EDMOND—Edmond member Patricia Malone retired from the Philadelphia Church of God call center on September 19 after 12 years of service. Co-workers, friends and family celebrated her contributions to the department on October 27 at the Mail Processing Center on the Herbert W. Armstrong College campus.
Chief financial officer Andrew Locher and music director Ryan Malone, Mrs. Malone’s son, spoke to the small gathering of fellow operators, mail staff, friends and volunteers over cake and snacks. Mr. Locher shared Mrs. Malone’s prodigious work log since her hiring on Nov. 2, 2003, as a part-time operator: 14,385.71 hours. Before clocking in for the first time, she had already been volunteering for about a year.
Mrs. Malone fondly recalls those first days volunteering. In 2002, the phones weren’t ringing as frequently, so she packed mail while waiting for a call to break the silence of her compact work space at the headquarters office complex in Edmond. She also entered data from thousands of literature requests, hand-written on long lists and sent to headquarters by in-home operators. Over the years, she has seen the volume of calls vastly increase, and improvements in technology enabling in-home operators to process literature requests on their personal computers. For her, that has meant answering hundreds of additional calls.
Mrs. Malone said everyone in the Church needs to learn how different people think, like she did through her call center experience. “Sometimes, we get caught in our own lives and experiences and don’t think about others and how they have to learn,” she said after the retirement party. “It’s interesting to see how people change as they call in for ministerial visits, especially with the test commandments and what they will or won’t sacrifice.”
From time to time over her 12 years at the phones, Mrs. Malone had to tactfully placate more than a few unhappy callers.
But for every negative call, Mrs. Malone estimated that she and her co-workers answered 100 positive calls. Those became the subjects of numerous uplifting conversations during breaks. “God was encouraging us,” she said. “Many Philadelphia Trumpet subscribers were so thankful for the hope this Work gives them. They had lost contact over the years and were so happy to find the place Mr. Armstrong was remembered.”
Mrs. Malone once received a call from a lady who lived in Nevada and had attended the Worldwide Church of God under Mr. Armstrong as a little child. The caller said her brother had worked numerous times on Mr. Armstrong’s car to keep it running. Because of the positive influence the Church had on her, she wanted to give Mystery of the Ages to her children. “I got interesting calls like that I always relished a little bit,” Mrs. Malone said.
“My work experience was a learning experience, learning how people react and feel toward the truth,” Mrs. Malone said. “You learn about different cultures, beliefs, ideas. It’s great experience for me to better serve in the World Tomorrow.”
After Mr. Locher summed up Mrs. Malone’s 14,000-plus hours of service, Mr. Malone briefly recapped his mother’s years supporting the Church before the tall white walls and beeping phones of the call center ever existed. She married wcg Local Elder Wilbur Malone in 1974, serving as a minister’s wife for three decades before he died on Jan. 27, 2004. She helped pack and ship some of the pcg’s first copies of Mystery of the Ages from their home near St. Louis, Missouri, in 1997, and she also has served as a seamstress for the Young Ambassadors and the Jeremiah musical production.
The Malones came into the pcg in April 1990. They held services in their home in Missouri until the local congregation grew too large. In 1991, Mr. Malone became the regional director of Illinois, Missouri, Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee and Kentucky. The Malones moved to Edmond in May 2002. Soon, Mrs. Malone was volunteering on the phones, the prelude to joining the staff and eventually receiving distinction as the all-time leader in hours logged as a call center operator.