I crossed the twenty-year threshold at Devenney Group Ltd., Architects. It felt like running across an invisible finish line with a few spectators. Some are friends I’ve known my entire career and others are youngsters looking on in curious fascination. Having been at the firm for so long, I have organically become the company historian or, if not our history, at least the keeper of knowledge related to the Devenney Way. Why do we do things the way we do? Have we tried another way? Where would I find a template document or a code book (electronically or on a shelf — because I remember when all our reference materials were on shelves). Sometimes it makes me feel old, but mostly, it makes me feel like I have context.
I have given myself a company goal, now that I’ve logged twenty years. How old is Google? Hang on, I’ll Google it. Ha. My career is older. Google started on September 4, 1998 and I started in June of 1997. My goal is to be such an invaluable resource of useful, daily work knowledge that people in my office ask ME questions before they ask Google. I hope to soon have employees across all four studio locations saying, “Hang on, I’ll ‘Stephanie’ it.”
