My sister just returned from the Peace Corps and is adjusting to life back in the US and thinking about looking for a job. I was on the phone with her the other day, and gave her a lecture about how she has to stop stressing herself out by looking for the job that she will have for the next 40 years. It seems sort of obvious—a silly thing to say—but she called me back an hour later to say “Thanks! You’re RIGHT! I need to stop freaking out and find a job for a year or so that may lead to something!”. She roused herself from a marathon of “So You Think You Can Dance” to go surf the web and come up with some ideas and a plan. At least, till “Dancing with the Stars” came on. An unfortunate by-product of her lack of TV for 2 years is a sad addiction to insane reality shows now.

Good advice, right? That’s what I’m told all the time. As a mom, one of the things that I have to keep focused on is “nothing is forever”. What I’m doing now—not a “career” job, just a job—doesn’t have to be my job for years or even A year. So I dispensed the advice, then I sat back and thought Geez, I DO have to take that kind of advice too. It is so, so easy for me to fall in this pit of feeling trapped and then the accompanying feelings of distress, boredom, feeling like I’m wasting time, etc etc and I go into this dark place.

I WANT to do good work I care about, I want to matter and not be at a company that constantly dismisses my accomplishments because I’m not on a promotion track that they’ve made up—how to find it?? Well…maybe it’s not right now…as my good friend told me on the phone pretty soon after I dispensed my advice “GEEZ! Cut yourself some slack! Your kids are so little–maybe you don’t have to have that killer job now! Just hum along for a while and then the killer job will come–when you’re not worried about 3 under 4!”. I need this advice to be given to me repeatedly and I also find I need the validation (over and over) that I’m doing the right thing.

That’s what I put the forum together for. And at our first event, I loved hearing what Anne Weisberg from Deloitte said about how more companies are going to be going to flexible schedules, to project based work—how they’ll HAVE to because they need the people! I’m interested to hear of other people who have been successful in doing work they care about, work they like—and balancing said work with a flexible schedule.

I’d also LOVE to hear from anyone who successfully job-shares?

And my sister would love to hear from anyone who’s up-to-date on “The Biggest Loser”.

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