What Happens When Your House Burns Down Right Before a Meeting?

What Happens When Your House Burns Down Right Before a Meeting?

Imagine this: you’re about to hop on a meeting with a leader, and suddenly, your house catches fire. I was working from home one afternoon and had just finished a phone call. Little did I know, my life was about to change dramatically. I grabbed some food, and as I sat down at my desk to eat before my next meeting, I heard an explosion. I checked our air conditioning unit in the backyard—it was…

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Embracing New Additions With Cisco’s Child Bonding Leave

Embracing New Additions With Cisco’s Child Bonding Leave

With baby number four on the way, my family and I were ecstatic about the upcoming addition to our squad. But as the day appeared to be nearing, reality started to set in for my wife and me. Between busy schedules with school pickups and drop-offs for our three other kids, after-school activities, meals, and homework assistance … How would we manage this? That is when I found out about Cisco’s Child Bonding Leave, supported…

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Using Cisco’s Benefits To Ease Difficult Times: The Bridge To Giving Yourself Grace

Using Cisco’s Benefits To Ease Difficult Times: The Bridge To Giving Yourself Grace

We plan for the happy things in life: holidays, children’s sports games, birthdays. What we don’t plan for is a catastrophic family event that turns our world upside down. That only happens to other people, right? That’s what I thought until it happened to us. But as I write this, I am sitting in a hospital chair next to my mom’s bed. Ten years ago, when I lost my dad after a sudden illness, I…

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Turning Cisco’s Tuition Reimbursement Green

Turning Cisco’s Tuition Reimbursement Green

There are seasons in life when change is inevitable, and often, these moments propel personal transformation. For me, one such moment was the passing of my mother in 2021. In the wake of this loss, I decided to return to school to pursue an Executive MBA with a concentration in sustainability. It was the perfect program. Tuesday night classes that fit with my family’s schedule, an in-person option at a faith-based university, and a two-year…

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Cisco Allowed Me To Start My Family, Stress-Free

Cisco Allowed Me To Start My Family, Stress-Free

Becoming a parent looks different for everyone. Some are blessed for this journey to come swiftly. For others, the road is bumpier and has many pit stops along the way. After all, one in six couples struggles with fertility. And after a year and a half of trying to conceive, I found myself facing the real possibility of IVF being the most likely path to parenthood for my husband and me. Photo by CLJ Photography…

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A Dream Come True: My Journey to Africa as a Sea Turtle Conservation Volunteer

A Dream Come True: My Journey to Africa as a Sea Turtle Conservation Volunteer

I had this longtime dream of volunteering in Africa and working with sea turtles. This year, I had the chance to fulfill my dream because of this incredible company. Cisco incentivizes employees to give back — providing us with 80 hours of paid time off in addition to our regular paid time off called Time2Give — and this is just part of our amazing culture. No wonder we are the #1 best place to work…

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Why We’re a Cisco Family Through and Through

Why We’re a Cisco Family Through and Through

I started my career as a contractor with Cisco back in December 2003 with the Support Delivery Services IT Finance team. Even as a contractor, I could see from day one the incredible culture Cisco had, and everyone made me feel like I was part of the team and not a newbie. That’s when I knew that this was the company I wanted to build my career with. This is where I belonged. Cisco as…

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From Vacation to Volunteer: How Hawaii Has Our Hearts and Our Help

From Vacation to Volunteer: How Hawaii Has Our Hearts and Our Help

What must it be like to lose everything? I mean everything. My family, thankfully, hasn’t experienced that ourselves, but we have lived in the mountains where wildfires occur periodically, and there are some telltale signs other than the smell of smoke. The sun can take on an eerie orange-red color. But in August, as Hurricane Dora passed the Hawaiian island chain, causing strong winds and downed powerlines that sparked wildfires, there weren’t any indications of…

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