I love my job. I know it is a rare and somewhat shocking thing to hear from most people, but in our “Camden Bubble” it’s an almost universal sentiment. I could bore you with a laundry list of reasons why I am proud to be a Camden employee, but the thing that has kept me around for 12 ½ years is our amazing family-like culture. I hear many companies talking about their culture and bragging about the special perks they can shower on their employees. I believe it is a lot easier to cultivate that when all of your employees work together on the same campus, but what happens when you have almost 200 communities spread throughout the US in addition to several regional offices in states from California to DC? It is harder to make co-workers feel like family members when you only see them a few times each year. That is what makes Camden so special. We are able to spread our culture remotely! Some of my closest friends in the company work in my city, but because of our offices are so far apart we hardly get a chance to catch up outside of Facebook. Even a regular old manager meeting feels like a family reunion.

(http://camdenapartmentblogs.com/2012/01/19/camden-family/under-40-club/) My Camden family has been there for me as I have welcomed many changes to my life over 12 ½ years, most notably the birth of my 2 daughters and a monumental (to me) birthday last year. It turns out that several of my friends were born in 1971, so we were all turning 40 in 2011. I think I started having anxiety about this birthday as soon as the candles were blown out on my 35th cake and I shared this with my friends. Instead of wallowing in our aging fear, we formed an “Under 40 Club” and we each set goals for ourselves – completing an Iron Man, running a Half Marathon, losing weight. It might sound silly, but I cannot tell you how much it meant to me to have a support group as I stared down middle-age and vowed to do something crazy like run 13.1 miles! Being able to celebrate birthdays and accomplishments with my friends has made it sting a little less!

FORTUNE Magazine always announces its list of the “100 Best Companies to Work For” at the same time each year and Camden has been included for the past few years. Today we found out that we are #7 overall! This just so happens to be either on or just before my birthday, so I like to think of it as a special gift sent just to me. As the first of our “Under 40 Club” to make the transition to the “40 Club”, I am, of course, the first to move on to 41. I’m not emotionally ready to rename ourselves the “Under 50 Club”, but I am certain my friends will still be celebrating the milestones with me as proud Camden employees once we get there. Thank you Camden, and thank you gang, for allowing me to grow old gracefully with the best job a girl could ask for!