knows your were promoted"......and "we are not asking you to go to LAX ramp, we are telling you.....". The most fun, was Mark's various GM's. One got fired. One left and never came back due to admitting himself into a loony bin. One got promoted to VP in ORD (Wait that is what we wanted). And one was to be Mark's boss for the rest of his career.
LAX was action packed with major drug busts, working with the FBI, dealing with lost dogs and the pet detective (yes, the person Ace Ventura was based on), earthquakes, Rodney King riots, OJ Simpson, mandatory pilot drug testing (sometimes those guys were scary mean). Just LA being LA. One might think our move to Dallas would be a good thing.
NOT when you have a 13 year old and a 15 year old. Life was over. However, the stock, the bonus, the profit sharing, the whole salary package made it worth while. However, we should have anticipated 1999 and the crash of 2000 leaving us with Jelly of the month club and a humongous mortgage. Dallas was the worst place to be during 9/11. The worst!!! No sleep for days......all of AA children upset in life. America will remain United.....YES!
Because of this American tragedy, Stephanie in the midst of applying to college, decided not to apply to Nortre Dame, Northwestern, Boston College, but to stay in Texas, because travel as we knew it has changed forever. Hence a Longhorn, and a Zeta. But the next few years, we along with America, said screw terrorism, we shall live life. Garrett will win that state championship and pursue college football in CA (for at least one season), Stephanie will go to USC and Mark will not hinder his career and take that job at JFK. Yes, another move, American Airlines just keeps making life fun.
The best part of NYC is the cut-to-the-chase attitude and we immediately knew who our friends would be for life. With a bi-coastal life, it was ok going back and forth. Accomplished would be my husband in New York. Sometimes very stressful, but life at American Airlines has always been, only to be rewarded with a VP position and move back to Dallas.
However that position did not come without some idiot thinking would be funny to summon Mark to Miami under the pretense of needing to answer to the Board of Directors. Thanks SVP, Mark loves being on high blood pressure meds.
This time around, I love Texas. We have friends here, we have friends on the right coast as well as the left coast. So the timing is soooooo right for Mark to assess his next venture in life. I'm sure we will be great. We already are and it is very much American Airline's loss.
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