A year ago today I packed up my gray wall-carpeted cube, handed in my work laptop and said farewell to the corporate world. No more daily Starbucks trips. No more commute. No more guaranteed paycheck. Already a year ago. Unreal. I was elated. I was done with the frustrating situations like this. I was dumbstruck, gobsmacked and terrified. For months and weeks H & I planned how this transition would all go down. We couldn't do moments like this one anymore. They were happening all too often and we as a family unit were unraveling fast. The 'D' word was getting thrown around a bit and I think thought about even more.This blog served as my release, as it still does, but for my work tensions and its going ons. The working mother thing worked but only as far as the blog was concerned. I … [Read more...]
So is that like uh, a real job?
It is always when I'm about to go to an event with a lot of our friends that I begin to feel the 'I' word. Insecure. I didn't always feel that way. Nope. It only started when I quit my 9-5 job and decided to make a go of this whole writing thing that I felt these pangs of insecurity.We go to an event and the topic of work comes up. No one asks me about my job anymore. I'm left out of the conversation unless I shoehorn my way in. When I would begin to talk about a particular project I could see the judgment. The "HA! Yeah right! You don't really work anymore, you just stay home." It has been said to me more than once. It has gotten to the point that now I don't even talk about work. Even if I'm really excited about something or something big is coming up I just find something else to talk … [Read more...]
Desk Jockey
Recently there have been talks brewing in these here parts of me going back to work. It's all a bit fuzzy and I think I was drinking something called a Tropical Typhoon when the subject came up. I can't be sure as it was a Typhoon.I know. Going back to work you say? What about all those awful hours you put in under sometimes heinous circumstances? What about the commute? What about the asshat?! Don't you remember the asshat?! I hear you people. I hear you loud and clear. I'm not so far removed from it all yet. Truthfully the desire to go back to being a desk jockey is not at all strong. In fact, I am content to never see another set of gray cubicle walls or smell the stench of burned Maxwell House ever again if possible. It was just last week I told a friend, the only way I'm ever going … [Read more...]
So what are WE doing?
Yesterday's post about the myth vs. the reality brought up some interesting questions from myself and from some readers. American women have it better than we think, but our work is far from over. The system is old, it's not working, and we need to tweak it and in some cases give it a massive overhaul.So what is an already busy working and not working woman/mother to do? Well, I don't have all the answers but I do feel pretty strongly about the fact that years ago our mothers really broke through the proverbial glass ceiling and are the ones who started things like flex time, shared work schedules, daycare centers in the office and such. I look at that and I think, "well, what have I done?" I've just taken as much as I could from the whole thing and haven't offered anything new. That my … [Read more...]
Not a Myth, and Not Quite a Reality Yet
Is the grass really greener on the other side of the pond?I wish that in the mires of my office, in the hours I spent toiling at my desk in corporate America I had come across this article. It would have given me a bit more perspective. A whole look at how we American’s cannot use the pat answer (and yes, I’m guilty of it too) that the Europeans have it all figured out. They don’t either. So Ms. American ladies, while you are perhaps feeling a bit guilty about being at work or that maybe your company is a tad unfair consider this article and know that in some ways American women do have it better.“Only one in five Europeans works some sort of flexible schedule, as compared with almost 30 percent in the United States. And because European companies have traditionally invested less in … [Read more...]