Category : Books-Non-Fiction

Sub Category : Biography

Eddie had a job interview today for a permanent position at MetLife. There are few words he could use to describe how he was feeling. A little over 16 months ago, a temp agency called Manpower offered him a six-month contract for this job. He knew absolutely nothing about insurance. In fact, he never had insurance in his life. He didn’t care. he jumped at the opportunity anyways. He remembered his first day there. The people in the office greeted him with smiles and handshakes.  He looked around the office and saw a room filled with computer stations. Small little office spaces were lined up in rows up and down the aisles. His manager directed him to a cubicle. "This is your assigned area", she said. She pointed at a laptop, monitor, mouse and keyboard, a thick tome of work-instructions and told him to get settled in. He loved it immediately. Of course, the instructions didn’t really make any sense, but he read them anyways. He ended up spending the whole day reading. When he got back to his house later that evening, he read it over again. The next day he came back to the office with a tablet full of questions. With work-instructions in hand, he began to ask the people in the office for help. For the entire week he did nothing but read, go from person to person asking questions, and try as hard as he could to get some kind of understanding of what he was supposed to do. He was careful not to bother any one person too much. He didn’t want to wear out his welcome. This tactic was called, “spreading your hustle”. Still, he was all over the place. He knew that the only way to last through for the six-months of the contract with Manpower was to be able to perform, and one thing about Eddie, he was determined. 

It soon became a running joke around the office whenever they saw him bouncing up out of his chair balancing the huge tome of material in hand, and charging down the isles for answers, “Here comes Eddie! Everyone, look busy!” He took it in good humor because it didn’t matter where he stopped, whichever desks he went to, they never failed to pause in their work, or to stop what they were doing to answer his questions. They enjoyed helping him. The weeks literally flew by and it wasn’t long before he took my first wobbly steps loading the many MetLife benefits into the system. Since all his peers in the office had invested themselves into his development, every one of them were excited and happy to see him catching on to his duties. It didn’t matter that he came into this from ground zero. It only enhanced their respect for him. This was a huge step from life in prison, and he went at it with a will.

One day Josie, his manager, pulled him to the side and told him that she had requested his contract be extended for another three months. “I just wanted to find out if that was ok with you”, she said. He almost hugged her but kept his cool and said, “Yes ma’am, it certainly is ok, and thank you.” After that, each time his contract neared ending she would request he be extended and her confidence lent fire to his heart to make her not regret her choice. It was during the peak season of 2018 she told him she had requested an extension, but included, "I am not permitted to ask for any more extensions. We've reached our limit." The policy of his employers was that no contract can be extended beyond two years. Josie’s solution, give him an opportunity to apply for the job, and that's what she did.

It was only a week or so after their conversation that he received an eMail from her. When he opened it, there was no text, just a link in the body. Clicking on the link Eddie was taken to an application for: Implementation Leader II, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, Tampa Office. She turned around in her chair and looked at him with a wink. He gave her a huge grin, turned smartly back around in his chair and filled it out. When he finished it he attached his resume, and clicked the send button. A few days later, he was called in for an interview for the job.

that night he thought of everything that has gone into bringing him to this point. He was humbled by it. It is only through the love and generosity of the people who poured so much into his life that he was where he found himself now. It seems like only yesterday Officer Fitzgerald rolled the door of his cell open at 4:00 o’clock in the morning and shouted, 

“Eddie, pack your shit, you’re leaving!”