How Jenny Mariano went from playing in Ooma’s HQ as a child to working there

Jenny Mariano first came to Ooma when she was in the 8^th grade. Her father worked for Ooma and whenever he didn’t have a babysitter he would take Jenny and her sister to the office.

The trips to Ooma ended when Jenny’s dad stopped working at Ooma. However, he still knew a lot of people who continued to work there, including friends he had referred to Ooma. When Jenny was in community college, she needed work. One of her dad’s friends referred Jenny to a customer service job in 2015.

She didn’t have customer service billing experience, but it was a good entry level job. She interviewed with Roy Calvo, who in the years since has risen to Senior VP of customer service. While Jenny was only intending for Ooma to be a college job, it turned into a larger career that included eight years in customer service.

Jenny not only grew up knowing people like Calvo who worked at Ooma, l she had friends who already worked there and she also referred other friends to the company. Ooma was always family, but not in the superficial way a lot of companies talk about.

Jenny took a break from school, but Calvo and her coworker Amber Huynh pushed her to go back so after a two-year break she did. She transferred to San Jose State University and went to school full time while working a full 40 hours a week. Her managers were supportive of her doing both, as they encouraged her to go back to school in the first place. Jenny soon ran into a problem though.

She majored in criminal justice studies at SJSU and needed an internship to graduate. “So I was like, what am I going to do? I already work 40 hours a week, like how am I going to add an internship on top of that?”

Her internship had to be related to her major, so she looked at legal internships, but nothing was working out. Eventually, Calvo had an idea: What about human resources? HR often has to deal with laws and compliance, which means it would satisfy her major’s need for an internship related to criminal justice.

Jenny talked to the HR department and got the internship, moving from her customer service job to an internship in human resources. The change taught her a lot about how the company worked.

“I didn’t know why we had certain policies,” she said. Now she does. Jenny completed her 120 hours and did her presentation to her managers on what she learned. Soon after she wrapped up, HR told her they wanted to hire her full time.

Jenny’s college job turned into an internship that turned into a full career, with a current title of Human Resources Associate. All at the same company in two different departments.

That kind of transition isn’t always the easiest though, with Jenny saying she did have a bit of imposter syndrome about the whole thing. “I don’t know what I’m doing; I don’t know if they want me; I don’t know if I can do it,” she said, before explaining that she had great mentors and leaders who made it easy to transfer from customer service to human resources.

The roles also have one thing in common that made the transition easy: empathy. In customer support, Jenny had to care for customers, while in human resources she cares for Ooma employees. And because she was an employee in customer service, she has institutional knowledge that helps her do her job. She has the real-life experience of how customer support works.

Separately, the transition to HR let her combine two of her passions: learning and helping people. Because laws are always changing, HR is a fun place to be because there’s always something to learn and do and change to keep up. Then she can use her knowledge to help people.

Jenny has seen Ooma’s HR team grow throughout her time at Ooma, both as a kid playing in cubicles and an employee, from one person to a full team of 10. She says HR always wants to help, and encourages employees to email them about any questions or concerns. That’s because caring for Ooma employees has a ripple effect.

“We want all of our employees to like their experience at Ooma, because if they like it it’ll reflect on how they speak to customers, how they speak on the company, how they speak about products,” she says. When you feel supported as an employee it makes you better at your job, she says.  

Jenny has now spent 10 years at Ooma. She never imagined she would be here this long, but the support from her managers and co-workers in both customer service and human resources has made it hard to leave. As for how her dad feels about her working at Ooma? “He is very proud,” she says.

Jenny’s family legacy spreads beyond just her and her dad though. “I actually referred my sister to Ooma; it’s kind of crazy. We like it here. We always wanted to work at a place where you want to recommend it to your friends and family, and I think that shows that I feel that way.”

Having a legacy at Ooma makes Jenny one of the few people who has worked at Ooma’s original headquarters in Palo Alto, its customer service headquarters in Newark and its current corporate headquarters in Sunnyvale. Her dad visited her in the Newark office, but has since moved to Texas and a full circle moment awaits: bringing her dad to the Sunnyvale HQ.