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This Month's Employee Spotlight goes to
Suzanne Widenhouse!
Below is a story from Alicia Thompson, an employee from the Tax Assessor's office
"It was the end of the week before Christmas when my supervisor, Suzanne Widenhouse, gathered us all together in the boardroom for exciting news. She purchased a raffle ticket to support the Special Olympics and won, but not only did she win, she won the very humongous prize of a seventy-five-inch LG TV. Was she surprised to have won, no, in fact, she expected it. Suzanne explained to us that she stated when she bought her ticket that she would win. She also stated that she would do something very fun with it, and boy she had some very fun plans for it! You see, Suzanne Widenhouse didn’t need a seventy-five-inch LG TV, she was not a TV watcher.
That evening in the boardroom she explained to us employees that we would play a game of hide and seek on Tuesday morning, where we would be on the hunt for a special golden coin! The finder of that golden coin would win the gigantic TV. “You don’t want to be late on Tuesday morning,” she exclaimed, and to make things interesting she said there would be candy coins that were also hidden, to throw us off. You could feel the exhilaration in the air as everyone had already begun to mull over places where Suzanne might hide the coin!
Come Tuesday morning everyone stood outside the office, bright and early and ready to go. Suzanne explained the rules once more before we were let in and the hunting began. The herd dispersed all over as they searched high and low for the coveted golden coin. My strategy was to stay in the front part of the office. Why? It was where my desk was, there were lots of hiding places up there, and the bonus is that it also was not overcrowded with seekers! The front part of the office had been decorated with all matters of Christmas décor; it was as if Christmas had exploded in that part of the office! Customers would enter with their Scrooge-bah-humbug attitudes and would quickly turn jolly after dancing with our human sized Grinch and writing their Christmas wish on an ornament to add to our Christmas tree. Long story short, there were plenty of decorations to look under and over and inside of.
I managed to find four chocolate coins, which was extremely exciting for me! Lots of chocolate coins were found all over the office! In addition, other coins had been found elsewhere in the building that garnered other smaller prizes, but still no one had found the golden coin. The odds of it being in the front part of the office were growing as the other prizes were being found elsewhere. After finding one chocolate coin in the Grinch’s hat and one in a small Santa’s sleigh, that adorned one of the front cubicles, I found myself being drawn back to our lovely Christmas tree. That tree brought so much joy to us and to our customers that something had to be on there, surely. And yet, no one had found anything.
I decided to search over there once more, a little more thoroughly. Something told me to look at the back of the tree, the part up against the wall and there at the bottom of the back of the tree I saw a little present ornament. I asked myself, could something be inside that? I wondered. My heart started beating quickly as I attempted to pull the ornament off the tree, to no avail, then I finally decided to just bend over and try to open it that way. Lo and behold, my index finger pushed into the tiny present, made a hole big enough for me to peer inside, and that’s when I saw, THE GOLDEN COIN! I had prayed to God to find something, but I never expected to find THE SOMETHING! I felt very blessed and highly favored!
Everyone at the office was so nice, congratulating me. I honestly felt a little bad as I knew that so many of my wonderful co-workers wanted this amazing TV. For me, honestly, it was really the fun of the game! I love to play games and when my boss said it could be anywhere and we would take forever to find it, inwardly I said, challenge accepted! I was looking EVERYWHERE! As were many of my co-workers! I felt like I now knew what Charlie must’ve felt like when he found Willy Wonka’s golden ticket! What a fun way to win an incredible prize! I traded the TV with my parents who had a small 55 inch on their living room wall. They got the big 75 inch.
I gave the 55 inch they had to my sister, who had been watching tv on her tiny iPhone for a couple of years now. My father was thrilled to get that TV to watch his football games on and my mother, whose had more than a few eye problems, would not have to strain her eyes to watch her TV pastors preach or Cheyenne on his cowboy show. I feel that TV is a gift that blessed my entire family. What a great way to head into Christmas! Special thanks to the Special Olympics and extra special thanks to my supervisor, Suzanne, for being so generous and for keeping the fun in our workplace!"
~Alicia Thompson
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