{"id":418,"date":"2020-08-28T13:20:23","date_gmt":"2020-08-28T13:20:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goodguyssigns.com\/blog\/?p=418"},"modified":"2020-08-28T13:22:55","modified_gmt":"2020-08-28T13:22:55","slug":"lauren-mccullough-press-operator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goodguyssigns.com\/blog\/lauren-mccullough-press-operator\/","title":{"rendered":"Lauren McCullough-Press Operator"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.goodguyssigns.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/lauren-resize-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-419\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.goodguyssigns.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/lauren-resize-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.goodguyssigns.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/lauren-resize-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/www.goodguyssigns.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/lauren-resize-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https:\/\/www.goodguyssigns.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/lauren-resize-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.goodguyssigns.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/lauren-resize-rotated.jpg 1732w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>At just 32 years of age, Lauren McCullough has seen and experienced enough to fill an entire life. Born in San Francisco, Lauren has lived in Los Angeles, Dallas, Austin, Houston, Las Vegas, Baja, Columbia, the Philippines, and here in Tampa, where she has become an integral part of Team Good Guys Signs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is actually her second stint working here. She had been at Good Guys Signs for about a year in 2014, before moving to Sin City. She eventually came back to Tampa this past January, and returned to work in the production department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When Lauren\u2019s off the clock, she likes to remain active. She\u2019s played in softball, basketball, and flag football leagues. She goes to the gym on a daily basis, noting that she just can\u2019t sit still.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You wouldn\u2019t know it to look at her pleasant, warm smile that Lauren is a rock inside. She\u2019s tough. She\u2019s resilient. Afraid of heights&#8211; she\u2019s gone skydiving. She doesn\u2019t know how to swim, but she goes wakeboarding in the gulf. One fear she revealed\u2026. rollercoasters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"260\" height=\"194\" src=\"https:\/\/www.goodguyssigns.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/roller.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-424\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t like rollercoasters, probably because it\u2019s something you can\u2019t control,\u201d says Lauren. The control issue may be a by-product of her earlier life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When she was young, she lived in gang-dominated East LA. She couldn\u2019t <em>control<\/em> the bullets that would fly by her house every day and every night. She couldn\u2019t <em>control <\/em>if her friends were killed as a cause of gang violence. She finally made it out of that brutal living situation, and as she says, \u201cThat was the hardest thing I\u2019ve ever had to overcome\u2026being able to get out of there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lauren is also gay. She couldn\u2019t <em>control<\/em> her sexuality. She conveys that it is who she is, \u201cI\u2019ve always been kind of a tomboy, I always hung out with guys and played sports. I think I kind of knew I was gay when I was about eight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These things could easily break a person. Guns and gayness could knock down a person to shrivel up into a ball, scared of life. Not Lauren McCullough. She stands a little taller, as she proudly declares, \u201cI\u2019m resilient. I don\u2019t allow myself to get too negative. If life brings challenges, I push through. I don\u2019t wallow in self-pity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And maybe it\u2019s the mindset that\u2019s engrained in her very fiber that led her to marriage. We have to go back to the past for the genesis of her matrimony to really get a feel for it. Having had been in boarding school in Jamaica in her teens, she made a friend, named Kehaulani. The two went their separate ways from there when school finished, and didn\u2019t see each other for a decade. Lauren was happening to be celebrating her birthday in Frisco, ironically where Kehaulani was living. Lauren wrote her and asked if she wanted to get together while she was in town. \u201cWe did, and it was instant attraction for both of us,\u201d Lauren beams. The pair have now been happily married for five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"362\" height=\"689\" src=\"https:\/\/www.goodguyssigns.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/20200827_105845-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-421\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.goodguyssigns.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/20200827_105845-1.jpg 362w, https:\/\/www.goodguyssigns.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/20200827_105845-1-158x300.jpg 158w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 362px) 100vw, 362px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>This lady, who\u2019s not even afraid to take on the owner of our company in a game of hoops, is covered in tattoos. \u201cThey\u2019re derived from dreams I have when I\u2019m sleeping. I also have ones that remind of people and things. I made my very first tattoo myself.\u201d You might assume a person feels the need to hide behind a beard or a tattoo. Not Lauren. She knows everyone has problems, and she believes hers from the past are of no greater consequence than anybody else\u2019s. She\u2019s as open a book as you could read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The kid with a crossover dribble that can kill, and a dedicated employee who routinely lifts 650 pounds of materials per day\u2026well, she\u2019s pretty darn inspiring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When she was young, she lived in gang-dominated East LA. She couldn\u2019t control the bullets that would fly by her house every day and every night. She couldn\u2019t control if her friends were killed as a cause of gang violence. She finally made it out of that brutal living situation, and as she says, \u201cThat was the hardest thing I\u2019ve ever had to overcome\u2026being able to get out of there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[82,81,83,80],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodguyssigns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodguyssigns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodguyssigns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodguyssigns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodguyssigns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodguyssigns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":425,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodguyssigns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418\/revisions\/425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodguyssigns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodguyssigns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodguyssigns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}