I mentioned my first job in this post.
My second employer was a company that is no longer, Continental Insurance Company. I started working for them in their Milwaukee, Wisconsin, office three months after I turned 17. Since I had just graduated from high school, and I didn't want to go to college, I chose to get a full time job.
I worked for this company for 14 and a half years in four of their offices in various positions.
Old Continental Insurance Logo - Source
I started in what they called the Rate and Code department in Personal Lines (non-commercial auto, home, and renters insurance). I first started out reviewing applications to be sure everything was filled out for the computer entry personnel. I moved on to everything in that department.
It was by accident one of the supervisors of another department noticed how well I was able to figure out why things went wrong on both computer rated policies and in the accounting. So, they decided to use me in more than one department.
This eventually caused our regional office in Chicago to ask me to replace someone who was moving to the home office in New York. So, my next stop was Chicago in the Regional Personal Lines department. There my main responsibility was figuring out computer problems. While I didn't know how to program, I knew where to tell the programmers to look based on my knowledge of how to compute the premiums of the policies. I also learned underwriting practices as that was another part of the department. I would also travel to various branch offices to train or do reviews.
Then one day we were informed that the entire regional office in Chicago was moving to Columbus, Ohio. Those who didn't want to move there were placed in other jobs in the branch office in Chicago. Since my husband was being transferred to Columbus, too (how convenient), I had no problem going to Columbus. I had the same responsibilities there as I did in Chicago.
While in the Columbus office, personal computers came out. Wow! I loved the idea of using computers, but they were so expensive, so there was only one personal computer in the office - in the Planning Department. My boss didn't see the need for a personal computer. Since they didn't use it often, I asked if I could use it when they weren't, and they agreed.
The next thing I knew, all those reports I manually computed and gave to our secretary to type out could be done in no time! My boss asked for me to do a report and in less than an hour I handed it to him. He was shocked since it usually took a day or more for me to compute and our secretary to type it out. Since I didn't have to compute (just enter the numbers), and the secretary didn't have to type it (I printed it), it took no time at all. The next day he ordered a personal computer! I found my niche!
After two years in Columbus, my husband got transferred to Dallas, Texas. I quit my job to go with him. Little did I know, but the boss I had in Chicago was the Vice President and Regional Manager in Dallas. When his counterpart in Columbus called him and told him that I quit because my husband was moving to Dallas, the next thing I knew I was offered a job there.
When I moved to Dallas, the job I had was created for me. Personal computers were soon to be a normal piece on desks for certain people. They needed someone who could teach them and move as much of the reports over to the computer to save time.
I remember stressing the need for a backup of their files when I trained them. I wanted to be sure they learned their lesson, so I always played a trick on them. I would copy one of their files from their computer onto a floppy disk (if you don't know what that is, look it up). Then I would delete the file. Those who kept a backup just copied their backup to their computer and went on their way. Those who didn't came running to me saying one of their files is missing. I would tell them to restore it via their backup. I'd then get the sad story how they didn't back it up. I told them they were lucky that I backed it up for them and then I restored it. Everyone learned their lesson! By the way, that's still good advice, but now we can have automatic backups in the cloud!
At the time of a major company-wide reorganization, I decided it was time for me to quit my job and start a family. Every region would now have a position like they made for me in Dallas.
I was asked to stay with them until the reorganization was done, which I did.
I learned a lot about insurance, both personal and commercial. I also learned a lot about computers, because I was given the freedom to explore (and even fail). I was fortunate that the region in Dallas valued the use of personal computers so much so that whatever I asked for I was given. That allowed our region to always look the best for any presentations we had, and we also had the most accurate figures.
I loved working for Continental Insurance, in every location and every job I had there. However, one day I just didn't like it anymore, I think because all I wanted to do was start a family and I wanted to be home with my children. I was very fortunate that my husband felt the same way!
Did I ever work again? Yes, and I will wait on that for another time.
