40-Day Series: Thank You Sally Harding Funk

Sally developed and taught me how a long distance telephone call works. Your phone to the end office to the central office to the PoP to the PoP to the central office to the end office to the phone you are calling. There is a bit more to it than that but that is how we started. The diagram is called a call flow. She would teach me the fundamental knowledge I would lean on throughout my entire telecom career.

I didn't realize it then but I was so very fortunate to get such training. Most of my colleagues didn't get an overview let alone a two-week, sit down, white board, deep dive crash course in all things telecom. Sally walked me through a ton of call flows, network diagrams, and telecom definitions. When I started that job I thought ATM was a place where you pulled money...Sally would teach me a whole new ATM, Asynchronous Transfer Mode network. Voice, data, T-1's, OC-3's, and PVC's...a world I never knew existed would become the world I would live and breathe the next 10 years.

I would be exhausted at the end of our sessions from brain overload but she had a way of making it fun and exciting. She was patient with all my questions. She would become a trusted supervisor and team mate who would provide valuable advice through some pretty challenging career events. She helped me establish a foundation of knowledge that was critical to both my personal and professional growth.

Golden Nugget: Provide meaningful training to employees

Be who you are and learn to be better,
Lisa