J M Wetherington Sr

Today we had to endure our first “Goodbye” in External Affairs for this disaster as Crystal, our Resource Manager, is leaving to return home to her husband and two babies. This was my first time working with Crystal, and it was a complete pleasure which I hope to repeat on some other deployment. When you find good people who do the job with professionalism and personality, you enjoy getting the opportunity to work with them.

Crystal cutting the chocolate pie into pieces for all of us.

A Resource Manager, for us, is like a den mother (or father) seeing to all of our professional needs. As an example, the other day I wanted to be sure I was correctly remembering how to send a calendar appointment in Outlook, since I only use the program on my work computer. Crystal came over, looked at what I was doing and pronounced it correct. Or when I need a conference room and call-in PIN number reserved, our Resource Manager handles all those arrangements.

It’s pretty early in the recovery stage for any of our staff to be leaving (though right-sizing is already happening in some areas), but Crystal had made it understood when she accepted the deployment that she could only stay 2 weeks due to family commitments.

A few of our other EA staff waiting for pie and/or cake.

Crystal’s replacement is Pam, a wonderful RM I have had the pleasure of working with many times, so that mitigates Crystal’s departure a bit. But only a bit.