During my lifetime, I have worked in a shoe shop, in various residential, nursing and ‘mental health’ facilities, taken care of people in their own homes (for a variety of reasons), worked in annuities, as a research chemist and heaven knows what else. I am probably one of a rare breed who can honestly say that they have loved every job they have ever done (and that does include teaching, which regular readers will know was my day job before working at FWL full-time). I guess the love has been finite rather than infinite though as, for the most part, I have moved on and changed ‘career path’.
In every job, there are highlights – yes, even in the jobs you claim to ‘hate’! But in this job – working at FWL – I would say that there are more high points in a month than in some other professions. The last 24 hours has been a testament to that fact. Without going into the minute detail (which is confidential of course!), it would appear that I have changed the lives of many people.
A member of the team spotted a ‘help’ message on Facebook from Miss Y asking for assistance to locate the daughter of her 96-year-old grandfather who he’d last seen when she was seven. I replied and managed to locate a telephone number and address for the daughter (as well as offering intermediary assistance if required) and received such a heartwarming reply including ‘I’m so excited’!
I have been working for Mr Z for a while on a BBC documentary about connecting long lost families. Although, when I made contact with his extended family, they did not want to be involved in the filming, that’s not a major issue – they are happy to engage with Mr Z who wants to know more about his heritage having grown up without his father in his life (who unfortunately died in the 1990’s).
And then to cap it all, Mr X. I met Mr X at a networking meeting three weeks ago. He was a visitor and so was I. He was adopted and has been looking for his mother for decades. By pure coincidence, we sat next to one another. Mr X knew a fair amount about his birth mother, including the fact that she had married when she was in her ‘forties’, but he could not track her down. To cut a long story short, I managed to locate a previously unknown second marriage for his mother and also her death. It turned out that her second husband is still alive, aged 74, so we wrote to him. By chance, Mr X was delivering something to the same town today and he planned to drive down the road where the second husband lives (in fact, also where his birth mother lived before she passed away), ask a few questions of the locals and ‘see how it went’!!
Earlier this afternoon, I received this message from Mr X: “Mission accomplished!! Thanks for all your efforts which has resulted in me seeing a picture of my birth mother! It also appears I may have a half sister….” Wow! I seriously love this job.
