Why I just loved working at Bank One during Christmastime, Phoenix 1990s


It's Monday, December 21st as I write this, and I'm thinking about how much I loved working at Bank One, especially at Christmastime. And I'm being serious here, it was wonderful.

In addition to being a great job for a company that paid well, had health care benefits, etc., it was an especially great place to work during the holidays. That is, if you worked for Marketing, in the tower downtown. When I tell people that I used to work for a bank, they picture me at a branch or something, but that wasn't what I did - I was a corporate graphic designer working on the 31st floor downtown. I just loved that building, it had everything you needed, including a post office, a cafeteria, and... (well, I could go on, but I want to talk about Christmastime!).

As an old bachelor (which I still am), and someone who had absolutely no desire to fly back to my hometown in the winter (Minneapolis) I really had nothing better to do at Christmastime than go to work. And I use the term "work" loosely here, because although usually the graphics department was very busy, with a lot of deadlines, during the holidays it wasn't. And that was simply because we were an "In-House" department, which meant that the work we did was for other departments in the building. And at Christmastime those people tended to all be away, and so the demand for work fell off during the season.

If you follow me here, all of the most important people had long since gotten their time off arranged, and weren't around. And for the people who weren't quite so high on the food chain, the ones who had families, it could be a struggle for them to find someone to cover for them so they could take time off. And that's where I came in, I got to be a hero for doing practically nothing.

Yes, I would come to work, and be there for eight hours. There were always a lot of Christmas goodies to snack on, and I remember that I used to bring in my radio so that I could play Dean Martin Christmas music (it must have had a tape player). I could play it as much as I wanted, as there were very few people around who could hear it. Whether I sang along or not will remain a secret, but I recall that at that point I did get some complaints. "Baby, it's coooold outside!"

Having practically no work to do sounds great, but it did make the hours drag sometimes. But our department needed people to be there, so I was there, eating goodies and listening to Christmas music. Banks are required by law to never be closed more than two days in a row (since the Depression) and it applied to corporate, too. And yes, that meant that there were no "long weekends". So I actually had many opportunities to do this, not just at Christmastime.

My coworkers were always very appreciative of the fact that I always volunteered to work during Christmastime. But when I told them that it was a pleasure, I really meant it.

Merry Christmas!
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