Abby Raucher:  

Life After working in the world of retail for nearly 11 years, starting from right after high school, the company I worked for (Pants Place & Canadian's) - went out of business. While there were many offers to stay within the industry, I was so physically & mentally drained from that job, I became jaded and thought that every company would be like that one was (more on that further into this). I figured perhaps it best to find another career! Went back to school to brush up on my computer skills and did some temp work for about 5 months - one of which turned into a permanent position at SFI (Standard Forms), now known as WorkflowOne, a forms manufacturing and distribution company in January of 1997 in a sales office in Syosset. Was made an offer I couldn't refuse and relocated from Long Island to Virginia Beach in April 2000, where I was working for the same company, but in the corporate office as a Help Desk Analyst. Virginia was great - and living in Virginia Beach was a lot of fun (not to mention the cost of living was ridiculously cheap!). The area around the city - Norfolk, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, as well as the oceanfront offered so much to do & see, and it was great living in a place with so much history. And in addition to my full time job, I took on a part-time stint for Yankee Candle Company in Norfolk from 2002-2004 that totally changed my mind about most retail establishments - what a fabulous company to work for (and the 50% discount on the candles certainly didn't suck either!!!) I made some great friends down there, many of which I'm still in contact with. In February of 2005, I made the decision to move back to New York, where I accepted a position with my company as the Customer Service Manager of their New York City and Long Island offices. However, after 8 months in the position, I realized it wasn't what I wanted and the company was no longer a place I wanted to work with (too long a story and not enough space to t...Expand for more