I have been with my current employer since November 2007. Initially I started as a temporary employee in October which was to last for one week to get a department within the agency caught up while a background screening was being conducted on a candidate. Their background check failed so I was asked to stay another week while they conducted a background screening on another candidate who also failed. Thus my assignment continued. Because I was a single mom who has just lost her previous job, I was determined to leave an impression with the hopes that if any position became open, they would remember me. Well I made such an impression that another manager wanted to hire me for an upcoming position in another department. It soon became a competition as the manager I was reporting to as a temp didn't want to lose me. Well in the midst of all this, they were actively looking for an HR Generalist having lost their HR Manager in September. All HR functions were being handled by the Accounting Manager so they created a position, Personnel & Budget Assistant and I was hired. My primary responsibility was to handle payroll and the accounts payables for HR along with some administrative duties while the Accounting Manager continued to handle all other HR functions however I began to take on those responsibilities. The HR Generalist position never materialized so my title changed in September 2008 to HR/Payroll Specialist. In February 2017 my title was changed to HR Director as my responsibilities and overall scope of work changed dramatically. Because of the increase in my workload and the demands upon me - it became increasingly difficult to operate as a Department of One not to mention I was the only one who handled payroll. That in itself was frustrating - I wasnt able to take more than a week vacation, I was doing payroll while at conferences, once I had to do payroll from my hospital bed and in 2020 - I contracted COVID yet had to do payroll from my sick bed. That was it for me!! For years I tried to convince our Board to hire a Payroll Clerk to no avail. Finally in 2023 I was able to do so. Now we operate as a Department of Two as we have hired a Payroll Clerk but the beauty of it is - there are now three employees who have the capability of completing payroll - our current Payroll Clerk, our new Accounting Manager who was promoted from the Payroll Clerk position and myself. Unless some freak of nature occurs and all three of us are out - payroll will never fall to just one person again. That's my story!!!