Connie Hayes:  

age and health to be able to start all over again...hope some young person reads this...if you get an opportunity early on...run with it!!! Workplace After high school and then getting married, and one daughter later, I went to work for the Dept. of the Navy, the Military Pay Department in Treasure Island, San Francisco. Only worked there about a year though...too tough a schedule at the time for having a baby at home to take care of. It was a "cushy" job though... I worked for several different schools as a teacher's aide over the years...even worked at Dover School as an aide...strange seeing some of "our" old teachers still there. Finally I tired of working with children and decided to go to a medical training school to learn to work for doctors... I had read medical books for a hobby for over 15 years on my own (I know, weird hobby...payed off though). So I graduated from the school and worked for various physicians including two cardiologists and an internist in the Walnut Creek area...ending up working for a large group of orthopedic surgeons in Walnut Creek beginning about 1979... I worked in a lot of different capacities; everything from drawing blood, EKG's, lab work, front office, back office, transcription...all of it, but found I liked the front office better as time went on, then got started doing transcription there in the office. Later I moved my "whole show" to my home where I still work out of my own little home office. I stayed with the orthopedic group until they dissolved the original partnership in 2001. I still work for one of the doctor's who left the group...along with another local physician/attorney in private practice. After all these years, I'm happy to say that I enjoy my work...the type of work and the fact that I can EASE into retirement by working at home and getting used to it a little at a time...maybe I'll never retire, who knows!