I began working at age 13, illegally. I continued until 2017, when my health would no longer permit the 9-5, let alone the 9-9 that was much more common. These days, I require remote work, period. Between the autism, the hypersensitivities, the chronic illness and pain, and the requisite management of all the medical underlying it, this brain can still do its thing, but this body simply cannot. So I put that paragraph up at the top. If you are still interested, read on, friend, by all means, read on.
I got my start in labor as a fast food waitress with Waffle House, Inc. They were my fallback whenever corporate America decided to move things around; whenever the layoff showed up unexpectedly, I could count on Waffle House having shifts available and money to be paid. When Waffle House wasn’t hiring, Huddle House, their primary competitor of the time, often was. But my first official “office job” was with Elman’s as the official “voice” of their high-end jewelry mail-order phone line, “Merconne” about 1982 at 18; I wrote the scripts and then I used them. And it was wonderful until the company sold itself to Service Merchandise and I was laid off and that line sunset.
From 1982 to about 1986 I worked with Apartment Management Company, Inc in Atlanta as a receptionist, they promoted repeatedly — into rent roll management, then into collections and legal agent representing the company at court for consent agreements. I left in ’86 when a promotion I was due was given instead to my husband (oof).
From 1986 to 1988, I worked office coordination and management for smaller companies in the Stone Mountain area and made ends meet by part time cocktail and hospitality service at nightclubs in the area (e.g. The Limelight, Shenanigans, Momma’s Country Showcase, T-Birds, et al).
In 1989, I landed work with Delta Air Lines in their ticketing and later, control group operations teams. I lost that job in 1994 when I was assessing a security bug and they mistook it as hacking. I bounced back with Resonance Networks, makers of the world’s first telematic solution, staying with them until their deal with Ford/Qualcomm (Wingcast) fell through.
From there, I worked with Information America to design and build the first public records offering in the world (lIAison) and worked with them until about 1997, leaving after two major acquisitions in less than a year (Lexus-Nexus, followed by Thompson-Reuters) because, in 1993, I had started my own consulting group for analysis and rapid requirements elicitation, work planning, and team retention (bespoke project and program staffing in support of those work plans).
But in 2001, I lost my company to downturns from the banking crisis and the dot com bust. In 2002, I lost my home and savings and had to leave it all behind to consult on the road and try to rebuild. From 2003 to 2007, I was a ‘road warrior’ taking contracts where they were offered but most were ending faster than they seemed to start as outsourcing and the cloud started impacting things.
After multiple implosions in a row, economically and personally, in late 2008, I packed up and moved from North Carolina to Washington State and took work with Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast that ran until 2010. I took a well-won break through 2011 when they laid me off.
From 2011 to 2015, I consulted or trialed roles with Providence Health Care, REI, Direct Technology, Costco Travel and Pivotal Labs, choosing to engage full time with the latter to help them stand up their new Seattle office.
In 2016, I moved away from Pivotal’s pre-sales support work and back to my preferred work in analysis and product ideation and development, taking a role to help Bluetooth SIG get their mesh specification in shape for 4.0 delivery.
In 2017, while working with Aurea Software, my health crashed. I was out until late 2023, when I landed work with an SaaS accounting provider to help get their four development teams comfortably mature with Scrum/Agile and iterative development.
I maintained my Certified Scrum Product Owner standing until it expired in August of 2026. As I am routinely rejected on contact by today’s ATS systems and I do not offer a college degree, it is exceedingly difficult for me to reach a human capable of understanding I am much more than my age and lack of formal certifications make me seem.
These days, I have given up. Instead, I put this here, make it clear that I’ve never stopped trying to get you folks to consider me, but I’ve now moved to a ‘let me know if you’re interested in a conversation’ posture.
I know what I can do. I’d love to do it for you. But I’m not fighting this world to try and help it anymore. If you need a solid analyst, policy mind, product mind, innovation machine, or someone who practically exudes organization into the air, let’s talk. My email fronts this site, so feel free to use it to ask for my resume.