Article by jessica dickson

All Paths Lead To

s s e c c u S

By Jessica Dickson

I

first entered Denise Oliver’s home through the side door.

I had been on a run and decided to casually drop by to say hello to my boyfriend, Brandon.

However, I didn’t realize I was about to meet his mother as he dragged me through the side door and into the kitchen. All of a sudden she and I locked eyes.

After a moment of hesitation, Mrs. Oliver’s glimmering soft brown eyes widened and a soft grin started to blossom. Before I knew it her arms extended, welcoming me with an embrace.

In that moment the anxious feeling quickly faded away and I instantly felt like a member of the family. capability of connecting w i t h people. ot

N only i s

Denise’s acceptance important because she is my boyfriend’s Mom, but also because I see her as a female role model who has been successful in her career in spite of the fact she doesn’t have a college degree. In the New York Times article “It’s a Tough Job Market for the Young Without College Degrees,” Patricia Cohen explains, “For high school students, a four-year college education is frequently held out as the only viable option, precisely because job opportunities and wages are so much better upon graduation.” As a high school junior, I

frequently hear this message; my parents and teachers highly recommend that a college degree is the main path to success.

However, Denise is an example that a college degree does not have to be the only viable option. In business columnist Steve Tobak’s view, “If you can make a genuine connection with a human being, then a transaction is at least possible. But if you’re employing copy-and-paste marketing, forget it.” Denise is the opposite of a “copy-and-paste” personality in her professional and personal life; rather, she is a kind and genuine human being who connects with others. This is the reason why she succeeds. he positive character that Denise embodies is mainly due to her supportive upbringing. She was born in the Philippines and grew up in San Diego. Denise recalls, “I feel that I had a very comfortable and fun life growing up. I had a lot of friends and did well in school and lived in nice places. I was very happy” (Oliver). While growing up her Mom worked in accounting and her Dad was in the Navy so they moved around a lot depending where her dad was stationed. While we expect that after high school most students would go to college, Denise was unable to have the college experience due to family

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issues and financial reasons.

But that didn’t stop Denise from succeeding. She found work at a daycare center as an administrator where she taught herself how to use computers when they were being introduced into the technological world. As she moved up the job ladder to her first well-paid job at Atari working in the sales and marketing department, her successful character grew stronger. Denise conscientiousness ultimately led to her current position as Sales Director at ServiceNow. She’s been with this current company for 4 years now and expects for many more to come. hroughout her experiences Denise has been faced with challenging work days that surprised her or that was unexpectedly thrown her way.

A typical day at work for her, “is spending a lot of time trying to solve problems so the sales team is trying to sell our product to customers and the customers are very demanding and they have requests to suit their own needs and we have to find ways to accommodate those needs so that we can get the deals” (Oliver).

Most importantly some challenges

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that she’s faced with is always wanting to support her boss and coworkers making sure that her team is always on task everyday.

Along with this she deals with a lot of confusion and gives multiple metric and reporting perspectives which gives her co-workers the information they need to move forward in the day. She wants to add value to the company each day. Denise describes a recent challenging day at work, when, “my boss came to me and asked me if I could move roles so he had a position on his team that was not successful and he needed help and so he approached me and asked me if I would be willing to take the positions and he needed me to change roles immediately” (Oliver). Being offered the new position was surprising and an unexpected opportunity that Denise couldn’t pass up. With this new role that she was offered she had some concerns on not knowing how to take on this new job. She had to learn from scratch a completely different position where she doesn’t know all the answers to the questions that her team might ask. Since Denise faced these challenges head on by accepting the job offer, she

realized it was a right fit for her and it gave her a chance to learn a new role. In the end she stepped up to the plate and helped her boss, which she insists “is always a good thing to do” (Oliver). ne of her obstacles that she has recently overcome in her company was turning a manual process into an automated process, which was a “key improvement which enabled ServiceNow to grow in scale making big sales” (Casey).

But this was only one of many key accomplishments for Denise at ServiceNow. She has also built up a great reputation at the company which is recognized by other companies that offer her job opportunities. When you develop a good reputation like Denise, people will recognize you for all the hard work to support the company and to further advance it. he qualities needed to be successful in Denise’s career are distinguishable in her daily work life. Denise developed these qualities starting from a young age mainly because of the influence of her parents.

She recalls, “my upbringing had a lot to do with that but I also think

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it’s just my parents’ personalities.

They are also people that look for the good in everything and try to be supportive and try to look at things in a good light, and that’s how I try to live my life too” (Oliver). Indeed, Denise’s perspective on life and her work is like an open road; she sees endless possibilities and embraces what’s happening now and the future.

She tries to keep progressing and moving forward. Furthermore, she continues to improve herself.

Denise does acknowledge that the road to success wasn’t easy, but not impossible. She realized that you can still accomplish your goals without a college degree. Denise recognized that for someone who doesn’t have a college degree it takes a lot more effort and work: “you have to start from the ground and work your way up versus if you had a college degree you would have the experience or you would have the education and proof that you can and have the perseverance to be successful and that could lend a hand to joining a company at a higher level” (Oliver). ndrew Casey, Denise’s boss, described her as a “unique individual” whose “very bright, learns very quickly, and works very hard” (Casey).

All of these qualities have guided Denise to where she stands today.

Her uniqueness contributed to her ability to build herself from the ground up and her lack of a college degree was merely a roadblock she overcame to find an open road to success. One of her obstacles that she has recently overcome in her company was

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turning a manual process into an automated process, which was a “key improvement which enabled ServiceNow to grow in scale making big sales”(Casey).

But this was only one of many key accomplishments for Denise at ServiceNow. She has also built up a great reputation at the company which is recognized by other companies that offer her job opportunities. When you develop a good reputation like Denise, people will recognize you for all the hard work to support the company and to further advance it. ccording to Joann S. Lublin, news editor for the Wall Street Journal, “Maybe there’s a gene for success. That may explain why a growing number of today’s high achievers turn out to be progeny of high achieving parents.” Denise one day hopes that her children will go to college and have a successful career of their own by learning from the struggles she faced. She recognizes that having a college degree is very important, so she encourages her children to invest their time in getting one. She wants to continue to gain more experience in her current role to grow her team and learn to be a more effective business partner for her company. Denise also has aspirations to move to a start-up company where she can help the company lift up off the ground. In the meantime, Denise prefers to just

Denise’s positive perspective on life and how she embraces the future possibilities, makes her a role model to me.

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“go with the flow”.

-Oliver

C C L O T

Works Cited

asey, Andrew. Personal Interview. 23 March 2017

ohen, Patricia. “It’s a Tough Job Market for the Young Without College Degrees.”

The New York Times, 10 May 2016. Web. 27 Mar. 2017.<https://www.nytimes.

com/2016/05/11/business/economy/its-a-tough-job-market-for-the-young-without-college-degrees.html>.

ublin, Joann S. "How High-Achieving Parents Raise Star Scions." The Wall Street Journal.

Dow Jones & Company, 18 Jan. 2013. Web. 24 Apr. 2017.

liver, Denise. Personal Interview. 7 March 2017 ~Follow Up Interview. 30 March 2017

obak, Steve. “Why Business Is All about Human Connections.” CBS News. CBS Interactive, 18 July 2012. Web. 19 Apr. 2017. <http://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-businessis-all-about-human-connections/>.

About the Author J

essica Dickson is a Junior at Mountain View High School. She also attends Freestyle Academy for Digital Media, Design, and English. One of her main hobbies are club soccer and spending time with her friends. When she graduates she ants to attend a four year college and major in Chemistry. One day she hopes to travel the world to learn about new cultures and meet new people. But overall she is excited for what the future has in store for her.

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