Flashback Friday - Cornerstone Homes

It seems like a lifetime ago that I got up every morning, got dressed & headed out to work, but in reality it was just 18 months ago. Weird.

I started working for Cornerstone Homes when I was 19 years old. It was only my 3rd job...preceded by Hastings & Hastings (yes, the one you see commercials for) and of course, Ann Taylor Loft. I never worked formally in high school, as I babysat enough to never need any more work than that provided.

I had quit Ann Taylor Loft in the spring of 2001, as I never brought a paycheck home...it was always spent before I even got it in my hand. I suppose that is the downfall of me working in retail. It took me until August to come across the job at Cornerstone. They had posted the position for a legal assistant on a job board at the Institute at Mesa Community College. Considering I actually had experience working for another law firm & my dad was an attorney & my brother in law school, I thought this was right up my alley. At the time, I still hadn't formally decided my major & had dreams (or weird thoughts) of going to law school. I don't think I ever mentioned those thoughts to anyone, as they were a long shot, but that is for another post.

I interviewed with Cornerstone's attorney & by some miracle they decided to hire me. When I started it was me, Leah (who was their "go to" girl for everything) and the 3 owners. We shared office space with another law firm & I sat & did nothing more than anything! I worked about 20 hours a week while going to school & processed a lot of Dave's legal forms...setting up corporations and LLCs, answering the phones & doing filing.

After a year or two we moved into our own offices. We had outgrown our shared space & finally needed our own. In our new space, my role changed and I ran the reception desk and worked more closely with Leah & Todd (the president) & then I transfered to working with Scott (the VP). During this time I did the starts for all the houses. Meaning I kept track of everything that was going to go into every house & delivered that information to the sub contractors. If you've ever built a new house...I was the person that would not allow you to make changes to your counter top selection because it made my job CRAZY!

After doing starts for awhile Scott wanted me to start doing the permits on the houses. I remember being so nervous to do permitting. It was a lot of paperwork & coordinating with the different cities we were building in. He convinced me to give it a try & then I was doing permits. I think permitting was one of my favorite jobs at Cornerstone. While it was lots of paperwork & it HAD to be done right & there were always a million little kinks, I got to be pretty good at it. I suppose that is why I liked it -- there was a learning curve & by the end I was good. I would go downtown once a week to the City of Phoenix & pick up permits that were ready to be pulled -- of course, Scott & Todd were always trying to get permits faster & wanting me to come back with permits I had only submitted the day before. The running joke was that Todd wanted me to use my "womenly powers" on the guys at the City of Phoenix to help get the job done. I'm not ashamed to say playing the dumb blonde sometimes has its advantages! haha.

By this point, I had to take a semester off to finish up my student teaching. Upon graduating from ASU I returned to Cornerstone & instead of staying with Scott & permits I moved to Mike (another partner) and did marketing & every other miscellaneous thing he could think of (and there were a lot of misc THINGS!). With Mike I planned parties, seminars & grand openings. This aspect of my job was really fun. A main part of my job during this time was running seminars for first time home buyers that had purchased. At these seminars I would walk them through the entire process of building a home. By this point, I had been with Cornerstone about 5 years & besides actually buying the land & hammering in the framing, I had done every aspect of building a home within the office, combined with my teaching degree this was the perfect spot for me. I stayed in marketing until we again, moved offices & I had Zack. During this time I learned the basics of graphic design & essentially anything you see with the Cornerstone logo -- I put it there.

I remember some of my last days in the office before Zack was born. It was bittersweet. I was happy to be having a baby, but sad to leave my friends! By the time I left, we had gone from a 5 person office operation to probably 25-30 in the office. In the meantime, the owners & partners became my friends. They were all like older brothers to me. They knew all the guys I dated & they were all more than willing to weigh in...luckily Scot passed the test & they could support the wedding! It was a great atmosphere to work in & looking back I realize it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. The market will never be what it was while I was there & how cool that I got to be a part of it & learn the ropes.