Employee Spotlight: Barbara (BJ) O’Connell, CISR

May 6, 2019
|In Employee Spotlight
|By McMahon Insurance

BJ is part of our Personal Lines team working out of our Upper Township, Marmora branch. She joined our team in 2007 bringing years of insurance experience. BJ has a strong service mentality and always makes her clients feel right at home when they sit down with her. Get to know more about BJ:

  1. What are three words you would use to describe McMahon Insurance Agency?
    • BJ O’Connell: Family, integrity, and respectful.
  2. What are three career lessons you’ve learned thus far?
    • BJ O’Connell: The three career lessons I’ve learned so far are Patience, Listening, and Practice.
      • Patience- Being patient enough to fully hear a concern; I am pretty quick to gather where a client is going with their verbal thoughts and jump in.  But just because I know where they are going with their thought, or what they are going to say, doesn’t mean they don’t deserve the chance to say it.  It’s not easy for me to stay silent, in most situations, so I am still working on this.
      • Listening-  I find we often hear people speaking, but if we don’t give them our full attention, we don’t always hear what they are saying.
      • Practice-  I need to practice all of this and it has helped in my personal life as well.  A relationship is developed when all parties feel relevant and believe they have been heard and understood.  Something I am striving to do for my clients as well as co-workers.
  3. What phobias do you have?
    • BJ O’Connell: Spiders.
  4. What’s your favorite indoor/outdoor activity?
    • BJ O’Connell: I love going on hikes and swimming. My son only likes hikes during the winter though, as we are less likely to come across a snake (that’s preferable to me too though).
  5. What chore do you absolutely hate doing?
    • BJ O’Connell: Folding/ironing laundry! It’s on my husband’s list of things to do, but I guess he doesn’t like it much either since I find myself doing it mostly.
  6. What was the best concert you ever attended?
    • BJ O’Connell: Woodstock. 

 

BJ- Your bubbly personality is invigorating and we thank you for your all your hard work!