8
November - December 2021
The View From My Office
With Kat Monteiro
Here we are, the end of December and Christmas is just a few short days away. A few days a er that we will be celebra ng the coming of a new year - 2022. Bringing in the new year - 2022 - seems almost impossible! Remember when most of us were young, we never even thought we would make it to the year 2000! We thought we would be old and shriveled up by the me that decade came along - but here we are, alive and well, bringing in 2022! Blows my mind! And how many of you went in to work December 31st 1999? Going in to watch the computers, to see what was going to happen when the clock and year changed over to 2000. I know Rick did! And now here we are bringing in 2022. And we are s ll here to talk about it. I’m in a bit of a reflec ng mood. Thinking about all the Lifestyles trips we have been on, and being able to spend me with many of you on those trips, how fortunate we have been. With the new year brings con nued changes to our Chrysler world with Stellan s becoming our new leader. And all the thoughts going through our minds wondering what will become of it all. I hope they bring back Lifestyles. Those trips were such good opportuni es for many of us to get to know each other. And it really was a great tas ng carrot at the end of a hard fought year. Happy mes indeed. Going down memory lane brings me to thoughts of these ar cles I write. It all started when I was driving and delivering parts. I always picked a good place with a view to sit and have my lunch. Usually by the ocean, but there were days it was under a shade tree with a view of a grass field full of flowers, or the salt fields in Chula Vista, wherever it was I would snap a picture looking out my windshield and post it on Facebook with a tle of The View From My Office. It kind of became a hit so Don and I cha ed and decided I would write monthly ar cles with the tle The View From My Office. It started off as kind of a blog. Talking about my daily job as a driver, introducing you to some of my favorite shops and introducing you to Jack Powell CDJR. I started wri ng these ar cles back in 2015. It’s been fun! It makes me feel accomplished when you all tell me that you read my ar cles and liked what I talked about in a certain issue. I have even had people from Chrysler Corpora on/ Mopar tell me how much they look forward to reading my ar cle. Jack Powell himself will send Rick and I an email telling me how much he enjoyed something I have wri en. I know I am too ng my own horn here a li le bit, but I do feel proud. I want to thank Don Cushing for all his encouragement and pa ence. There have been mes that I just couldn’t pull anything from my brain and Don would tell me that he knew I could get past my block and write something, and I always did. And some of those ar cles ended up being the best I have wri en. So I truly do thank him for always believing in me. I thank him for giving me the opportunity to take up space in the Mopar Masster’s Guild Magazine issue a er issue. I do enjoy it so much! I have had the opportunity to write about so many things from our business at Jack Powell, life as a parts driver then as an Outside Sales Rep, trips, convenons, vaca ons, NADA, so many things, how did I ever get so lucky? As I am wri ng this I started to think it sounds like I am saying goodbye. And in some aspects I guess I am. As I write this I have only 7 days le of work. Rick and I are re ring on New Year’s Eve. Rick will s ll be working part me but I will not. It is all bi ersweet. Continued on Page 9
Mopar Masters Guild Magazine
