Jan

Hey everyone –

Wow - The Campus McDonald’s closing !! The end of an era …. It makes me feel old.

I have done a lot of things in my life, worked for a lot of different bosses and worked with thousands of different people. It is still easy for me to say the greatest group of people I ever had the privilege to work with was all of you at the Campus Store and Doug and Lyn Mehle were the most terrific people I have ever worked for. A wonderful group to work with, to have fun with, to cry with, to celebrate with, to survive with, to set records with …. No matter what happened, everyone pulled together --

I can still remember going home the day the Campus Store opened and thinking I never wanted to go back !! I don’t know how many of you were there on opening day but it was like nothing I had ever seen before. There were lines, sometimes all the way to the doors, from about 9:30 am until 3:00. It was AWFUL !! By the 2^nd day we had prepared better and survived the first week…. By the 2^nd week, it was fun again !! Amazing how resilient and versatile we were at that store –

How many of you remember:

Sitting on the truck rollers to stop the 50 lb blocks of shortening with your feet
Cleaning the grease trap
Jay chasing the thief who took the soft sculpture picture off the wall
Going to the Heidelberg for a drink after the bomb scare
The night the ansul got pulled
The gorilla singing to me in the lobby on my 30^th birthday
Closing with only 3 people during Christmas break
Our wonderful Tranti – “works in a drawer” registers
Month end counts
Dumpster diggers
The Special Olympics at Warrensburg

….. I’m sure you have a lot of memories that I forgot about (or never knew about) -- Share some of your favorite memories with all of us -- It will be fun to hear them !!

Thanks to each and every one of you for having such a positive impact on my life. People who never worked in that environment have a hard time understanding just how special you all are. When I tell people that the best “people” job I ever had was the Campus McDonalds they look at me like I’m crazy. There is not any doubt in my mind that you all are the best bunch of people I ever knew. I’m glad that so many of you have remained friends and are still supporting each other and sharing your lives. I think it would be impossible to find so many self motivated, self directed, intelligent, fun loving, caring, dedicated people with lots of common sense in any one place today….. The kids of today can’t hold a candle to you guys !!

I would love to hear from any of you if you have time to drop me a line – Happy New Year to everyone --

Jan