H is for Hallmark....
Not just any Hallmark...Susanna's Gold Crown Hallmark. I started working at Hallmark a few days before my 16th birthday. There was a Hallmark store down the street from where I lived. My neighbor across the street worked there with her best friend. Jessica is the one who told me about the job. I went in and interviewed and was hired on the spot. I worked there until the end of my senior year. Then shortly after Joseph was born I went back to working there a couple days a week, which then ended up with me managing the store for a year. My high school time at Hallmark was so fun. I learned so much about how to work from that job! Although my manager could be intimidating sometimes I grew to really love her and I still keep in touch with her. Here are some of the highlights of my high school Hallmark years: Ornament Premiere. Hallmark debuts their ornaments in July. Yes that is right July. We had a midnight premiere every year. Local collectors would come and have a party at 10 o'clock at night and then at midnight we would unveil the ornaments for our customers to buy. I bought some. I still buy them every year. I started working there in 2001. I have at least 1 ornament from every year since then. Now I buy them for my kids. It was actually really fun to work the midnight premiere. I even went back for 2 premieres after high school because it was so fun. The best part was that during premiere we got to wear something other than our blue button up oxford shirt. We got to wear a Christmas T-shirt with our khaki pants, brown belts and brown shoes. There was also the famed Hallmark Christmas album which we loved to listen to because it was different than the normal sleepy piano music. I remember one year it was Amy Grant and Nina, one of the girls I worked with, made up her own words to the songs. Then there was the 3 major Hallmark holidays: Valentines Day, Mother's Day and Christmas. I loved busy holidays because that meant that more than 2 of us got to work at night. Generally speaking the rest of the year was much slower, which meant that we got to do more dusting, envelope straightening, and card st
raightening. I still to this day find myself straightening cards when I walk by the card aisle in the grocery stores. When the Olympics came Hallmark sponsored all the medals ceremony concerts. We gave out free tickets. People actually camped outside our little store to get tickets! Each of the employees got 2 tickets. I went to the Smash Mouth concert. Maren met me there. We each brought a friend. It was so fun! So cold...but so fun! I loved working with Jessica and Nina because they were 2 years older than me and much more popular. They were both so good about including me and inviting me to go along with them and their friends. I don't know if they ever knew just how much that meant to me. Then there was Maren and Ashley. They were also older and cooler because they went to a different school. Maren and I did a lot together too. We used to go to the University of Utah football games together. So much fun! Then my friend Heather (see my B is for Brighton post) started working there too. I loved all these girls. Notice the super cute picture of all of us bowling one night. Then I had the opportunity to go back and work as the manager of the store. This gave me a whole new perspective on working there. I think I finally understood all the rules we had to follow. I again had the opportunity to connect with some really great ladies. I called them all ladies. I loved to start out my to-do list with "Ladies:" Roslyn, Pam, and Janet were my daytime crew. Roslyn and Pam were like the mommies for the rest of us. I really admired Roslyn and I hope that I can be as good of a mom as she is. She is just so patient and is constantly looking for people to serve. Janet joined us when Martha's got bought out by Coppins. She was a bowler and was always trying to get us to bowl. Then we had our evening girls: Deeds, Kristin (K.P.), Morgan, and Karli. These girls gave me hope that not all teenagers are crazy! As a matter of fact I had them all over to my apartment for pizza once. We had some good times together. It has been fun to see the younger girls graduate and now move on to college. Thank heavens for Facebook which allows me to keep in contact with all of these girls. I have built some pretty neat friendships through my association at Hallmark. So there you have it. H is for Hallmark....
raightening. I still to this day find myself straightening cards when I walk by the card aisle in the grocery stores. When the Olympics came Hallmark sponsored all the medals ceremony concerts. We gave out free tickets. People actually camped outside our little store to get tickets! Each of the employees got 2 tickets. I went to the Smash Mouth concert. Maren met me there. We each brought a friend. It was so fun! So cold...but so fun! I loved working with Jessica and Nina because they were 2 years older than me and much more popular. They were both so good about including me and inviting me to go along with them and their friends. I don't know if they ever knew just how much that meant to me. Then there was Maren and Ashley. They were also older and cooler because they went to a different school. Maren and I did a lot together too. We used to go to the University of Utah football games together. So much fun! Then my friend Heather (see my B is for Brighton post) started working there too. I loved all these girls. Notice the super cute picture of all of us bowling one night. Then I had the opportunity to go back and work as the manager of the store. This gave me a whole new perspective on working there. I think I finally understood all the rules we had to follow. I again had the opportunity to connect with some really great ladies. I called them all ladies. I loved to start out my to-do list with "Ladies:" Roslyn, Pam, and Janet were my daytime crew. Roslyn and Pam were like the mommies for the rest of us. I really admired Roslyn and I hope that I can be as good of a mom as she is. She is just so patient and is constantly looking for people to serve. Janet joined us when Martha's got bought out by Coppins. She was a bowler and was always trying to get us to bowl. Then we had our evening girls: Deeds, Kristin (K.P.), Morgan, and Karli. These girls gave me hope that not all teenagers are crazy! As a matter of fact I had them all over to my apartment for pizza once. We had some good times together. It has been fun to see the younger girls graduate and now move on to college. Thank heavens for Facebook which allows me to keep in contact with all of these girls. I have built some pretty neat friendships through my association at Hallmark. So there you have it. H is for Hallmark....Oh yes I better explain the song choice: Reunited. One year for Valentines Day, I think, there was this CD that came out as a promotion with all of these old motown songs. It was probably $7.95 with 3 cards or something. When it was close to closing time and the store was empty we used to crank it up and sing the songs to each other. Reunited is one of the only songs I really remember being on the CD.
Up Next: I is for Internal Medicine
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