See the Scar and a Job Offer

The other day, Jack had a young patient who was dying. (As he is a pediatrician, all of his patients are young.) While I can't talk about the kid as it would violate HIPPA (not that I would), I can talk about the dad since he was not the patient.

The man was a younger dad, and kind of rough. Some of the nurses were afraid of this guy. Jack was in the middle of rounds on the ICU floor, when this father caught Jack's attention when Jack entered his daughter's room.

"If you want to talk to me, sit your ass in the chair and look me in the eye," said the dad. The mom knew what was coming, and scurried out of the room.

Jack did as he was told. He sat in the chair and looked the dad in the eye.

"Five years ago," the father said, "I nearly died. I was riding in the backseat of a car, and when I woke up, I was in Harborview hooked up to a bunch of tubes. I was shot five times."

Jack listened.

"I was dead. The surgeons took out the bullets and put me back together," the dad said. The man opened his shirt and showed Jack a large scar that ran from his neck down past his belly.

"That's impressive," said Jack, a guy who has seen thousands of incisions in his life.

"I've seen death. I've seen other people die," the dad continued. "I am not afraid of it. Look me in the eye and tell me: Is my daughter going to die?"

Jack came home from work and told me the story.

"He wanted me to understand what he had experienced. He needed me to know what he had been through so he could trust me," Jack said. "He needed me to see the scar."

He also realized something else. "You need me to see your scar."

A few years ago, Jack had been guilty of some very bad husbanding. I understand that people screw up and make mistakes, but it is nearly impossible to heal when the person who has hurt you doesn't want to admit that they did. In addition to screwing up, Jack had been reluctant to embrace my suffering from his bad husbanding. I still need an apology, an apology that acknowledges the pain and anguish that he has caused me.

"You need me to see your scar," Jack said. I was just about to give up, throw in the towel, call it a hopeless cause, when he comes through with this. Why did it take an interaction with one of his patient's parent for him to get the message I had been trying to deliver for the past few years? Will this insight stick? Will he remember and adhere to this when he finally does see my scar? Do I want to even bother after banging my head against the wall for the past few years? Can I trust that he will truly see and accept it?

Perhaps the timing of Jack's insight correlated with a conversation I had with my manager the day before, a conversation where we discussed my future role and position, and a forthcoming job offer. Perhaps as I grow more financially independent, inspiration was easier for Jack to find.

End of the Long "Vacation" & Independence Day

It was hardly a vacation, though it is coming to an end tomorrow as I start training for a new job after being a stay-at-home mom for a very, very long time. One nice thing about the Apprenti program is the gradual start. I have fourteen weeks of training before I start work on August 7. I'll be able to hit my stride before I get to the starting line.

I started thinking about all of the things I've done since I quit my job to be a full-time parent.

• I've birthed and raised two kids who still need a significant amount of raising.
• I've run two PTAs and started several other PTAs.
• I've done advocacy work in education.
• I ran for School Board.
• I've written three books which are languishing unpublished.
• I've recovered from my ACL repair.
• I've gone out to lunch and talked on the phone with friends.
• I taught myself how to quilt.
• I've probably read 250-500 books.
• I've driven 30,000 carpool miles.

In the past few weeks while I have been waiting for my training to start. I've been racing around, trying to get stuff done before I start, like making sure I go to lunch or for a walk with everyone I know. I feel like I am going to be leaving on a long trip and I need to say goodbye before I leave.

I was thinking of all of the things I wish I had done in my time off. I wish I had cooked more meals and expanded my cooking repertoire instead of going out to dinner so often. When I had time to cook, I didn't. I don't like to cook, so that explains some of it, but maybe if I had found some new recipes, I might have enjoyed it more. Tonight, I cooked Jamie Oliver's Chicken in Milk that I found in this weekend's New York Times. We'll see how it tastes.

I have a few frivolous projects I wished I've worked on, like rebuilding all of my son's Lego sets. I know that seems like a Sisyphean task, but it might have been cool. I wish I would have made more quilts. I wish I would have read more books.

So why am I going back to work when I could sit around all day and go to coffee with friends, walk Green Lake, write, cook and rebuild Lego sets? Pretty sweet life, eh?

Ironically, I am looking forward to the freedom and independence a job will bring. Being a stay-at-home mom means my family work and home are the same. There is no break, no vacation, no division. This winter before I could ski, I was sitting in the ski lodge and a family with three young kids joined me at my table. The mom was cheerful and perky, making faces with her kids in SnapChat. I was never so easy and free with my kids, and I wish I had been. This mom worked. She had a line and barrier between her and her kids. She seemed to cherish her kids just because they were there. I never missed my kids because they were always around. I never had a "vacation" from work because my work was my family and my family was always around. When we would take a real vacation, I was still working.

This is what I am looking forward to--freedom and independence from my family. Here I am trying to raising independent and responsible people, and yet I am not independent. I was talking to my friend Sangita, and she said her kids basically have her as a servant who makes them food, drives them places, and makes sure all of their clothes are clean. Those are reasonable expectations for parents of toddlers and young children, but when should kids start to carry their own water? Next year, both of my able-bodied kids will be in high school. They and my husband can take care of themselves without me tailing behind making sure everything gets done.

I am not going to romanticize working and being a parent because I know it will be hard. I know starting a new job will be hard, for them and for me, but I am looking at this as my Independence Day. And theirs, too.

Things Fall Apart

As you may know, I start training for my new job this week. My friend Carla asked how I am going to manage the house and family while I work. 

"My sister-in-law has a schedule of who makes dinner every night for her family," Carla said. "Maybe you should try that."

"I could try that," I said. I thought about it for a few days. I thought about me standing in front of my family with a sign up chart, giving them a lecture on how now that I am going to work things are going to change and I how I used to do all of these invisible, unseen things that made our lives work and now the magic from behind the stage is going to be gone and everyone is going to need to help.

Then I imagined the eye rolls, the "I don't know how to make dinner" and "I'll make ramen when it's my day" and "I won't eat dinner" and so forth.

Screw it. I am going to let things fall apart.

"Where is my track uniform?" I imagine Claire Adele asking next week.

"Did you wash it?" I'll ask as I dash off to hop on the bus to go to class.

"What's for dinner?" Jack will ask.

"You tell me," I'll say.

"Where's my lunch?" the Boy will ask.

"Where is it?" I'll ask back.

It is not like my kids are toddlers. If we were living one hundred years ago, the girl would be off at work as a seamstress and the Boy would be up every morning at dawn taking care of the cows. Running the family farm or whatever would be the family business, so working and being a mom would be interchangeable. Feeding the Boy would be feeding the unpaid help. The girl would be of earning money to help the family. 

That is not how my kids were raised or how our family operates. We are all in for a change, and change that I am not going to manage. I'll take care of myself getting to and from work and what I need to do there. The other three people in my family can help figure out how we can take care of each other without me being in the center. 

Looking for a Job and the Seven Stages of Grief

I accepted an apprenticeship with the Apprenti program last week. Yay! I have been quiet about it because I have fourteen weeks of training to successfully complete before I start the job and get paid. I am sure I will do fine with the training, but I am a little nervous, just because it is new. I am taking a massive leap of faith that this will all work out, as are the people who hired me. I am grateful for this program and am looking forward to the change. After a week of looking at colleges for Claire-Adele, I am also looking forward to the money. I made a spreadsheet to analyze our cashflow for the next nine years with kids in college, and it looks way better with me getting a paycheck. Like "I can sleep at night" kind of better. I am still hoping for scholarships, merit aid or one of my kids choosing an affordable state school, but in all cases me getting a salary helps significantly.

This is the end of the long journey of trying to figure out what to do next as my job as "stay-at-home-mom" reaches its "Sell By" date. Along the way, I have met dozens of women wondering what they are going to do next. This past winter at a ski lodge, I ran into a friend who is a stay-at-home mom who is looking for a job. She saw that I was part of a "Get a Job" group and she asked me about my job search. Marianna was an engineer who later got an MBA.

"The group was fine, but looking for a job is horrible," I said. "It is impossible to get past any HR screening without having worked recently. There are a dozen people out there who are working today doing the job that the HR people are looking for. Why should HR bring in someone like me?"

"But you are brilliant, Lauren!" Marianna said. "You have a great education, and you worked in consulting! Who wouldn't hire you?"

"I don't take it personally," I said, "It isn't so much about me as it is where I fit into the system. I've also tried networking and using my connections. I am overqualified for about 60% of the jobs out there, and underqualified for 60%, which means unless some laws of physics change, I am not getting a job. They don't know what to do with my volunteer experience. Sure, I believe anything is possible, but I also don't believe in unicorns." [This is the short version. I ranted for an hour like a bullet train.]

Marianna didn't look at me like I was a Debbie Downer who wasn't optimistic enough. She looked at me as if I were speaking an unspeakable truth, and said, "That's what I thought."

"But I did find this technology apprenticeship program, and I am applying for it. I know I need new skills. This program will give me specific skills for a specific job," I said. "I think this is the only reasonable way for me to re-enter the professional workforce."

Marianna decided to skip the few years of soul searching and apply to the apprenticeship program. I was happy to save her an extended period of grief. She applied to the program and was entered into the pool of apprentices for companies to hire. When she was offered her first interview with a hiring company, her husband balked, in a loveable, romantic way.

"You are so brilliant, Marianna! You have a great education and great work experience! Who wouldn't hire you?" he said. "You could make more money and not have to start at the bottom!"

I had heard this same speech from Jack before. Five years ago, I was offered a job making less money than when I was twenty-eight but more money than I will be making in the apprentice program.

"You shouldn't get dressed and out of bed for so little money," said Jack five years ago. "You are awesome and could make so much more! At a better job!"

I sighed. It was great he had so much confidence in me, and yet at the same time, he completely failed to be supportive. In the end, the job didn't work out because the owner of the company decided the position would require more traveling than I was available to do.

Marianna decided to look for a higher paying job before she accepts the apprenticeship. She kept her spot open, but will first look for something else. She might have better luck than me. She got her degree in Seattle, and she has work experience here. My degrees and paid work experience were all in Chicago, so my network isn't as robust as some people's.

I told Jack the story of Marianna and her husband. He said they need to go through the "Seven Stages of a Middle Aged Woman Returning to the Workforce Job Search Grief."

1. Disbelief: They can't believe that a woman with a professional degree who stayed home with her kids for years can't walk right back into the workforce where she left off. 
2. Denial: Of course she has a great degree and experience...from ten (or more) years ago. Why doesn't it count?
3. Anger: This sucks. She has a fancy degree and great experience and is treated like chopped liver. "Why did I decide to stay at home with the kids? I never would have if I knew how hard it would be to get a job."
4. Bargaining: "I'll take any kind of job. I'll do anything. Or maybe I'll write a novel..."
5. Guilt: "Ugh. I should have kept a foot in the workplace. I should have gotten a part-time job along the way. Maybe I should have chosen a job that I could have done while I was a mom instead of consulting where I had to travel so much."
6. Depression: "I will never get a job. I need to write a novel so I have something to do. I am underqualified. I don't know why anyone would hire me. I don't know what I would do anyway. I'd be scared to start a new job."
7. Acceptance and Hope: Finally, a job appears. It is not the high-powered job that everyone imagined at the start, but it has a lot of advantages and opportunity. "I'll learn some new skills and meet some new people. I have nothing to lose. And, Yay! I get to go back to work!"

Writing and Bipolar

Tuesday was a good day. Great, in fact. My rehabbed knee got good marks at my post-surgical and physical therapy appointments. I was fitted for a skiing brace. I made major progress on my novel--the groundbreaking kind of progress where seventy-two pages of chaos finally found its purpose. I had a writing class, and then a job interview. I got called back for a second interview. Yay!

I haven't had too many awesome days like this in the past two and a half years, so allow me to gloat a teeny bit. The downside of my good day is that I have positive news on the job front and the writing front. I write between phases of my job search to keep me productive and having a sense of accomplishment. When my writing starts to flag, I usually approach my job search with renewed vigor.

Here is the deal: I love to write. I also hate to writing. Let me tell a story.

Years ago, I read part of Kay Redfield Jamison's Touched With Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament. (I read all of her book, An Unquiet Mind, about her battle with what is now called bipolar disorder.) Her thesis in Touched with Fire is that the emotional ups and downs of creative people is really bipolar. From the amazon.com review:

The anguished and volatile intensity associated with the artistic temperament was once thought to be a symptom of genius or eccentricity peculiar to artists, writers, and musicians. Her work, based on her study as a clinical psychologist and researcher in mood disorders, reveals that many artists subject to exalted highs and despairing lows were in fact engaged in a struggle with clinically identifiable manic-depressive illness.

While I have the utmost respect for Jamison, I think there might be another explanation. When I write, I have great days and miserable days. There are days when I get feedback that my topic is fascinating and my writing is clear and interesting. There are days when I think whatever it is I am writing is crap/unpublishable/boring and I should give up and get a real job where I could get dressed up every day, be around other people and get paid. Then I imagine the $2M book/movie deal with Matt Damon in the leading male role. Maybe I could make it big, I imagine. And then I started reading Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff and I think I suck. It isn't fair for me to compare my unfinished first draft to a final product that has been reviewed by professional editors, but I do.

I've been going to writing conferences and taken writing classes for almost ten years. If nothing else, writing is a wonderful hobby, but I wonder if I can make it a job, given what I like to write about. I know that in order for something to be published it needs

1. an interesting topic (this is the pitch),
2. to be well executed (this is the manuscript), and 
3. a potential audience (this is the marketing plan).

I think my novel has an interesting topic and a potential audience, which is great, but not sufficient. The book needs to be well written, and in all of my years of writing, I've never written fiction. It is fun to try, but another thing to succeed.

Unlike math jobs I've had in the past, writing has more ups and downs. Quant jobs have incremental progress, where projects progress one step at a time. Writing happens in fits and starts. Of course, a writer needs good habits. The hardest part of writing is getting your butt in the chair. I have decent (not awesome, but decent) writerly habits. Even with good habits, I find writing fiction full of highs and lows. Some days, I think this novel is the most viable project I've worked on, that this will be the one that gets published and finds an audience. Other days, I talk to writers and am reminded of the slog of finding an agent, editor, and publisher. After that, I'll find an article about agents who need new material and are searching for new talent.

I've never had this much of an emotional roller coaster in any other job, even running for office, as I do with writing, but I don't think I've developed bipolar disorder in the last two months. I think writing and other creative endeavors bring out the highs and the lows. I see my writing in the changing light of morning, noon and dusk. Sometimes the light shows me the value of what I have done, other times the flaws. Perhaps the act of creating and nature of creative work causes these deep mental fluctuations, not the other way around.

Hidden Figures & Hidden Happiness

Claire Adele and I went to see Hidden Figures this weekend. This is the movie about three African American women who worked at NASA in the 1960's. She wanted to see it. She wasn't sure if any of her friends wanted to see it as they are mostly interested in "chick-flicks," so she asked me to go with her. Jack was working and the Boy was off skiing with friends. He wants to see this movie but plans on going with a group of kids from his Rocket Club.

The movie was pretty good. I talked to a friend who saw it and thought it was inspirational. I saw it and was kind of pissed off. Not only did these women have to deal with the prejudices and biases of being a black in segregated Virginia, they also dealt with the prejudices and biases of being women. Argh.

Argh. Argh. Argh.

My friend Julia published an article on LinkedIn about how the working world is "designed by men for men." There are scenes of rooms full of white men all wearing white dress shirts. Of the two women in the room, one was a secretary and the other was beyond brilliant. What about plain old regular competent women? Where were they? While things better for women and people of color than they were in 1960, we still have a long way to go.

I digress. My movie was a success because it made me think and feel, even though my thoughts and feelings were not happy or cheerful. Claire Adele liked it, too.

I was talking to a friend who saw it this weekend with a group of her friends. Another friend posted on FB that she was going with a group of work colleagues to see the movie. After I saw those comments, I was kind of bummed that I didn't go with a group of women friends. Most of my friends are busy on the weekends with their families, so I often don't reach out.

Then I thought about it. Eighteen years ago today, I would have given anything for my Sunday afternoon, taking my teenage daughter to a movie. Eighteen years ago, I was grieving the loss of my daughter, Ada, a full-term stillbirth. I was terrified that I might not ever become a mother. As much as I lament my career situation, I would never have traded it for my kids. The women who went with their friends have sons. I am lucky to have both a son and a daughter.

Sometimes we don't recognize our happiness, hiding in plain sight.

Job or Not A Job?

Back in the 1990's when I lived in Chicago, there was a play called Late Nite Catechism. It was a comedy about a nun, Sister, who was reviewing the lives of saints and determining which ones were really saints and which ones weren't.  She would present a saint from the encyclopedia of saints and asked the audience, "Saint, or not a saint?"

Real saints were like St. Athanasius, who as a little boy risked his life so people could have communion. Others were sinners, thieves or/and violent nuts who somehow slipped in. When Sister saw this, she would yell, "Not! A! Saint!" as she slammed her ruler against her desk. The audience would crack up.

Earlier this week as I was applying for a job, I remembered that line and thought, "Is this a job, or 'Not! A! Job!'?"

Last week I applied for a job with an organization where I know some of the people and it is in my old advocacy line of work. The organization is small--about a dozen people, but it serves several larger organizations in the area. This position is Director of Communication, which sounds cool and very interesting. I used to work in communications before I became an advocate.

As with any job I look at, I think about whether or not I'd want to a) work for that group, b) do what they are asking me to so, and c) does it pay enough to make me give up writing my blog, which I do for free. This job was a yes on all counts, which is good. It would make a serious dent in Claire Adele's college tuition bill in a year and a half. I was already planning what I could do with the money. Would I be the best or most qualified person for the job? I don't know--that depends on who else is applying for it.

Two days ago, I woke with a start thinking about the position. "This isn't a job," I thought. The group already has a Communication Manager, yet nowhere in the job description does it say the Communication Director manages the Communication Manager, which makes me think this posting might, in fact, be a way to promote the Communication Manager and give her a raise. In other words, this job "opening" might not be open and already be filled by an internal candidate. 

Also, this is a small group. The likelihood of them adding an additional upper-level position given the funding crunch is probably very low.

This group gets money from various government groups: they are required by law to post the open position. It is considered a new position because it is at a higher level. In a large organization, multiple people might want to compete for a newly opened, higher level job. In this organization, there is really only one position that would be reasonable to move into the Director role. It is not like they have ten accountants and need one new manager. Suppose they want to expand the responsibilities of the current manager job to this new level. Are they going to make this person apply for the new role and fire her if they find someone better? That would be cruel.

It is possible that the Manager is leaving the organization, and if they are going to replace her, they might want to re-create her position.

I applied for another job a few months ago, this one with the government. I called a friend to tell him I'd be using him as a reference. When we spoke a few weeks later, he asked about that job, and I told him I hadn't heard anything. 

"Don't be surprised," he said. "Many government jobs that are posted aren't really open. They are already filled but need to post it because they have to."

Why am I fretting about this? It is disheartening to be actively looking for a job and put your thoughts and energy into applying for a position that doesn't exist. Is there a way for the government or government funded groups to get around this, so they don't waste the time of people applying for the job? Can we get a little signal or sign on the application so we know it isn't a real opening? I applied for another job which gave the opposite feel. "This is a new position!" the description read, telling all of the applicants this is real.

Prestigious v. Competitive and Apprenti

This morning I picked up tiny beautiful things: Advice on love and life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed. It is overdue at the library, but I am willing to pay the $.15 a day for a few days instead of buying it. I flipped it open, and miraculously I found exactly what I needed to find, even though I wasn't looking for anything specific.

In the novel I am attempting to write, I am pondering the idea of privilege and what do people do with theirs. Strayed gave me a nice definition of privilege when she responds to a thirty-one-year-old woman novelist who is jealous anytime one of her friends gets a book deal. The letter writer can't understand why she isn't published after she went to a prestigious college. Strayed responds on page 262: "Privilege has a way of fucking with our heads the same way a lack of it does...possibly...you've been given a tremendous amount of things that you did not earn or deserve, but rather received for the sole reason that you happen to be born into a family who had the money and wherewithal to fund your education at two colleges to which you feel compelled to attach the word 'prestigious.'" Sugar/Strayed then asks the letter writer to consider what it means to attend a "prestigious" college.

It got me thinking because it hit a little close to home. I went to a college some might call "prestigious," but I call "competitive." I had to work my butt off to qualify to get in, I had to work my butt off to get through it, and I learned a lot in the process. As I wrote in my last blog post, I became the master of getting things done whether or not I wanted to do them. That isn't a bad thing. In fairness, in college I got to choose my major and classes, so I did enjoy most of what I was doing, but that isn't the point. I am a plugger. I can plug, I have plugged. I am now deciding what to do next with my life. Will I continue to plug? What does plugging look like in the future?

I recently applied for two jobs, one of which I am probably overqualified for but it is with a group that I firmly believe in its mission. The second job I might be not perfectly qualified for or have enough experience. It is with a different group, and I firmly believe in its mission, as well. Even though I went to a prestigious or competitive college twenty-five years ago, that doesn't mean job offers are falling at my feet now. I have to reconcile what all of this means, especially taking into consideration what I might want to do relative to who wants me to do it for them. I'd love to be president of a bank, let's say, but not many banks want me to be their president given my current range of experience.

So what next? I should take something interesting that could add to my current range of experience. If I want to be a bank president, I should try to get a job in a bank that will lead to being bank president someday. While I might be overqualified for the one job, it might give me interesting experience just working for the organization.

In the meantime, I need to keep plugging along in my job search in case neither of these materializes, which is very possible, even likely. I went to a panel discussion a few weeks back about women's work/life balance and returning to the workforce after raising a family. One of the groups who passed out information sheets was the Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA). They sponsor a group called Apprenti, which is a technology apprenticeship program for Database Administrators, Project Managers, Network Security Administrators, Software Developers, and Web Developers. I put the card on my desk underneath my clear desk protector. Last week while the boy was trying to write a story, he was trying to distract himself with anything, including random pieces of paper on my desk. He found the card, read it and went to the website.

When he saw there was a math test, he said, "I could probably do this!" and he is probably right. He is two years ahead in math, so he is basically doing 10th-grade math now, and doing it fairly well. I found that most math in non-science or engineering jobs doesn't really extend beyond 10th-grade math. I never used trig or calc in my days in market research or when I was working at the accounting firm. I had to be good at math, be precise and enjoy it, but I didn't have to solve long or complex equations. I am not saying it was easy, but it wasn't super complex.

The Boy wanted to take the math test to see how he would do. At the time I said, "Sure, give it a shot!" not having read one word about it. I would have promised him rainbows and unicorns to finish the story, but he wanted to take a math test. I figured why not. I was desperate to have him finish the story.

Today after the kids went back to school, I decided to poke around this website a bit. There is an assessment test that takes about three hours, and then they call people with high enough scores for an interview. The organization takes only women, veterans, and people of color, and people over the age of 18. The Boy struck out on all four.

"I am one-fourth Asian!" he declared. "Why can't white guys be in the program?"

"Because tech is almost all white men," I said. "They are looking to diversify."

"Seems fair," he said. "Maybe it is because more men choose to be in that than women."

"That would be true, which is why that is the way it is now, and why they created this program," I said.

My son was fine with all of this, but it made me unsettled. The reality is my son might do better on the test than I would, and I majored in math at a "prestigious" and "competitive" college. I did all kinds of math and analysis in my before-kids life, but I skills aren't as sharp as they used to be.

But then I think about it: do I really want to be a database administrator? I don't even know what one is, but I suppose that is the point of this program--to help people who don't know. Maybe I could get a job as a project manager, and work my way into different positions. This could be a starting point. I am starting to look at this job search differently than I used to. Before I would try to figure out what I wanted to do and see what the world had to offer. Now I am seeing what is out in the world, and trying to find a place to fit.

Ode to Melinda Gates and Age of Innocence

I am starting to write a novel about women of privilege. I have a friend, Lisa, who lives in a rarified and wealthy corner of the world. She started telling me all of these crazy stories about her world.

"You should write a book about this!" I said.

"No, Lauren," Lisa replied. "You are the writer. You should write about it."

Wow. I thought. She has a point. I could write about this. It would be so different than writing essay and memoir. I thought I'd give it a try. Writing a novel is harder than it looks, which is fine. In memoir, writers can stick to the truth more or less. The truth is typically more compelling and complex than a whitewashed version of events.

I met with a friend, Sereena, for lunch yesterday who comes from an opposite world. While she is super educated and intelligent, she had a bout of homelessness after she was struck with a disability and lost her job. She was not suffering from chronic homelessness caused by mental illness or an addiction, but rather she had a spell of bad luck. She has been in stable housing since I've known her. Sereena is a wonderful education advocate and I have a tremendous amount of respect for her.

Why am I writing about a world of privilege instead of the plight of those suffering from poverty or racism? I am hoping to figure out how my friend Lisa's crazy world relates to the rest of the world.

I am doing massive amounts of reading as research for my novel: Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The Great Gatsby, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I am reading Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton for the first time. The novel is about privileged New York society in the 1870's, when Wharton was young. I saw the movie with Daniel Day-Lewis years ago, and I hated it back then. I thought the movie was boring and nothing happened. Someone told Ian McKellen, the actor who played Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings movies, that he didn't understand the plot of these movies. He was reported to have said if you want to understand what is going on, read the books. The same holds true for Age of Innocence.

Edith Wharton grew up in a class where women--and most men--didn't have to work. Edith chose to have a literary life, and volunteered in Paris during the Great War.  Wharton wrote this book after World War I, after she had seen a great deal of suffering. I haven't yet figured out what inspired her to write it, but I hope to get there. I don't think she likes her main characters. I think she thinks they are vacuous and self-absorbed. Newland Archer reminds me of one of my high school boyfriends, and not in a good way. (Not Sean or Rob, in case either of you are reading this. My other high school boyfriend whose name will not be mentioned here.) Nevertheless, the book is interesting.

Many of the women in Lisa's world are both privileged and relatively powerless. Their wealth comes from their husbands. While they have everything they want, they lack purpose, even though they have enough financial freedom they could do whatever they want. Lisa is a stay-at-home mom and she loved her boys. She embraced motherhood more than other women I know who gave up careers for their kids.

My husband Jack will often ask me, "If you could do whatever you wanted to do, what would it be?" That is hard question to ask a mother like me when my kids are not yet settled and require my attention.

I wonder how the women in Lisa's 1% world would answer that question. Most of them play tennis. Some of them exert their power in mean and cruel ways over other women who have fewer means. I asked Lisa if any of these women do meaningful volunteer work, like serve on boards for arts, health or human services organizations. Do they write novels or music or are they trying to save the whales?

"No," was her short reply. She didn't even ponder. She almost yelled it.

In thinking about women who lead privileged lives, I started to think about Melinda Gates. I know some people in Seattle criticize the Gates for their undue influence in education. Let's remove that from this equation and look at what else Melinda Gates has done. Instead of frittering away her fortune, education and intelligence, she has put all three to good use. She advocates for improving health for pregnant woman and getting global access to birth control, and not just writing a check and hoping someone else will make it happen. She goes to the places where the work needs to be done, and she talks to people who are directly involved.

I remember reading a story in a magazine about Melinda's trip to New York City. She was in a posh hair salon, and the women working there didn't know who she was. The women who work there probably take care of the "Who's Who" in New York, but they didn't know Mrs. Gates was married to the richest man on the planet. This says a lot about Melinda's low-key approach. She'd probably rather hobnob with a midwife in New Delhi than strut down a red carpet.

I was googling Melinda and I saw her Twitter feed where she talks about access to healthcare for women all over the world. In her pictures on her Twitter feed, she isn't wearing visible make-up or jewelry. She looks downright frumpy but she is smiling and looks happy. I love it. Good for her! I am sure she has an amazing jewelry collection but that is not what is she using in her image to the world.

Sure, some people might think, I could do all sorts of cool stuff like that if I were as wealthy! But that is the point. Some people are wealthy (well, no one is as wealthy as Melinda and Bill) but they choose to spend their time, money and energy primarily on frivolous things like the characters in Age of Innocence whereas Melinda does not.

My friend often says she looks at people by how they carry their burdens. I would add to look at people how they carry their privilege, as well.

Phases of Womanhood: Maiden & Virgin, Nurture & Mother, Queen & Crone

I am in a writing class that discusses feminine archetypes through mythology taught by Mary Oak at North Seattle College. My friend Eleanor signed up for the class, and she recommended I join her, so I did.

This class nearly saved my life. It gave me a new lens through which to understand the past twenty-five years, and it made me think of my life in less depressing terms than I had been seeing it.

In the beginning of the class, the teacher talked about the three phases of womanhood:

• The Virgin
• The Mother
• The Crone

I found this to be mildly depressing at first. A few weeks into the class, the teacher expanded the three phases:

• The Maiden
• The Nurturer
• The Queen

My eureka moment came when I heard the word "queen." This is what I have been waiting for, my Queen phase. I am done with nurturing and ready to move on.

In mythology and in the feminine archetypes, the Maiden phase is when the woman in free and independent. She can make her own decisions about her life. I like "maiden" better than "virgin." When I think of "virgin," I think of girls who didn't leave their parents home until they were married. When I think of "maiden," I think of Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City. She wasn't married and didn't have kids, but she wasn't living with her parents and certainly wasn't a virgin.

Ironically, the Nurturer/Motherhood phase is when women are most vulnerable. Women are no longer independent as others rely on them. The singer Adele was interviewed in Vanity Fair, and she talked about her three-year-old son. She said something to the effect of she wished she had four hours where she could just do whatever she wants. I could relate back to when I had toddlers and was tied to that responsibility. Even when I worked, my weekends were my own usually. Even if I volunteered, it was something I chose to do--it wasn't chosen for me.

With kids, you don't decide when they are going to have a meltdown or need a diaper change or when they will be pure delight. They are independent beings with their own moods and will. In general, this sense of obligation is much stronger for women than men. I have never every heard a father say he wished he had four hours to himself. There might be some dads out there who have said that, but I haven't met them.

The Queen phase doesn't mean "queen" in the regal, bossy sense. Instead, this is where women regain their time, power, and independence. They have earned experience and wisdom.

As I start to look for a job, I don't think of my time as a parent as time out of the workforce. I think it of it as my time spent as a nurturer. Sometimes I'd get frustrated with myself for not looking for a job sooner, or when I'd get a set-back. Last year, I tore my ACL. I was nurturing myself and re-learning how to walk. My son fell ill a month ago, and part of my "job" was to nurture him back to health. I spent a lot of time taking him to doctor's appointments and making phone calls to understand what was happening. When I looked his illness through this lens, I felt less frustrated. I now see myself in a stage of life that will eventually fade as my kids gain independence, and a new phase will begin.

My daughter talks at times about not wanting kids. "They will ruin my career," she says. Looking back, I can see that. At other times, she talks about her future grandchildren. She wants to skip from maiden to queen and still have kids. I can't blame her. Isn't this what happens to men?

Since I've learned about these archetypes,  I have developed patience. To paraphrase Snow White, someday my queen phase will come. And I'll be ready.

Reinvention, and Limbo-Land between Public Sector and Business

A good friend of mine is considering looking for a job after being out of the workforce for twelve years. She used to be a teacher and she loved to teach. She is deciding what her next move is.

"I love to teach. I like the classroom. I don't have the time or energy to reinvent myself," she said. "If I am going to go back to work, I want to go back to a place where I am comfortable, not where I need to figure it all out from scratch. Going back to work is going to be hard enough with getting used to a new schedule for me and the kids. I can't imagine that plus trying out a whole new endeavor."

There are times in life where we need and want to try something new, where we need to push ourselves out of our comfort zone and try something different and exciting. This can be thrilling.

At other times, it is best to stick with what we know, the old and familiar. Most often, we have the hybrid of a little bit of both the old and the new. For my friend, going back to work after kids by itself will be new since she never worked while she had a family. Teaching will be what is familiar.

I think about this and it makes me reflect on my experiences and getting back to work. Before kids, I worked in consulting firms. After kids, all of my volunteer work was with non-profits and the public schools. I've been in both worlds for a long time, and I am trying to decide which realm to re-enter: business or the public sector? It makes me think about the differences between the two. This isn't to say one is better than the other, but more to think about how they are vary. I have respect for the work in both areas.

Business is motivated by profit, whether for shareholders, partners or the owners. Public sector work is motivated by a mission: Keep the streets safe. Educate children. Put out fires.

Businesses value efficiency and effectiveness. The public sector (when working well) needs to consider multiple perspectives when implementing a plan, and that takes time. In building a new library, city council might need to talk to seniors, parents with kids, people with disabilities like loss of vision. How will this new library meet the needs of the diverse members of a community?

A business can pick and choose what products they want to sell, and eliminate those that aren't working. If a product or service doesn't have a market, companies drop them. The public sector has a responsibility to meet the needs of a variety of constituents. Firemen can't say "It isn't cost effective to put out fires in rural areas." Public schools can't say "It isn't efficient to educate kids who don't speak English or who have disabilities." Or, "Our graduation rates are abysmal. Let's drop 12th grade." Failure isn't an option.

Businesses typically have one leader who makes decisions. Public sector decisions are made by consensus building and compromise. From a school board to congress, both groups need to convince other members of the governing board of their ideas. In a company, an employee might have to convince their boss.*

Businesses sometimes value system approaches on things like budgeting, project management, and communication. Public sector organizations often rely on subject matter experts to run the organization, even though those people might not have expertise in running an organization. Police run police departments. Firemen run fire departments. In my work with schools, I served on numerous committees with teachers. Teachers are subject matter experts on teaching, but few knew how to manage a project. For the most part, this is fine. Teachers don't really need to know about project management, budgeting, or communication planning. It becomes a problem when systemic changes need to be made. I saw the district was challenged because the administration, most of whom were former teachers, didn't have strong enough skills to get the job done.

I can see positive sides to both, and both can learn from each other. Likewise, I don't think it is realistic to think the government can be run like a business because it isn't. It would be like asking an elephant to swim like a fish. If you want to haul logs up a hill, call an elephant. If you want dinner, call a fish.

It would be nice, however, to find the sweet spot between the business realm and the public sector.

* This doesn't include change management which would apply similarly to both business and the public sector.

150% and Slack

My husband Jack is a physician with administrative responsibilities. He works long hours, including nights and weekends on top of his regular 9-to-5 responsibilities. He says he has two or three different jobs with one title, and that is true. He gives 150% of his effort and energy to his job.

This is a problem. I've always known it was a problem for our marriage and family, but this week the light bulb went off that this was not good for his department or good for working women with families.

In his field, they expect everyone to give 150%, and the schedule and workload is assigned as such. But what happens when one of those people can only give 75%? Usually, these people are women. Being a woman myself, I should take their side, right? Even though I am a stay-at-home-mom/recovering volunteer whose husband makes enough money that we can comfortably live on one income? (I need to eradicate the phrase "We don't need the money" from my self-talk.)

Anyhow, what happens if you have a job where you need to give 150% and your child develops a chronic illness that needs to be stabilized? What if you get divorced? What if your parents become ill and can't take care of themselves and you are the only child or responsible offspring? What if you nanny is hospitalized? What if--god forbid--these all happen at the same time? Who picks up the slack?

For a single mom, she takes care of her family and her co-workers pick up the slack. Her former partner might not be part of the picture any more, or might not consider family work a priority.

For some married working women, they take care of their family and their co-workers pick up the slack. Even for women doctors, their husband's job take priority.

"I can't work nights or weekends for three weeks because my husband is out of town" or "I can't give you my schedule until my husband gets his surgery schedule."

The conflict here isn't between husbands and wives, it is between the two people who are responsible for raising children, which is different. Before kids, I used to travel for work and never checked Jack's schedule before I agreed to go. Throw a child into the mix, and everything needs to be negotiated. Someone has to raise the kids, because kids can't raise themselves. Nannies and au pairs are helpful, to a degree. My daughter is sixteen and incredibility independent, but she didn't know how to pump gas until last night. Someone needed to figure out the skill gap and fill it. That was me.

Previously I wrote that the Mommy Wars take place between moms and dads instead of between women. I now think the collateral damage of that conflict extends to the workplace. The workplace suffers when husbands put their jobs before their wives', and then the damage comes back home. It is a whirlpool that keeps going around and around.

Men think their jobs are important, which is fine. Their jobs are important, but so are women's jobs and so are raising children.

Many workplaces have changed so that they bring more family balance into the picture, which is great but not always sufficient. I met one woman consultant at the Change Management conference last month whose firm had a program to encourage women to come back to work after they had a baby. Her child is now four and she is still working. No such programs existed when Claire Adele was born sixteen years ago. Those programs would have been helpful for me to a degree, but it wouldn't have changed my husband's job or the amount he had to work. When I was working, there was a big push for new moms to get paid leave. I thought it was awesome until someone said men should get it, too. The incrementalist that I am thought it was a bad idea because it might take away from women, but I was so wrong. Men need to take parental leave, too, so women don't have to do it alone. Giving men parental leave is an employer's way of saying, "You are a parent, too. Don't dump it all on your wife."

I remember when the Boy was born. He was born the Monday after Easter. I remember sitting in his room on the futon chair breastfeeding him when he was four days old. Claire Adele was two and a half, and was spinning around in circles in the middle of the room. Jack popped in to say goodbye and left for work. I nearly died. Two weeks later, he went to a conference in Italy. It was hell.

My solution: maybe jobs shouldn't require 150%. This might be blasphemous for me to say when I am looking for a job. I am sure some employer might google me and see this and think "She won't be committed." Maybe they are right, but maybe they need to rethink commitment. But the point isn't about commitment, it is about slack and who takes care of things at home or work when the shit hits the fan.

At home, it is women who often pick up the slack when things go bad. At work, it is typically men or women without kids. Again, this is like the whirlpool of reinforcement. The more women pick up at home, the more they pick up at home. The more men pick up at work, the more they pick up at work. The balance continues to get out of proportion. This is what needs to change, and one way to do that is to not to have the basic expectations to be 150%. This is fine when life is perfect and no one has a sick child or parent or no one gets divorced, but the model falls apart when something happens--and it does because it is life--there isn't excess capacity. We need to add slack into our systems and into our lives.

Sidelines Talk and a Shingle Job

Last weekend, I went to two of my son's soccer games. The best part of games is talking to other parents on the sidelines. I am one of those parents who rarely talks about the game. I pay enough attention so when my son discusses various plays on the car ride home, I can nod along like I know what he is talking about. I usually get about 50%.

At Saturday's game, I talked to fellow transplanted Chicagoans about the Cubs victory. We were yucking it up to the point we were unaware an injured player from the other team was being taken off the field. Oops.

Sunday, I talked to another mom, Amanda, about getting a job. I had never met this woman before--our sons had never been on the same team until this year when the league changed the age brackets. She seemed to know I was looking for a job before I said anything, like she had ESP. It was surreal. Or maybe she was at another game and I was too busy blabbing with the moms I already knew and she overheard me say was looking for a job. Either way.

Amanda is an independent compensation consultant who works with a few other people. Years ago, I was in compensation consulting at a large firm. We collected survey data about how various positions were paid, and advised large companies on salary structure for employees. It was interesting to learn, but dreadfully boring after two years when I learned the basics. After that, it was repeating one of a dozen or so reports for different companies. I needed something else, which is when I got into change management.

I told Amanda I had been in compensation consulting, but hadn't done it in decades.

"The field hasn't changed," she said. "It's still comparing median market rate salaries to what a company pays."

I thought about this--maybe I could get a shingle job, like my dad used to say. Lawyers and accountants can work for large organizations or they can put up a shingle, get their own clients and be their own boss. Maybe I could do this for compensation consulting. It wouldn't be thrilling, but it wouldn't be too intellectually or emotionally taxing, either, for my first foray in returning to the paid workforce. I'd have to ramp up, but I already know the basics. This was intriguing...

"I really want to get out of the house and work with other people," I said.

"Oh," she said. This pause was not good. "I don't really connect with the people I work with. We have nothing in common. I rely on my friends in my different communities for social interactions. I mostly work at home part-time, because I am still carpooling my kids before and after school."

I work at home enough. The goal for me would be to get out of the house, not stay in it. Part of what I loved about my volunteer work was working with other people. On the other hand, volunteer work doesn't come with a paycheck.

Washing Away

Last week was a rough week. I'll skip the details, but trust me, it was rough.

A few weeks ago, I was at a Change Management Conference in Portland, Connect Change 4. Change Management is an interesting field because you are making people do things they don't want to do, which is change. As someone who helped manage and advocate for change, both in the corporate world and in the public sector, I know change is hard, whatever kind of change it is. The processes have to be right, you need buy-in, you need to make sure people know what the change is, you have to listen to find out where things are and aren't working, and this is all on top of people's moods. Sometimes change can be for the worse (think a corporate downsizing or life after an earthquake), so resiliency is a big part of change management. How can we help people bounce back after the shit hits the fan?

One of the topics at the conference was "How to Have a Good Week After a Bad Weekend." One of the speakers talked about the impact of her divorce on her work life. She tried to hide her failed marriage from her colleagues, bury herself in busyness. Anther speaker, a physical therapist, was a facing financial catastrophe, which kept him pre-occupied during work. Having been through months of physical therapy, I can't imagine having an unhappily distracted therapist cranking on my knee.

This was interesting to me because I am not in the workforce right now, so my weeks and weekends kind of blend together. They take place in the same place, for better or worse.

So what happens when I have a bad weekend at home? It blurs into the rest of my week. After this past rough weekend, Jack went to work and the kids went to school, washing away the challenges. They got back on their horses and had distractions.

I didn't. I stayed at home and metaphorically and literally cleaned up while everyone went on about their lives, escaping the mess. How can I wash away a bad weekend when my weekends don't end?

Reachire, or "And then depression set in..."

I am part of a "get a job" group for women who are attempting to return to the workforce after an extended absence for raising kids. Julia, our leader, sent out an invitation asking us if we wanted to attend another event with her sponsored by another organization, Reachire, which is also trying to help women return to the workforce after parenting.

This organization is different than Julia's. According to its website, this group selects women who attended competitive colleges and worked in corporate jobs before leaving to have kids. Julia's group takes a variety of women--teachers, sales people, journalists, business owners--not just those who attended Ivy League schools or want to return to a middle management job.

Reachire provides training in the latest office software tools, as moms have not likely been using SharePoint or Tableau in their daily lives. Reachire also different because it gives women temp work at corporations before helping to place them in "returnships" at large employers in the region. My understanding is that Reachire works with companies to create these returnships to help women return to the workforce. Some of these jobs require an extended leave from the paid workforce.

This sounds awesome. There is a fee associated with the program--$2,000 for sixty ours of training over five weeks--which is not listed on their website but can be found with a Google search. But hey, if I can get a job with a large, local employer, the fee would be less than my first month's salary, which is more than I am making now. It could be a worthwhile investment if I got a job afterward.

The day after I saw this, I got a bullet from one of the jobs I applied for. I researched this job, learned how to use SQL and Tableau, and activated with my network to talk to the people who worked in this department.

And then, as Bill Murray said in Stripes, depression set it. It wasn't that this program Reachire wasn't cool: it made me realize how firmly the front doors are shut at large corporations against women who have taken time off to raise their kids. Those doors are closed so tightly that a group like Reachire, started by a Stanford and Northwestern University's Kellogg graduate, had to create a side door for moms to get back in. Me and a thousand other middle-aged moms would have a better chance getting into the hottest and hippest nightclub in New York wearing yoga pants than getting a job at Amazon.

Julia posted an article on LinkedIn called "There is NO 'Gap in My Resume'" discusses how parents looking to return to the workforce can talk about their experience while parenting. We have lived and learned during this time. One of the most telling comments was from a man who posted that HR folks don't even want to look at people who have a month long gap in their resumes.

Wow. A one month gap? That sucks. My resume and the resumes of thousands of other moms returning to the workforce would never get read in an organization with that criteria.

So what to do? Find a job a job where I am overqualified but will help me get my feet wet? Give up on Corporate America and go with a small company willing to take a risk on someone like me? I could go back to consulting, but I fear the true workaholic job. One firm looked interesting until I saw on their website that they promise their clients 100% travel from their consultants. I get it. Before kids, I'd hop on a plane any day of the week except Saturday for my job. Some years, I'd have very little travel if I had local clients. Other times, I was out of town three or four days a week. My family already has one workaholic parent--I am not sure my teenage kids could handle a second. (The day my youngest leaves for college, I am considering taking one of those traveling jobs if I have to beg to get it.)

I am figuring out what to do next. I ran into a friend at my daughter's cross country meet and she returned to work when her oldest of three daughters was a senior in high school. Looming college tuition bills scared her husband and he nudged her to get a job. She loves working for a small company. She gets to wear a million hats and every day is different. The leadership opportunities there abound, albeit on a smaller stage. Maybe that is the way to go.

Fear of "Calendaring"

My writing teacher Theo once had us write about what we didn't want to write about. She didn't mean write about boring things like emptying the dishwasher, but rather exploring those areas where we were afraid to go. Her idea was that the juiciest material lies in that dark, hidden spot. We like to keep it dark and hidden for a reason because it is ugly and we don't want to talk about it. Those ugly spiders, snakes, and rats of our consciousness are often our most complex and conflict-ridden thoughts, and therefore the most interesting.

I am looking for a job, and my biggest fear is when I "calendaring" listed as a job expectation. This doesn't mean manage your own calendar, but manage someone else's by booking appointments for them and arranging travel plans. This isn't project management work either, where the job requires setting the schedule for work to be done. The job might list a dozen cool things to do, but when I see "calendaring," I short-circuit. It screams to me "Whatever else we said about this job is irrelevant. We might ask you to create marketing materials or write communications or assist with this or that, but really, this job is an Admin position, which means you have no power or control over your destiny, we will pay you almost nothing, and there is no room for promotion." The job description doesn't say that, but my mind leaps and jumps to that conclusion.

Why does this freak me out so badly? When I started work a million years ago, admin positions were for women who didn't go to college. Or maybe they went to college for a year or two before they had kids. Admins I knew were forty years old or older. They were typing, answering phones, managing the boss's schedule and making his travel plans.

It wasn't that I didn't respect these women or the work they did. I did. I remember Joan who answered the phones at my first job and Anne who supported for the partner I worked for. Delores did our typing. Marilyn was the gatekeeper for the Managing Partner. (Marilyn was probably born in the same year as Marilyn Monroe--1926.) Marilyn printed out the partner's email for him and then replied on his behalf. I thought that was absurd until someone pointed out that Jack probably never learned to type, and probably never needed to until email came along. Jim, the partner I worked for, said being an admin was one of the most stressful jobs there was because they had no control over their work flow. I could see that.

I went to an elite college (as they define themselves) and I have an analytical background. I did all of that so I wouldn't have to be a secretary. One of the major points of going to college was to have the options after graduation and freedom to choose what I wanted to do. Many of the women who were admins when I started working were admins because that was all they were qualified to do. Likewise, options for women joining the workforce twenty or thirty years before I did were even more limited than in 1991. It was chicken and egg. With limited options, working women worked up to where they could go in the narrowly defined path that lay before them. Jack's Great Aunt Jean was an intelligent, hard-working woman who was secretary to the Secretary of the Navy during WWII, which was incredibly cool. But what could she have done if more options were available?

At the consulting firm I worked at in my twenties, I was one of two women on a team of nine. I was assigned a project where I had to meet with dozens of partners in the Chicago office. None of them were women. I remember meeting two or three Senior Managers who were women. There were plenty of women in the junior ranks, but they dropped out after having kids as the workload and culture were not family friendly.

I talked to a retired recruiter here in Seattle and I told her I didn't want to calendar, that I cringed when I saw that on a job description. When I ran for School Board, my campaign manager scheduled my meetings and events. I know it is shuffling a million moving parts.

The recruiter raised her perfectly tweezed eyebrows and said, "Perhaps you should learn calendaring." I nearly barfed. I told her other people used to manage my calendar. She was nonplussed. (So much for my chances landing a job at that organization...)
At first, I was too dumbfounded to be furious, which came later. Would she have told a man returning to work he wouldn't be allowed back into the professional ranks and that he'd have to be an admin or perform manual labor? I don't think so.
I know how to calendar. I manage a family calendar that has a husband who works nights and weekends, and I have middle school and high school aged kids who both play sports. I also know how to plan, schedule and manage projects, but that is different than making sure the conference room is booked for twelve people, and donuts and coffee will be delivered by 8:45. Which by the way, I know how to do. It is not that I am above doing what needs to be done. I am a PTA mom for crying out loud. All PTA roles have their own share of grunt work. I get it.

It is more than that--it is that my expectations of what I am capable of doing are so massively misaligned with what corporations think I can do. I am not sure where the attitude adjustment needs to take place--with me, with Corporate America or both. And I don't speak just for myself. I speak on behalf of millions of overeducated women who stayed home with kids. I also speak for millions of overeducated women who wanted to stay home with kids and didn't because they feared losing their place in line, and having to start back at the bottom.

I also speak for millions of undereducated and/or undervalued women in the workforce, like Jack's Aunt Jean, or Joan, Anne, and Marilyn. What might have they chosen to do if there were more opportunities for women when they entered the workforce?

Then I think about my marriage. When my husband and I met, he thought I would make more money than he would. What would happen to the balance of power if I took on an admin role? He works with highly educated women with specialized skills. How would I stack up next to them? He says it doesn't matter to him, but it matters to me.

I have other mom friends who are highly educated and take on these light admin jobs part-time precisely because they are easy. It gives them something to do during the day and brings in a little cash. They can leave work at work and come home and manage the carpool for their kids. Am I wrong about calendaring? Do these friends have the right plan?

Own It and Mommy Wars

Let me get this out of the way: it has been sixteen years since I was last in the paid workforce. I haven't worked for money since Claire-Adele was born. Right now, I am looking for a job and/or a book contract. Since my daughter entered kindergarten eleven years ago, I've had dozens of volunteer jobs, some of which were full-time and leadership positions. I've applied for numerous paying jobs via computer applications in the past five years. I've had one interview where the woman asked what my Chinese zodiac sign was. I didn't know, and failed to see the relevance.

Julia, the coach of my "get a job" group for full-time parents returning to work, asked me if I wanted to attend a Change Management conference in Portland. She was going down to talk about her business. When I first looked at the agenda, there were classes like "Learning Through Improv," "Death or Cake," and "Storytelling." I thought it was about personal change, not corporate or institutional change. She poked me again: "Lauren, you should go to this. We both can go for free if we volunteer." After the second invitation, I said yes. Last week, Julia and I took the train from Seattle to Portland and went to the conference together.

When I had a day job sixteen years ago, I worked at a major firm where I worked in change management. I loved it. Back when I was in Change Management, it was a relatively new field and in lower case. I take that back. Back in 1996, it wasn't a field yet. There were no LEAN credentials and no PROSCI certifications, and there certainly wasn't an association for Change Management professionals. At the time, all we had were a few Harvard Business Review articles and a very recently published book called Leading Change by John P. Kotter, a guru in business transformation. We made the rest up as we went along.

Before the conference, I was preparing my pitch so I could explain to people what I had been doing and what I was hoping to do next. In one of our team meetings with the "get a job" group, Julia said we didn't have to mention that the work we did was volunteer. Rather, let the work speak for itself. I felt a huge relief when I thought about this way. I cringed when I thought about how many cover letters I sent that started with "I am looking to return to the paid workforce..." No wonder no one hired me.

I felt better about my new pitch: "I ran for School Board last year and lost. Now I am looking for Plan B. I used to be in Change Management back at a large firm, and then I got involved in community advocacy where I used change management skills in the public sphere..." A vast majority of the people at this conference were in corporate or consulting environments. A handful were in non-profit or government, but I was the only one who ran for office. I was different and people were curious about me. It was cool.

Julia and I were busy with our separate activities and schedules during the first day of the conference. At the end of the evening at the bar, I ran into Julia while she was talking to two other women. Julia introduced me as one of her clients. I withered as my cover was blown, but Julia was working too. Part of her job was to promote her clients.

I joined in the conversation with these women, who were close to my age or older. Both were moms. One worked part-time and her kids were in school. One worked full-time and her kids were grown.

"Are there still conversations about the 'Mommy Wars'?" asked the full-time woman whose kids were launched.

"I think the Mommy Wars are really between a mom and dad, a husband and wife, more than between mothers," I said.

"That is fascinating," she said. "Tell me more."

"My decision whether or not to work had more to do with the unique circumstances of the job I had at the time my kids were born and my husband's job," I said. "I didn't think about or care whether some women stayed at home or others worked." I explained how I had been traveling three days a week, and that my husband's job required night and weekend work in addition to the usual Monday though Friday workdays. I explained how I had been pregnant twice before my daughter was born. I was seeing a high-risk obstetrician, and I didn't want to another pregnancy.

"You made the right decision," said the woman who worked full-time as she put on her coat to go back to her hotel for the night. "You made the right decision."

She left before I could ask her why she thought that. I was jealous looking at her with her big job in a good company. I didn't know if she ever stayed home with her kids, but I doubted it, otherwise she would have offered me advice on how to relaunch. Would she really have traded her career for her kids? No one can go back and live their lives both ways, once as a stay-at-home parent and once as a working mom. Perhaps she underestimated how hard it is to get back into the ranks of the professional workforce, as did I.

After the woman left, Julia asked how people were reacting to the fact that I had been out of the work force for so long.

"I haven't been telling people," I said.

"You should tell them," she said. "Own the fact that you've been out for sixteen years. See what people say. Ask them for advice how to get back in the game."

What? I thought. There is no way.  "I thought you told us we didn't need to tell people we were volunteers..." I said.

"Give it a shot," she said. "See what happens. You might be surprised."

I decided to trust Julia. She had spent all day talking to people about her business. Maybe she knew something I didn't. Maybe she wanted me to be her guinea pig. Either way, eventually it would come up at some point that I hadn't gotten a paycheck in years. This cocktail networking event seemed like a safe enough environment. If I bombed with one person, I could move on to the next.

At the bar, I walked up to a woman and we started to talk. I asked her what she did. She worked for a company after spending a few years in consulting.

"What do you do?" she asked.

I paused. "I ran for School Board last year and lost. I used to be in change management and community advocacy, and now I am looking to return to the work force after being out for sixteen years."

She seemed a little miffed. "I wish I could have quit after having kids, but I couldn't," she said.

(I guess I was wrong about the Mommy Wars. They are alive and strong.)

"I wanted to work after I had kids, but I had to travel three days a week for my job and my husband works nights and weekends," I said.

She paused, her defensiveness dissipating. "I really wanted to stay home with my kids. The firm I was working at four years ago made a special effort to help moms stay working."

"A lot has changed in twelve years," I said. "And for the better." I asked her for advice on what she thought I could do to return to the workforce. She seemed stumped, but eventually gave me a few suggestions. Perhaps she was thinking herself now how hard it would be to re-enter the workforce after leaving to stay home with kids. Maybe looking at me made her grateful about the decision she made.

Or maybe not. It was near the end of a long day, and she was tired. She was debating whether to go home before or after her preschool age child would be asleep. If she got home before he kid was asleep, the bedtime routine would start all over. If she wasn't working, she wouldn't have to decide.

The next day, I ran into a woman over lunch at the conference and she asked me to join her. Lunch was a buffet, and I asked the guy behind me to join us. She was young--thirty-one to be exact. The guy was a few years older than me, but with no kids.

I gave them my pitch, including that I hadn't worked in sixteen years. The three of us had a lively and fun conversation. "Would you be interested in going back to consulting?" she asked me. I told her I was open and flexible. Later, I went to give the woman my card.

"I really enjoyed meeting you," she said. "It was nice to have an authentic conversation instead of all of the glad-handing that goes on at a conference."

Hawaiians in Whistler

This summer, I joined a "get a job" group for women who used to have nice careers who took time off to be the primary parent for their kids and now want to return to the paid workforce. There are nine of us and we are lead by Julia Freeland, who created the curriculum for this program from her own experience relaunching her career after her divorce. She is as serious as a heart attack and is a true feminist as she is bringing other women along instead of closing the door behind her. She is guiding us through the work world where we used to blossom and now have lost touch with the culture, practices, and lingo.

Here is an analogy: 

Imagine being a really awesome skier and then you moved to Hawaii sixteen years ago. Black diamonds were where you used to thrive. For sixteen years, you haven't seen snow, let alone gone downhill. Can you still ski? You might be a little out of shape compared then, but you aren't a couch potato. Instead of skiing, you have been swimming, snorkeling, rowing, doing yoga and surfing, and you have a beautiful tan. 

The first time you get back on the mountain at Whistler, you are going to fall and get some powder up your nose. For the first day, it is best to stay off the black diamond runs until you get your confidence up so the mountain doesn't totally kick your ass and tear your ACL. You have to get used to the newly designed skis, which have evolved since you last skied. The concept of going downhill is the same, but your muscle memory buried away needs some refinement.

After a day or so on the greens and easy blues, you get your groove back. All of that swimming, surfing and snorkeling has built up your core strength, which is really much better than it was sixteen years ago. You never really had great upper body strength until you started rowing. All of those yoga classes have improved your balance, so when you hit a few bumps, you can quickly adjust and regain your balance. After three days at Whistler, you are skiing off the Harmony lift and doing Seventh Heaven. After five days, you are killing it in the Whistler Bowl.

Ta da! This is just like getting a job after being out of the workforce for sixteen years, right?

Not exactly.

Unlike real world skiing where you can walk up and buy a lift ticket, in this analogous world, you need a special invitation to ski. You get one run down the bunny hill each day where everyone in the Village gets to see you and then the lift ticket guys decide if you are ready for the real mountain. If you are lucky, someone will see you and tell the lift ticket guys you can do it. Most people won't watch, and some who do are waiting for the crash. 

"But I used to be great!" you say after you face plant and scrape the snow off your goggles. "Really! I am also a terrific swimmer and my yoga is fantastic. I know where to find sea turtles when I snorkel!" 

And they laugh. 

"Why would you want to ski when you can do yoga and snorkel all day?" they say. "Maybe you should go back home. You don't belong here."

You go back to the lodge and cry. You Facetime your friends back in Hawaii. Some wish they could go to Whistler with you. Others think Hawaii is just fine and wonder why you want to leave. Others don't have the option to ski. "I tore my ACL last time I was at Whistler," says one of your friends.

Unlike your Hawaiian activities which have deep spiritual and social benefits, this skiing gig pays. With the additional income, you could pay for:

(Check all that apply)

___ Your kids' college education

___ Your mortgage because your adorable husband wants to quit his job

___ Your divorce from your deadbeat, boring, addicted, adulterous and/or abusive husband

___ A nice vacation because even if you live in Hawaii, the sunshine gets old
___ Your parents can't ski anymore and need financial support
___ Your own retirement

___ Damn it, you don't need the money. You love snow and you love to ski. Can't that be enough?

___ Other

You think of Mrs. Ryan, your ski instructor from the 1970's. You remember hearing people whisper behind her back "She doesn't need to ski, but she does!" like it was some kind of miracle.

So you go out there on the bunny hill day after day, being judged for not only your bad form but also your sixteen year old ski jacket. You look at these Millennials who weren't even born when you were doing moguls. Your husband travels from Hawaii to Whistler during the week. His skills are in top form. Your kids are allowed on the mountain because they are learning to ski. You are left behind and alone until the slopes close. Then your family comes home and tells you about the runs they did today, snow conditions, and how many times they nearly fell but didn't. You listen, but don't contribute.

After dinner you take a walk. "You know, I look great in a bikini," you say to people walking by who are bundled up so that only a tiny part of their cheeks are exposed. You can hold your own apres-ski, but apres-ski won't pay for college.

"You know, surfing is almost EXACTLY like SNOWBOARDING," you scream, but everyone is done for the day and gone to dinner. You feel invisible, and not in a good way. You don't blame the Canadians, because they are very nice. It is really not their fault they don't have snorkeling and swimming. A few very, very brave souls surf in Tofino on the western coast of Vancouver Island. In Tofino, they wear the thickest wet suits known to man. You consider going to Tofino to surf there, but only the craziest Canadians surf in January.

At the bottom of the hill, you find a quiet bar with a cozy fireplace. In there are a group of women.

"You are from Hawaii?" one asks. She just finished Peak to Creek without breaking a sweat. "Why are you here? I would love to snorkel and surf, but man I can't afford Hawaii."

"You made the right choice to move to Hawaii," another one says who is wearing the latest high tech fabrics. "I could have moved there, but I stayed close to the mountain."

"I bought a condo here years ago," another says. "It wouldn't be practical for me not to ski."

You get it. Skiers, too, have their own hopes and dreams. Some love to ski. Others like to ski but wouldn't mind a trip to the beach, or moving there permanently.

You keep getting on the hill, day after day, hoping that someday someone will notice your persistence, but they don't. You go to the coffee shop/yoga studio, the one that reminds you of the one you frequent in Hawaii. There you meet a few fellow Hawaiians. You are shocked to see so many Hawaiians in Whistler. They are dealing with the same shit. Every now and then, someone breaks through and gets a lift ticket. But most of you and your fellow Hawaiians wait.

You decide to go out in a group. Maybe if you try the bunny hill together, you can learn from each other. If nothing else, you have someone to drink coffee with, do yoga with, and talk about surfing. Maybe the lift ticket guys will notice you all standing in a group trying as hard as you can. A few people stop by and cheer you on, but that doesn't get you a lift ticket.

Your husband knows you are an awesome skier, and believes that any minute now you'll get your ticket. You admire his optimism, but know otherwise. Your high school friend and old ski buddy is shocked--SHOCKED--that you don't have a lift ticket.

"You are the best skier I've ever seen!" This makes you kind of sad, when it really shouldn't. Unfortunately, your best friend skis at Vail, and has no pull with the lift ticket dudes at Whistler. Otherwise, you'd be golden because she would walk in and talk to the head ski lift guy and tell him how great you are. She also had a reasonably good life. She goes to Vail in the morning, and goes to Hawaii in the afternoon. She often calls and asks for rowing advice since she is new to crew. You feel for her, because she struggles at times to transition between the two.

"My wife is Hawaiian," one of the guys in the Village says. He is afraid to make eye contact. "She used to ski back in the day, but now she surfs." He knows if he acknowledges how hard it is for you, he will need to acknowledge how hard this is for his wife who also wants to ski.

You sigh, and your other fellow coffee drinking, snorkeling, yoga-doing Hawaiian friends sigh, too. You feel the little bit of sand still stuck in between your toes inside your ski boots, and wonder if it is worth it to battle to get up this hill. The beach is nice, you begin to think. It is warm there and I know it well. Do I really want to change?

Another Hawaiian skis by and sees all of you there. She stops. "I used to be a Hawaiian. I still am, and always will be, but I also ski. I got my lift ticket."

You and your friends pause, waiting for her to tell you to enjoy the moment, blah blah blah. Instead, she says "I'll show you how to get that lift ticket." You and your friends listen. She isn't doing this because she is nice--which she is--she is doing this because she is pissed, pissed because it was so hard for Hawaiians to get lift tickets. Like a true skier and a true Hawaiian, she doesn't think the two are mutually exclusive.

"I fell on my butt a lot after I got my ticket," she said. "I had to get dragged down the hill on the sled by the ski patrol. I dusted myself off, got a new ski jacket that wasn't from 2004 and got back on the mountain!"

She teaches your squad squats and stretches. Together, you review the maps of the mountain and are given guidance on the terrain of different sections as not all blues are created equal. She reminds us of the heavy winds at the summit and the protected, quiet areas near the bottom. She teaches your group to read the weather forecasts on different parts of the mountains. She takes you and your fellow Hawaiians to buy new ski jackets so at least you look like you know what we are doing.

She also starts talking to the guys selling the lift tickets. He talks back:

"I need to know they can do the Peak to Creek without collapsing before they get to Dave Murray Downhill. I need to know they will be safe in the fog, on ice and in deep powder. I need to know they won't give up in the middle of the Whistler Bowl and decide to go back to Hawaii."

"My Hawaiians are awesome," she tells him. "I'll agree they are rusty in some aspects, but they have skills your other skiers might not have. Do you need balance? They've got it from yoga. Do you need endurance? Try swimming in open water for two miles while watching out for sharks. Their thighs might not be as tight as they were forty years ago, but their core and upper body strength are incredible from snorkeling and rowing, and that will come in handy in the deepest powders and on tough moguls."

She keeps going: "They did all of this rowing, snorkeling, and surfing because they wanted to, not because they had to." 

"How will they function in a place where they have to get stuff done?" the lift ticket guy asks. "This is a mountain, not a beach. Once they get to the top of the mountain, they need to get down. They can't decide to quit because the fresh pow has been stripped away by the teenage snowboarders who leave nothing behind but concrete. It might be a bluebird day today with six fresh inches, but tomorrow might bring slush and a night freeze. Then what?"

"That remains to be seen," Julia says. "But have faith. They are here and they are trying. They have learned agility from shifting sports. They learned flexibility from yoga, strength from rowing, and endurance from swimming. They learned to problem solve while they navigate the waves of the surf. And they learned to exercise both sides of their brain while following a school of fish through a coral reef. Give them a chance."

To be continued...

Surface Tension

While I was in Ohio, I visited one of my closet friends from high school, Betty. We went to a coffee shop after dinner and talked for about two hours. I saw her in January when I visited Ohio, but we hadn't really talked since then. Betty has a job, two young children and a husband who travels. Between her limited time and a three hour time difference, it isn't simple to keep in touch.

I talked about my life; she talked about hers. Betty is everything you could want in a friend: funny, empathetic, a good listener, caring, and intelligent. She asked me how I was doing with my mom's illness, my knee, and losing the School Board election last fall. She asked how my dad was coping with my mom's illness and his subsequent loneliness. She asked about Jack and how we were recovering from his betrayal that I first learned about two years ago. She asked about Claire Adele and the Boy. I talked about dealing with the Boy's reorganization of his teenage brain and his frustrations with friends. While the Boy is generally pleasant, he is capable of epic mood swings. As my friend Sarah says, "The Boy has a large emotional range." Yeah.  And it is awful to be on the receiving end of his tantrums.

As we were talking, I didn't think I was being excessively whiny or complaining. I was more or less giving her an inventory of my life, as we commonly do when we haven't seen each other in a while.

"How is the job search?" Betty asked.

"It has been on hold since the knee injury," I said. My daughter's piano reminded me of the emotional and physical energy required for healing. It is one thing to continue to work at a job you already have when you are injured; it is another thing to look for a new one while recovering.

"What about getting back into education?" she asked.

"The entire new School Board except one director campaigned against me," I said. "I have no clout with that group. I can't return to advocacy in the current environment. Nor do I want to. I decided to go big or go home when I ran. I lost, so now I am going home. I can't go backwards. It is really difficult that I spent nearly ten years in that arena and I really can't go back."

"Have you looked for a job at the university?" she asked. She works in a university setting and she knows we are close to UW.

"There was an opening for change management position to support the new payroll system roll out," I said. "I applied for that."

"You sound perfect for it!" Before kids, I had worked in Change Management.

"I didn't hear anything back," I said. I didn't tell her there were probably 300 other resumes that came in for that job.

"Oh," she said. I didn't tell her about the other half dozen jobs at the university I applied for. Betty paused.

"How are you managing all of this?" Betty asked.  Translation: Wow, your life is in a bad place.

I imagined myself being a tightrope walker being unaware I was 300 feet in the air, and then having someone tell me. I looked down and saw the people looking like ants while I was floating above them and freaked out. I thought, She's right. This is really hard. How am I coping?  

Betty is a dear friend and meant no malice. Her only fault was being empathic, which is the opposite of a fault. I have other empathetic friends, but this was a high density conversation about all that is going on in my life. When she asked, "How are you managing?" the surface tension which was keeping the liquid from overflowing burst. My cup was overfilled, held together by exceptional laws of physics. When the tension was released, my emotions poured out, not at that exact moment, but slowly: when I got back to my dad's empty house, when I was flying home, when I went to dinner Saturday night with Jack and the kids and the Boy decided to have a snit fit which then expanded into full blown tantrum by the end of the evening. By Sunday, I was a wreck.

It is a minor testament to resilience that I could manage to keep moving and maintain a reasonably positive outlook. At the same time, a little pessimism doesn't hurt. It is what inspires and motivates us to makes changes. Okay, I can't end on this Pollyanna note. I want to say my life is a mess and I need to clean it up, but sometimes life is just messy, and there are things that can't be cleaned up. I can't change my mom's situation. I can't go back and re-run the School Board election. I can't change that I have a teenage son who is at times my favorite person in the world and other times my least.

While on the stationary bike this weekend, I read Roz Chast's Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?* It is her graphic novel memoir about her parents' slow deaths. She had no control, but she could collect her insights and write them down.  I laughed in recognition when she wrote and drew "The Aisle of Tears" which sold adult diapers, adult wipes, pureed food, and other things my mother needs. She talked about the dining room at the Assisted Living Center being like a high school cafeteria with its cliques and unofficially assigned seats, which I also saw where my mom now lives, but on a much smaller scale.

Reading Chast's book made me realize that there are parts of life that just suck, and there is very little we can do about it except get through it. There is no shortcut through suffering: it is part of the human condition. Reading her book, I felt like I was in a conversation with a friend who was guiding me through the wilderness of aging parents. For now, my experience with my parents' aging is not up close, but from a distance. She turned her and her parents' suffering into art, a story that resonates with people like myself who are going through something similar.

Sharing coffee with a friend, telling her how I feel, that is good way to make it all a little more bearable.


* I used to like Roz Chast but now I love her.