Pamela Black

My mom was one of the smartest ladies. She never went to college, but she always wanted to. So everything that I did, I did pretty much for her, and allowed her to kind of live through me. Everything I accomplished, even when I was receiving certificates from the group that I'm in, I would invite her so she can just see how hard that I've worked to make a deal for it. And just give back and just show her that I appreciated what she instilled in me. It's just to be a hard worker, think about others, just put them first, you know? All the good will come back to you, you know, and so that's what I attribute my success to, just with my mom, you know, just instilling being grateful. Yep, and I've tried to carry that through my career and the way I treat others. Because, you know, like I said, we don't know what other people are going through. We just need to treat people with kindness. And I've learned that from my mom. She was one of those people that didn't ever meet a stranger. Never. And when she passed, I had so many people tell me stories about her, and I was just so encouraged. It meant so much to me, and they told me, they said, man, you remind me so much of your mom, and I was just like, that just touched me, because I was just like, oh my god, I'm living right, I'm doing, you know. But yeah, I was just like, I'm just living up to her standards.

The best career advice is really to never stop learning. You know, and reach back and grab someone else up that you see that can or strive to be more. Because sometimes people forget to lift others up. And that right there was one thing that stuck out to me. Someone gave me an opportunity, so I want to look at the next person and say, hey, let me encourage them to do something a little different, that they may not have even thought of doing. But when we encourage each other, then that's one thing that that person told me, was to be encouraged and encourage others, you know, because guess what? Somebody's gotta take your place one day. You know, so build them up, empower the ones that you see. And, you know, things will go well for you, you know, and just keep on learning.

Be true to yourself and help people that can't help themselves. You have to be passionate about helping others. Because I always look at, even though you're having a bad day, someone else is having a worst day. So, if you want to go into this field, being able to communicate with someone with passion, just being respectful to that person, or people, and just being dedicated to uplifting others in a creative and positive way, you know? And, you know, because when we look at leaders, we want someone that will inspire us. And that's what I would try to portray or, you know, give that information to the next person that was gonna take over for me. You know, as far as your workers, to be more, you know, and just to thank them. Be grateful for them, because you can't do this work by yourself. And just have a giving heart, you know, anything that you do. It doesn't matter. You know, you can be, I remember my dad used to always say, everybody serves a purpose. No matter if you were a garbage man all the way up until you are a doctor or astronaut. Everybody deserves a purpose in this life. And so, everyone should be able to say thank you to that person, because every job, let's say a doctor's not going to go out here and change the trash. He's not going to ride on that truck, you know? So everybody is valued. Everybody is valued. So that's what I would, most definitely try to tell someone else. No, just be a compassionate person.

The biggest challenges that I can see currently is because I'm in communication and that's pretty much working with the entire public. And some of the challenges, because we're a big organization, it's funny, but it's not funny. Everybody calls us for everything, right? People think we're the tower company. Some people think we are the electric company. You know, and, but you know what? One thing we don't do is turn them away. We still help them. We might not be able to help them with their bill, but we can call that number for them and get them out. Yeah, so those are some things that are kind of challenging. Technology. Because right now, we're looking for the latest telephone system for our agents. And we want something that's going to be able to, we don't want, let me just say this. Here at Singing River, we don't want to replace our employees, our operators, because they touch more people than anybody else. You want to keep it hands-on, you know, that personable touch. So we're looking for a phone system that could continue to allow us to answer those calls whenever they come through. And also, we've never recorded some of our calls, so we're looking for that as well. We're just looking for more innovation in our telephone system.