Interview with Mary Ellen
Mary Ellen is the Office Manager as well as Greg’s assistant. She has been with Nortel for eighteen years! Her job requires her to do and over see many things, such as keeping track of calendars (which on its own is a full time job), travel information for the office, papers, evaluations, reports, etc. However, more importantly than that, everyone in the office comes to Mary Ellen if they have a problem. She is nice, sophisticated, personable, and as she self-described herself, “nurturing”. Another way to describe Mary Ellen’s position in the office is to simply put, “She is the glue that holds the office together.”
Mary Ellen’s first job was working with the FBI! She then worked with GTE (Another Telecommunications Company) for eighteen years before working with Blue Cross, Blue Shield and then coming to Nortel. When she came to the company, on top of the duties she has now, Mary Ellen was also in charge of keeping track of the finances. (Today that position has been filled full time by Graziella). Mary Ellen told me a lot about Nortel’s history and the way things used to run. For instance, there used to be three admins and one receptionist. That isn’t the case anymore.
Mary Ellen self-taught herself about everything she needed to know to do her job when she first started working with Nortel. Her objective is to make sure everything in the office runs smoothly. If someone is having trouble with their garage pass, they come to her. If there are guests coming into the Nortel boardroom, Mary Ellen takes care of setting up (along with Graziella). She jokingly said that catering skills are required to have her job.
Although I learned a lot about Mary Ellen, it seemed that I learned even more about Greg and Nortel. (Greg is the boss yet he’s younger than everyone else at Nortel!) When interviewing Mary Ellen, I could really see that she enjoyed her job. She told me how comfortable she was coming into work and that this office is like a family! (The DC office is quite small, there are only 10 people, including myself working here). Even though I’ve only been at the office for two weeks, I also feel very comfortable because of the openness and warmth of all the people that are here!