First off I haven’t been blogging a ton of late (I’m sure this has not been noticed in the world at large) but it’s because I am horribly, monsterously busy and buried with conference stuff and with my “day job”–where I work to pay bills and also where I work to get fodder for this blog.
Any spare time of mine has been sucked up into: facebook. It’s shameful and I was very disdainful of the whole facebook thing until a friend sent me her page and without trying–that is, without JOINING!–I immediately had 3 friends on facebook. A day later 2 more. Now I’m hooked. My husband is poo-pooing it but I notice him sneaking onto my PAGE sometimes and I am sensing the same poo-pooness as he exhibited when I was first given a blackberry and he proclaimed them stupid. Till he got one. And now he’s scrolling like a champ 24-7 (while mine remains plugged in downstairs and I’m not exaggerating here actually has a cobweb on it).
Facebook is a tremendous time waster in that you scroll around looking for people, and in my case, I then spend time online chatting away with my friend Kirsten – who I talk to over the phone maybe 9-10 times a day so the online chatting is just madness. But addictive. I’ve also gotten back in touch with lots of old interesting friends like Siobhan, one of those people who if I just THINK of her I start to laugh…with my apartment neighbor from grad school…and with people from lots of other lives. It’s a little weird and random.
I have to admit to getting two others hooked but can hold my head up high and say that at least I’m not using facebook to waste time playing scrabble or text twirl (ahem). That is I could hold my head up high till I wasted a full hour doing Gilmore Girls trivia, for goodness sake, the other day.
So this facebook confession goes along with the fact that I’ve got no time because I’m buried, buried, buried at the day gig. And this brings me to the point of this post which is something I’ve been expounding upon lately: when getting back to work, I think you need to be really clear about why you’re getting back…and know yourself and your motivations. This has come up on a couple interviews I’ve done in the past couple of weeks, and I think it’s something I’m qualified to speak on from my personal experience and from what I’ve seen at Detours. As qualified as I am to speak on anything for which I speak on…
Are you going back because you want to hop back into the career? To make some money? To fulfill your soul through an entrepreneurial venture? To put one of your big ideas into play? There’s lots of questions, reasons, and answers. I think you have to look in yourself for some honest answers motivations, and then make sure you’re crystal clear when you go in about what you’re looking for. There’s not “right” answers to the above–there’s just right answers for you. I remember when I was getting back in someone told me “I never hire someone at a level below where they were because I know they’ll be unhappy within 6 months”.
I don’t know if that’s always true. I think if you can honestly say “I’m going back to help out on some projects. I care nothing for titles or career trajectory at this point and I just want to keep skills fresh and make some dough”, you’ll be fine working at any level if the projects are up to your skill set.
I know it’s true for ME though. I walked back in thinking that since I’d done the VP thing, running a department, I didn’t CARE anymore about that. I didn’t for a bit but the problem comes in when–due to experience and capabilities–projects and people are handed over. So suddenly the simple project-based gig that you take (or that I took) becomes the old officer position I had. But not at an officer salary or–for me, worse–without the “respect” I’d hope for and that I’d once had as the official head of a department. I think it’s pretty easy for moms returning to the workforce to get taken advantage of and find themselves in a similar spot. There’s a level of gratitude from mom to company for taking you back, for giving you some flexibility where needed, etc. There’s also a feeling of “I’m not sure there’s anything better out there!” and even the knowledge, in my case, that I KNOW I’m being taken advantage of but how can I go somewhere else and leave my kids 5 solid days a week–that’s not what I want now (at least in theory although today I do kind of want that).
So that’s why I’ve been advising of late that you need to know what you’re looking for before you look–there’s great resources and coaching programs out there that can help you ask yourself some tough questions, and you need to give yourself some honest answers. It’s part of the discussion at my fall events and I’m going to listen to the real experts because as usual I’m great at spotting the issue and the problem with myself but not super – great at taking my own advice (I mean literally, someone said the words to me yesterday “You are a gigantic sucker” and I had no rejoinder). My Richmond partners, Mom-entum Resources, offer great hands-on help on this type of thing; so does Jane Seibel, of Employmoms, who’s been a part of previous Detours and who will be in Waltham in November. But I think you also just have to be honest with yourself and then in my case, know as with everything this isn’t forever.
And when feeling overwhelmed and put upon and taken advantage of, there’s always facebook. There’s escapes that help–and as lame as it is maybe something to just help get you through is what keeps you from feeling trapped forever.
So I’m off to update my profile and play more Gilmore Girls trivia…Rory is waiting.
