Now that the news is out, I can finally talk about my weekly “Grandparent call”!

Last Friday, right after I got the news about my new job, I called my Grandpa because I knew he would be very proud of me & very excited.  While I was excited to obviously tell everyone, I was particularly excited to tell him for a special reason.

It was always most important to me that no matter the circumstances of my college graduation, Grandpa had to be there!  He has always been my big supporter & I knew he was so proud of my for making it through to get my diploma.  I had promised him a decade earlier that I would!  When I realized last August & again at Christmas, when I visited him, that he didn’t remember being at my graduation or– at times– that I had even graduated college, it was really hard for me accept.  😦

So while I have highlighted to all of my friends & family that the “Healthcare” focus of my new job is what appeals to me most, I am secretly just as excited about the “Gaming” segment.

Grandpa’s memory, to me, seems to be at its best when he is at the casino.  For example, when I visited him in Laughlin at the casino, he remembered that I graduated & worked at Intel!  The first & only time he remembered on his own!!  So my hope is that now, now that I will work more directly with our products that are in the slot machines & poker machines that he likes so much, it will help him remember.  I hope that if I tell him enough times about my job & what we are doing with the casino machines, he will start to make the connection more frequently when he is at the casino, and then maybe start to remember on his own that I graduated & got a great job that he would be proud of.  I hope it will help, even just a little bit.

Anyways…when I called, Grandma answered (of course, since Grandpa just sits on the chair & yells at her to move her caboose to the phone faster) so I chatted with her for a bit.  She told me that she had spent the day with Aunt Leslie, cleaning out some important documents.  Then they went to Betty Jo’s for spaghetti.

I told her after that, that the reason I was calling is because I had some big news for Grandpa!  “Okay” she said and then, to Grandpa, as she shuffled over to give him the phone, “Paigey says she has some BIG news for you!”  Grandpa’s response in the background?  “She better not be pregnant!”  He’s such a goof.  Of course he didn’t tell me that, instead he said, “Well, what’s the news?!”

I told him then that I had gotten a promotion & had a new job, where I got to work on the math for our chips that are in casinos!  In slot machines!  (I thought he would like that part best, since poker machines are his new favorite, but slot machines were his first love.)  I also went through all of the other different segments, explaining how the “Military & Defense” segment probably has computer chips they use in the Navy and that the “Healthcare” segment has chips in the machines at the doctor’s, when he has CT scans.  It was very fun to explain it to him & help him make the connections between my job & his everyday life.  He was very interested & asked lots of questions, which surprised me.  I also explained how I did forecasting, and it seemed like he really undertood.  He wanted to make sure that I got a raise & reminded me to keep working hard & stay focused on doing well at work.  He kept bragging to Grandma in the background “Paigey got a promotion!”, “Paigey is richer than we are, Joy!”, “Paigey is going to own Intel soon!”  It was cute.  Grandma just kept saying back “Paigey is just so smart.  She knows how to do so much stuff!  I don’t know how to do any of those things!”

I had been envisioning this call since the moment I sat down with George & Chad to learn about the job and learned it involved Gaming.  It was awesome as I expected, if not more, since Grandpa seemed to really “get” it.  I had wanted to tell him so badly at Christmas that I was interviewing for the job, to try and help him remember me more, but I didn’t want to jinx anything.  So it was a very special call!…

….well, until he told me he had to go because his “shows were on.” 🙂