The signs were becoming impossible to ignore. Amy Utley was in a rut.
“Our agreement was I would work from 10 a.m. to 5,” she said.
She nervously giggles, burying her head in her hands.
“It was getting to where I would show up at 10:30. Then 11. I just didn’t want to go to work.”
Utley and her husband, Curtis, own Iola Auto Body, where for the past dozen or so years she had manned the front desk.
“It was nothing against the guys, they’re great. I’m just not a car girl,” she says with a shrug.
“I also needed to learn something new. To use my brain again.”
As of late December, Utley has been managing the front office at Crown Realty, a position that “checks all the boxes.”
Utley credits her daughter, Allie, for encouraging her to look for another job.
“She’d been pushing me, saying, ‘You need to do what you want to do.’ She’s all about positive change in women and loving yourself.”
“But I was trying to figure out what that would be. I didn’t know what I wanted to do.”
Utley also found the thought of change as intimidating.
“It gets harder as you get older,” said the 59-year-old. For years, she had talked herself out of looking elsewhere, telling herself things were “fine.”
Now, she wishes she’d acted sooner.
“You know, it’s fun learning something new.”
Telling her husband that she wanted to work outside of the family business was easier than she imagined. “He’s always been so supportive of me,” she said. “He just wants me to be happy.”
The couple will celebrate their 25th anniversary this year.
