Meet Lynette Johnson | Administrative Efficiency Expert, Writer, Editor, Proofreader & Actor

We had the good fortune of connecting with Lynette Johnson and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Lynette, how has your background shaped the person you are today?
I hail from a small farming community in Central California. My parents were raised in Oklahoma and Missouri and when the Dust Bowl and Great Depression (The Grapes of Wrath era) hit, both sets of grandparents (one a tenant farmer and the other a butcher) thought that California would be the answer, so they moved their families across the country in hopes of a better future. That was not to be the case, however. Both families settled in the Kern County area near Shafter and that’s where my parents met and married. We were poor as dirt growing up and working the fields in order to have something to eat. My first job was picking cotton at 3 years old. It was essential… there was no one to care for us kids because everyone had to work. So, I was set in my row with my cotton-picking sack over my shoulder and my new baby sister on the end of the sack with a supply of formula and cotton diapers alongside and my little brother at my side. This was so my mother and father could pick their rows without hindrance in order to pick as many rows as they could as fast as they could. That was money in their pocket. My full sack at the end of my row was icing on the cake. I learned how to keep my baby sister clean, fed, and satisfied, and I learned how to engage my little brother in games that would keep him occupied and willing to help me fill my sack at the same time.

My parents were very strict with the four of us (another sister came along later) and any free time not working was spent with extended family. Not only was I the oldest child in my family but I was also the oldest cousin on one side of the family and second oldest on the other. Needless to say, my time with family was spent watching and caring for all the cousins so the adults could spend time with each other. So, my time with the cousins was usually spent thinking up games and supervising play activities. Any free time I had to myself was spent at the library or reading my book selections at home. I was a voracious reader, and the librarians knew me so when I finished a section, they were ready with the next recommendation of a new section.

When I was 8 yrs old, I began babysitting for the neighbors since they saw that I could manage my siblings all day long, without them getting into trouble, and start dinner for my parents. In junior high I took over from my mother and started making all my own clothes, and I also got to start keeping some of my babysitting money for extra things. In high school, I cleaned houses with my mother until I got a job at the local five and dime store. By that time, I could keep the money I made, but was always expected to give my parents what they needed for bills and such. We moved a lot around Central and Southern California when I was in junior high and high school going to 5 different high schools. In order for my parents to keep working through our moves, I was the one who packed up the house and cleaned and unpacked in the new house, so I learned to be very organized.

My horizons expanded when I went to a small bible college in the San Francisco Bay area and met my husband. He was a very in-demand speaker, so we traveled all over the country for about 10 yrs before we had children. To go from a very small town to traveling the country was such an exciting adventure. We had no money so we slept in the car at the side of the road, shared one meal a day, and chose a no cost/low cost adventure in almost every area of the country that we found ourselves in. My husband and I have been married for 56 yrs this year and have 3 children and 4 grandchildren.

My degree is in Education, and I spent most of my adult life volunteering in non-profits until my children were in junior high and high school. Most of the paying jobs I’ve had were in administration at the executive level. I’ve retired a number of times, but jobs have always seemed to find me. The latest came about because I was reading in my grandchildren’s classrooms. The principal of the school knew my background in education and when the front office person had to step aside due to a family medical emergency, he asked me to step into that position. I was able to update and streamline their processes for more efficient office procedures.

Upon my first retirement, my son-in-law told me about a Voice-Over class he had heard about, so I went. In the background was where I wanted to be, but they encouraged me toward camera work and finally, improv acting. I found the improv to be fun and very near to what I did as a child with my sibling and cousins in directing their activities, except not from the playing side. I’ve often said my work with the On Impulse acting troupe I am a part of is like the ‘play’ I rarely got to do as a kid.

Because I came up having nothing of value, purchases are purposeful, saving is important and, because of my husband, adventure within reason is necessary! And as can be expected, I have always chosen jobs that provide help to others.

When my husband and I got married we determined that we would never have the marriage our parents had, and we would never raise our children like we were raised. That demands a lot of work! We realized early on that the natural tendency is to do exactly as you were raised in both regards. It demanded that we think through exactly what we were going to replace those natural tendencies with and take the time to think through: instead of ‘that’, I am going to do ‘this’. It’s made all the difference for our family and our children. We call it the Principle of Replacement. It’s also helped us both in our careers to respond appropriately instead of reacting.

Most importantly, I learned to look at my life with a view of making it work for me instead of against me. Always willing to learn, and to do the hard work!

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Since I had worked mostly in non-profit organizations, churches and schools, where I didn’t get paid, when my children reached junior high and high school age, I decided I needed a regular job to help with family finances. I went back to school to get my California teaching credential but quickly realized that it would take too long. Instead, I turned my sights to learning as much about computers as I could. I took every computer course possible, operating systems, web design, Microsoft courses, Adobe courses, etc. I didn’t want a job in any of those fields, but I wanted to know how it all fit together. And I took all courses from the beginning even though I had used computers for several years. I wanted to hear how the teachers taught and glean from them what they felt was important. While back in school, I also worked as a Teaching Assistant and in the computer lab as a Tutor for learning disabled and ESL students. And I picked up any other odd job I could fit in, often up to 5 jobs at a time.

During that time, I began to interview for a regular full-time job, and I was told many times that non-profit work doesn’t translate to the business world. I never understood that. If I could get a group of people from disparate fields, who weren’t required to be there and many of whom were making upwards of $100k/yr on their regular jobs, to efficiently work together for a common purpose, what about that doesn’t translate to my ability to lead a group of people who were being paid to be there to work!

Anyway, one day I got a call from a friend. She said she knew I wasn’t looking for an accounting job, but one had just opened at the small company she worked for. “I know you can do it because you do it for the church all the time.” Reluctantly, I interviewed and was hired immediately in accounts payable. It was a small R&D company that did government contracting work in laser and diagnostic technologies. It wasn’t long until I was offered the position of Proposal & Report Writer, and kind of front office/travel manager, which gave me the unique opportunity to develop my writing, editing, proofreading and organizing skills to the max. What an opportunity that turned out to be!

After about 5 years there, I got a call from another friend who wanted me to interview at the mid-level pharmaceutical company she worked for. I interviewed with the President, the Sales VP, and the in-house Legal Counsel and got an immediate call-back from the Legal Counsel. I told her I knew nothing about legal and she told me she could teach me legal because I had all the other skills she needed. HR asked me what I was looking for in salary and with trepidation I gave them a figure of $10k more than I was currently making and they gave it to me without any negotiation. Yay! It was interesting to me that at my first year-end review, the Executive Team unanimously decided to give me a $10k raise for what I brought to the company! I think they were particularly appreciative of my ability to understand and work with IT. Just goes to show that if you take the opportunity to broaden your horizons through learning, it just may pay dividends in unexpected ways!

My boss and I worked really well together as a team and actually are still friends today! That job gave me an opportunity to fully put my organizational skills to work. A co-worker and I were given a bare-bones online legal filing system to develop. She and I took cabinets and cabinets of legal files, digitized pertinent documents and made a filing system that coordinated all paper files and efiles so our legal department could put fingers on exactly what was needed whether they went to the paper filing cabinets or the efiles first. It took a few years to complete that project, but I have carried that concept to every job I’ve had since. In Legal I worked closely with every other department in the company so developed great cross-department insights for work later in my career.

Due to a change in leadership, which often means that the Executive Team and their admins are replaced, I went to a medical device company where I worked in the Legal Dept and closely with the Board along with developing presentations and documentation for the lawyers in our department. One of the things I learned about myself there was how long-range I thought. It came so naturally to me that I was not aware of it until one of the lawyers asked me to prepare a certain document. I finished it and took it in for review and was told that it wasn’t what was asked for at all and to go back and revise it. As I thought through our conversation, I realized that they really only wanted to see the first step in the process instead of the whole thing. So, from the saved document, I copied out the first section and put it in a document of its own and took that back for review. “That’s exactly what I asked for! Now I want to see the next step!” So, I went to my desk and copied out the next section and put it in its own document and after a few days took that for review. I actually never made any changes to what I had originally written, just figured out where the breaks were and gave it back in pieces. I learned to listen more closely to what a boss asked for and figured out how to present a long-range plan. And I got to re-organize office space and workflow processes. Put me in hog heaven!

I worked in another small pharmaceutical/medical device company as the admin to Finance & Legal, where I had to migrant company documents from an old cobbled together system into a more sophisticated system, which gave me the opportunity to apply what I had learned about matching paper files and efiles into companion systems. I also managed the executive American Express cards and travel, worked with HR as needed, developed company presentations, again loving the cross-department interactions.

At this point, I retired and found Del Mar Media Arts where I took Voice-Over classes. I found it to be so much fun that I joined the On Impulse acting troupe with whom I am still acting today. With the troupe, I have done scenes from many famous stage plays and films, and played leads or supporting characters in The Elephant Man, Get Low, Charly, Orpheus Descending, Grass Harp, Sweet Bird of Youth, etc. I also had the wonderful opportunity to do a couple of shows for Community Theaters in San Juan Capistrano and San Clemente: Arsenic and Old Lace and Red Velvet Cake War.

But… I didn’t stay retired! Because of my reputation in organization, I was asked by another company, where the admin to the President had left a mess and stolen from the company, to help out short-term. I was able to clean up the files, both paper and electronic, and present investigation documentation, which I had also done in many of my previous jobs, and give them a smooth transition to the full-time admin they hired.

Another interesting ‘retirement’ job I had was with a medical consulting firm. There were about 10 of us locally and the rest were deployed across the country. I was in charge of company culture, helped with managing the office (and filing again!), and worked with HR and Finance. It was fascinating to work with every employee when they came in for Orientation, and then work with them in the field to help care for them and their families, and to provide office support for the teams that were deployed. I also wrote the company newsletter and edited and proofed newsletter submissions from our consultants.

A totally unexpected ‘retirement’ job came my way at the school two of my grandchildren attend where I just came in to read in the classroom. I started in the front office and as time went by added Substitute Teacher, Office Manager and then Operations Manager. Again, organization was my life as I organized files, equipment, storage, and events. I loved working with the children, and it was my privilege to put on Band-Aids, give hugs when needed, and a talking to when that was needed. I chose to try to instill in the children I was blessed to be around my principle of ‘Head-Heart-Hand’ to try to help kids understand they are responsible for what they do with the negative thoughts that come into their heads. If they wrap that thought up in negative emotion from their Heart, it will find its way into negative actions when trying to get back at a person they feel hurt by, and that’s where the Hand comes in. It’s a punch, words that are inappropriate, actions that hurt others… and always hurt themselves. “Stop the thought!” I told them. “You’re the only one who knows it’s there! Don’t let it get into your Heart and come out your Hand.” If adults would take the same principle to heart, the world would be a better place for all of us.

Life is not always easy, work is not always easy, it’s what you choose to do with both life and work that defines you. You will always be around difficult people and you will occasionally have to work with someone who is almost impossible and who makes life and work for you very difficult. It’s up to you to live your life well where you work. To speak up when you need to, to shut up when you need to, and just put your head down and do the work and let the work speak for you. Because your work is made up of what you have chosen to put into it and good or bad, it will speak for you!

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
For places to eat you can’t miss a once-in-a lifetime stop at the famous Musso & Frank Grill, maybe you’ll see someone famous! For a little more upscale dining Nobu Los Angeles deserves a stop. And please don’t miss eating at one of Danny Trejo’s restaurants: Trejo’s Coffee and Donuts, Trejo’s Tacos, or Trejo’s Cantina for some of the best breakfast sweets and the very best Mexican food ever…you might even see him there! For a simply wonderful dessert treat yourself to Magpies Softserve, a scratch recipe soft serve dessert shop, for the best, most unique, melt-in-your-mouth ice cream desserts ever! Their ice cream cakes are wonderful!

Rent an AirBnB in Monrovia or in that area up close to the hills and you’ll likely see and hear peacocks in your neighborhood…that’s a real treat! Griffith Park has a plethora of things to do with things for the kiddos, as well as hiking and such for those of the more athletic persuasion. If you’re a baseball fan, don’t miss a tour of Dodger Stadium so when watching the games on TV with friends you can say, “I was there. I stood right there!” I wouldn’t think of passing up the opportunity to go to the Peterson Auto Museum. You don’t have to be a ‘car enthusiast’ to enjoy strolling through history from the earliest means of transportation to now. And what an experience to stand right next to cars you’ve seen in the movies! Even kids stand in awe of the ‘Back to the Future’ car! Make time to meander through ‘The Last Bookstore’ for a creative and fun book experience. You might even find a new or used book or two that strikes your fancy. I found a book for my husband that he had in college and somewhere over the years had lost it!

And last but not least, make your way to the beach… not just any beach but Thornhill Broome Beach just above Malibu. There’s a campground for those who want to stay a few days, but there are places where you can park along the ocean side of Pacific Coast Hwy and spend a few hours. The stones there are washed by the waves to form smooth, flat surfaces that are perfect for stacking into rock cairns. Pick the largest ones for the bottom of your cairn, and then work upwards from there using the smallest of stones as counterweights to balance any wobbly parts. We left our cairns standing tall and drove back by the next day and they were still standing!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Even though I’ve said I wouldn’t want a marriage like my parents, I do credit them with my work ethic and with the opportunity to expand into an adult role earlier than most. Not that that’s what they had in mind… they were just trying to get through everyday life. But, it was those things that helped make me into who I am. To my husband, I credit the ability to find the adventure. I may not be as adventurous as he is, but I have learned to embrace the opportunity that brings. In my acting adventure, I credit Pamela Peak with pushing me to do things I didn’t think I was capable of and loving the process, and the result.

Website: https://TheGrandmaFiles.com

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lynette-johnson-0661534

Image Credits
I own all of the images I have provided.