In this episode, I sat down with Aminah Bashir, Parts Coordinator, Marcus Weiss, Operations Supervisor, and Tina Vega, Operations Supervisor, from Elizabeth, New Jersey to learn more about their career journey with us.

Marcus Weiss I got an omlet from John. 

Trista Rosen From John? Very nice all right and so we're here we're having a conversation. I'm definitely curious to know about all of your journeys. Amina, why don't we start with you.

Amina Bashir I have been with the company now for a little over a year.

Trista Rosen Happy anniversary! 

Aminah Bashir Thank you! Last month made a year. I started off as customer care coordinator and was promoted two months ago to Parts coordinator. 

Trista Rosen Congratulations! 

Aminah Bashir Thank you! I've been here, like I said, for a year and for this past year have learned so much from so many people. Have pretty much touched pretty much every department just trying to learn different parts and trying to make myself more efficient in whatever position I'm in but it's been a great ride so far. 

Trista Rosen Excellent, I'm curious to know a year ago what brought you to Raymour and Flanigan. 

Aminah Bashir honestly I've done retail management for a lot of years in like Mall settings or in fashion merchandising and things of that nature. This was something different for me and I wanted to see what it would be, what I could learn from it and what I could bring to it. honestly didn't come in with any expectations or anything but I actually love it and you know I've been happy ever since so it's been a good journey so far.

Trista Rosen I'm so glad to hear that. Excellent! Thank you for sharing! Marcus how about you, can you tell us a little bit about how long you've been here in your career journey?

Marcus Weiss I've been here about three years a little over I believe three and a half. 

Trista Rosen right around the pandemic start. 

Marus Weiss a little before that. I started as a store support associate part-time for a little bit of the State Island showroom, then I ended up moving into full time. I spent a couple years in that position. I was able to learn a lot about the store luckily with the support of leaders at the time I was able to go to stores for a lead. My first leadership position was actually in Woodbridge. At that time I was back in between Woodbridge. I was meeting everybody was kind of finding my journey through leadership. The right guidance between my leaders I had a couple different leaders at the time we were able to move through and I ended up in the State Island showroom. I'm sure after a while I had a little Hiatus with the surgery, actually I can't turn my mouth, I was out for a couple of months but I ended up coming back and I stayed a little bit and I was brought into this wonderful building: the inventory control coordinator. 

Trista Rosen That's the third position that you had?

Marcus Weiss Yeah and then a couple months later about probably.

around the six months seven month mark I ended up the coming operations lead and then another two months later after that I became operation supervisor. 

Trista Rosen Wow, so three years - five positions growth and leadership you battled and fought cancer that's really inspirational. Congratulations! I'm glad you're okay.

Marcus Weiss I'm very glad too!

Trista Rosen Thanks for sharing!

Marcus Weiss Thank you!

Trista Rosen Tina how about you? We've saved a little bit of a longer journey for the last. 

Tina Vega I'm in my 12th year with Raymour and Flanigan. I started my career here in leadership in an entry level position as a lead for our Culver Road Service Center 12 years ago. Six months after that role I was promoted to the depot customer care manager role. I performed that role for about maybe three to four months thereafter I was promoted to delivery in Culver Road three months after that I transitioned over to Randolph as the delivery assistant manager. Thereafter was promoted as the director of customer care for our Metro Region

Tirsta Rosen Metro was pretty new at that time, yeah?

Tina Vega Yeah and I stayed about eight years in that role customer care I loved it so much, it was where my heart was and where I enjoyed, really the most of my time with the organizational, and recently about a year ago I had great interest in learning a little more about operations and so I asked if I could take a side step into operations and I am currently a supervisor for the Elizabeth Service Center. 

Trista Rosen That's amazing so the history that you all have twelve, three a year. You bring a really different: I say to my team all the time, when we hire someone new- you have the new fresh rosy-eyes and you guys have different experiences that you bring in from the stores and in my experience when you have the store experience and then you come into the service center you're better able to understand what our store associates go through and support them in a new way too. I mean probably the same thing from coming from a different organization. 

Aminah Bashir absolutely and especially coming from management to coming in to being a coordinator where it's not a leadership role but I'm able to have a different viewpoint because I was management at some point. it's been really really good for me and then just having Marcus, Tina and everybody else here who have been able to help me with whatever at any time any questions, because I ask questions all day every day  

Trista Rosen Curiosity is a success here. 

Aminah Bashir Absolutely but they've all been amazing with just helping me transition from one thing to another. 

Trista Rosen That's amazing and I can attest to the energy and Be-One-Team spirit that's here, because we just cooked breakfast this morning and there was dancing and laughing after and competition in the game. So, I could feel what you're talking about.

Aminah Bashir Absolutely!

Trista Rosen I'm curious we just wrapped up and announced that Raymour and Flanigan is officially a great place to work for the fifth year in a row. I would love to hear directly from you all. The survey is anonymous, this question clearly isn't but if you had to say why you feel Raymour and Flanigan is a great place to work. What would you say? We'll kind of switch up the order a little and Marcus we'll start with you this time.

Marcus Weiss I think it's more as far as the support from leadership and the culture around, like Aminah said earlier is like we all ask each other questions and we try to learn everything around. My biggest thing when I started is even though I was in store support and I was mainly doing just that, I try to get into what sales is doing. I was trying to get into what customer care was doing and trying to just understand what everybody does because we all have an impact on what we do. We might not see it in the short run but in the long term we all have that one impact on each other so it goes into Be-One-Team and as far as the support from leadership even when Tina was a Customer Care Director and all that like I was a store support associate she was very supportive of everything when I went on my hiatus, she was always checking up on me. So I think it's just the culture and the leadership around everybody. We believe in each other and the skies are endless for Raymour as long as you put in the work there's always an opportunity. 

Trista Rosen I heard you say a couple things: the team work culture the support of leadership, curiosity and I think curiosity is one of the most underrated things because what I came back to Raymour for is that you're not pigeon holed to anything right if you're curious you could be a business person and you to your point there's so many opportunities for growth here as long as you're curious and hard working right that drive to be to give back to contribute to our customers and our associates. Thank you! Tina, how about you?

Tina Vega Well for me, it was the diversity. It's the diversity piece. It's interesting to see the different dynamics and different cultures and how we can all connect. I can meet with Aminah and ask Aminah about how she celebrates her holidays and how she connects with her family and how we bring that in. Not too long ago she celebrated a holiday she decorated it all, it was an opportunity for me to ask questions about her background. So that's one of the biggest pieces of me. Another thing that I really enjoy about this organization is I can be me. I'm accepted for who I am,  the support that we have here not just from leadership, I think, it trickles down, it's a trickle-down effect and so we truly genuinely care about each other and then truly just the opportunities. I don't know many other companies that you can honestly go to, not only have the opportunity to grow, but you're taught along the way. You're guided along the way, our workshops are at the Learning Development Center. If there's something we don't know we can easily go to a workshop and pick up a phone. There's that opportunity to grow that you don't have everywhere else so those are some of the benefits for me and why I enjoy it.

Trista Rosen Thank you for sharing, I love the part about the diversity too and I think again it goes back to curiosity. It's a safe place to be curious and to find out more about not only the business but people as well. All right last but not least -  Aminah what do you think makes Raymour a great place to work? 

Aminah Bashir I agree with everything that you both said. I think that when I came into the company itself I didn't expect to have support the way that I have support or I've had support. I did come in, you know, because I do dress differently, sometimes go into a new position and don't know how you're going to be received. You don't know how people are going to perceive you. If they're going to be comfortable enough to ask questions. I know my personality itself does that's just who I am, I'm very outgoing and I'm very: you can come talk to me ask me anything I don't mind, but some people are not they don't know if they can they don't want to overstep they don't want to you know offend me or whatever the case is and I think here I walked in and initially it was almost as if the way that I cover wasn't even seen. it was like alright it's just Aminah. it was never anything other than that. and for me it was a level of like you said: Being Yourself coming in and then I didn't have to be anything else or pretend to be anything else or act differently or hide who I was to fit into Raymour and that for me that was a big deal and has been like a game changer for me professionally. So thank you both (Tina/Marcus) for that because, you guys in particular were a big part of that for me, because it was literally: no Tina never there was never an instance where I felt like I was being looked at differently before who I was, so I appreciate it. 

Trista Rosen I have goosebumps, we did not script any of this at all. We literally met at breakfast this morning but you guys are making my heart happy. My purpose in life is to experience joy by seeing other people really come into their dreams and feel accepted for who they are, so I appreciate you all sharing. It does bring us, we're around the holidays that we're shooting this podcast. I think it's really interesting, I happen to be part of an interracial marriage. I was raised catholic and my husband was raised jewish - there are different holidays that we celebrate in our house Christmas and Hanukkah with his family and so things I got to learn along the way. in the 22 years that we've been together, but again, always learning and I would love to know from all of you what holidays you celebrate and what's your favorite tradition about that holiday? 

Tina Vega In my household my family we celebrate Christmas but we also celebrate January 6 which is The Epiphany the three kings and I remember growing up as a child and we still continue to do it until this day we actually build an altar we put the three kings candles and I remember on with a nearly age my grandma grading chocolate and cutting up cheese and this is what we give to our family members that come over and we decorate this Altar and we sing and we just have a good time in the Hispanic culture family food it's how we connect and so that's a holiday that we truly are celebrate every year.

Trista Rosen Can you tell us a little bit more about that holiday because honestly I'm not familiar with it?

Tina Vega Sure. It's the day that the three kings went to visit the baby Jesus. this is a day that in the Christian faith is very import and it's a it's a big deal for us it's an important deal and we celebrated in many different ways in our home mentioned we do the altar it's grating chocolate and serving chocolate and cheese and in addition to food we're singing we're dancing we're connecting it's just our way of many different families do it differently but it's how we celebrate in our household.

Trista Rosen I love that, thank you for sharing and appreciate it. Marcus how about you?

Marcus Weiss it's like you said my parents are actually into Faith as well except my dad actually converted later on in his life when he we would go to church and while he decided that's what he really believed in but we celebrated with my grandmother we celebrated Hanukkah I mainly celebrate Christmas but I think it all just comes down to being family. I'm a very big family person. I love spending time with everybody. That's really the best time that you can have and the best quality of time you can have. The holidays come around. It's more just being happy and being grateful for everything that we have. Sometimes we take life for granted and might not realize what we have. We need to peel back and see the true picture. Every day we gotta wake up, every day is a good day and the holidays are really a time to see that 

Trista Rosen There's that, you reminded me of this like YouTube video that I've seen: which is this guy waking up and he is wrapped in wrapping paper and he like rips the wrapping paper off and he's like oh air and then he undoes his shower head he's like hot water and he's like: oh my goodness I have a car and he unwraps the car and he's like I have a kid and he unwraps this. I think so often we can get lost in whatever the holidays are right or whatever they might mean to us. Some of the simplest things like being with family or the foods that we eat like that's really what it's all about and sometimes the stress of everything starts to overwhelm us. So Aminah how about you?

Aminah Bashir My religion, we don't celebrate anything around this time of year we do celebrate we fast for 30 days during the month of Ramadan and then at the end of that we do have a really big feast and you know kind of celebrate the same thing like Marcus said it's about family it's about coming together and realizing the important things in life, because life is often taken for granted and then it's really. as Marcus battle canceled my mom is currently uh battling stage four of breast cancer and so these these past few years it's been more intense for us to get together and make sure that we're just hovering around her just letting her know you know that we're all here but it kind of puts everything into perspective with holidays so because even though we don't celebrate this time of year it is a time for us to all be together because everybody's working everybody's in school everybody's whatever, but this is the only time that we're all home and we're all able to kind of connect like that. I do believe that although we are all diverse in our faiths and all diverse and what we believe in and what we practice - the core foundation is that family that family piece it's that connection and that's one of the things that you kind of find here within the company is that connection because even though like you said I decorated my desk for whatever there were questions asked there were whatever it was and even with me going off the next day it was like: “oh enjoy your holiday enjoy whatever” whether they knew what I was celebrating or not it was that connection and that foundation of family that we all kind of have in whatever aspect our family is. For me, I have one biological sister but my parents adopted a lot of kids so I have a total of 12 siblings.

Trista Rosen Oh wow! 

Aminah Bashir Yes! 

Trista Rosen Where do you fall in that lineupI

Aminah Bashir  I'm the second to last, but to me they're all biological those are my brothers and sisters so you know everybody's family dynamic looks different but when you're here it's like Marcus comes in every day and he walks past my desk and we literally every day he says: Aminah and I'm like: Marcus every day the same way because it's a connection 

Aminah Bashir You know what I mean. Although we're different in faith and skin tone and gender or whatever. It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. I think that this time of year if it's the feeling of the season that gives you that feeling of wanting to be closer to your family then that's what you absolutely should reflect on and do that.

Trista Rosen I think it's amazing how you tied that all together because you're right as different as we all are and you called out some of those differences. I think that the similarities that we can find bond us and bring us together, but also like I think as we have similar experiences but then to be able to ask questions and share where we're different in a respectful way and ask questions and get to know I think is so important so that we can be our authentic selves, because you don't have to be like everyone. I think that's huge. I am curious, I recently learned a little bit more about Ramadan and if you could share a little bit with us about. I wasn't familiar with the three kings, about Ramadan and the meaning behind it. 

Aminah Bashir The month of Ramadan is actually a month where we fast for 30 days. We do breakfast at night at Sunset. It is basically to give you an idea of people who have less than you. It does keep you humble, it keeps you, you know, I have a 14 year old daughter who has been fasting since she was seven. In the beginning it was like half day fast, I don't want anybody to think that I'm like not feeding my child, but it was like a half day fast or and something like that, but it'd given her that kind of sense of be grateful for what we have because there are children who are our age who don't have this. Who are not able to [have] break fast. They don't have food for breakfast where we're able to. So it is a month that we use for reflecting on what we have, what we're grateful for, what we can do for other people. Because it's not just about you, so at the end of the month we do have a feast where we celebrate with our community. We give the kids gifts similar to what people would do for Christmas, but for us for my family particularly, I like to make sure my daughter and I have started a tradition where we give instead of her getting. If she wants to get something she will ask. I've been blessed with her, she's amazing, so she'll ask for one or two things, but everything else is something that she's given to somebody else. That's just one of the traditions that we do, my daughter and myself we, I wanted to make sure that once she's in the world by herself she is a good human.

Trista Rosen What a gift that you're giving her. I mean not the two gifts that she picks out but really the ability at a young age to realize the joy of giving to someone else who really needs it. I am so appreciative that the three of you sat down and not only did you share with us your career journeys. What you think or why you think Raymour and Flanigan is a great place to work. Little bit about your holidays and your traditions and your family, you really shared with me. Today at breakfast I got to see the Elizabeth Team all as one and this group here too. Just how you all support each other and it was lovely to see how you admire each other and you called out to each other for your own success and the humidity is really appreciated. I again want to thank you and appreciate you sitting down to talk with me and all of our 6000 Associates thank you all. look for us on the next episode of the Raymoure and Flanigans series: There's No Place Like Home. Thank you!