grateful
Although I had worked for the company since November 1994 as first a temporary, then as a contractor, my official hire date with Menlo Logistics (later Menlo Worldwide, later Menlo Worldwide Logistics, later XPO Worldwide Logistics, now GXO Worldwide Logistics) is February 5, 1996. Therefore, in a few days I will be officially have 25 years of service with the company. In a prior administration, you got a catalog from which you could select things. The buckle on my belt (sans the Menlo Logistics logo, which fell off shortly after I got it) is my five-year award. The clock on my desk is my ten-year award. The medium rolling bag in which I carried things for use on board our train trip last month was my fifteen-year award. Then they discontinued the pick-your-reward program. At twenty years, I got a certificate and some Amex gift cards from XPO. Now, under GXO, they send a selection of stuff. If they had embroidered the logo onto the fifteen-year bag (which came unadorned) I would have ended up with a different company logo on every one of the service awards.
After Lisa and I came back from running our first grocery-shopping expedition to Reno since we got back from the around-the-country trip, we opened the box to see what they gave me.
First up was an insulated mug. This is useful, and is full of tea and sitting on my desk in front of me as I compose this post.
Next is a picnic bag/can cooler.
This is apparently large enough to hold 24 12-ounce cans. There is a zippered section on the lid, and that's useful because you can put ice bags in there to hold them in place to keep the bag cool. I may start using this when doing grocery runs to buy small amounts of perishables.
Finally, there was this embroidered blanket. It appears to be a twin-sized blanket, so it won't cover the entire bed, although it would serve as a foot warmer. Lisa suggests that it might be intended for single use at a sporting event on a cold night or something like that. I could have used this for the first few nights after we got home, as it took several days to get the house warmed up from the near-freezing (5°C) temperatures to which it had cooled during the month we were away. For now, I've put it back in its bag and stored it for use in time of extra-cold weather.
All of these gifts are useful, and I'm grateful that they noticed that I've stuck around. There are times when I'm amazed that I've made it as long as I have, given all of the reorganizations, name changes, corporate reshuffles, and the like. Two of the departments for which I've worked don't exist any more, and if I hadn't taken an offer to work on a specific account rather than in the corporate head office (originally Menlo Park, then San Mateo, then Los Altos Hills), and assuming they had even kept the job, I would have had to relocate to High Point, North Carolina, something that I would not have wanted to do. However, things seem to have worked out pretty well so far, especially when circumstances allowed me to start working from home full time (pre-pandemic) in a place where I could afford to buy a house. So thank you, GXO/XPO/MWL/MW/Menlo Logistics. Here's to 25 years, and I hope a few more to come.