Each year I attend an annual Christmas party that’s essentially a JD Edwards Operations department party. JD Edwards hasn’t existed for 8 years. Almost everyone has left the company, or what it has become, which is Oracle. Yet we still hold a Christmas party every December that brings together 20-30 families.

I’ve never seen a bond like that from a job. And it’s still there.

We used to have monthly teambuilding in our group, and occasionally bringing long a few people from related departments (engineering, help desk, etc.). We would have almost weekly lunches among the team, and even when Peoplesoft purchased the company and people started to leave, we still had monthly lunches. We still played fantasy football each year, and kept in touch. We also had a yearly Christmas party that included our former director.

It’s an amazing bond, and it shows that the power of a strong corporate culture continues even as the company is gone. The 30 of us communicate, recommend jobs to each other, or have even helped each other find employees we trust. There are small clumps of us, 3-4, that work together in other companies, even having moved companies together, and it’s become a trusted and valued network unlike any I’ve ever had.

I’ve kept in touch with people from other jobs, running into them or having lunch at times, but I’ve never seen 20-30 people leave a company, and still remain strongly bonded together.

The culture at JD Edwards, a 5,000 person company was amazing. It was like a big family and people really built strong relationships there. I was honored to have worked there, and it’s the kind of company that I wish was the rule rather than the exception.