As mentioned in my last post, I love my job. I moved to the company I’m currently with when my daughter was nearing six months old, and I’ve never been happier.
There’s a lot of bitterness I still hold for my past job. I know I was actually lucky to have it, since I got laid off from the magazine the day after finding out I was pregnant, and the manager for that particular job posting didn’t even realize I was pregnant (I was four months along when I interviewed). Still, some of the things I put up with at that job, I’ll never put up with again. I know this is unprofessional and I shouldn’t do this, but in many ways I feel like I’ll never be able to exorcise the bitterness without just putting it out there.
My old job really made me loathe my “working mother” status. None of the people in my department had children, so nobody really understood what I was going through. I didn’t expect them to cut me any slack or let me get away with less, but there were many times I felt my manager expected more from me and held me to a higher standard when I returned from my six weeks of unpaid leave, when my work never really slid in the first place. There were a handful of typos on one of my first assignments since my return (just try reading down five contracts when you haven’t had more than five hours of sleep all week), and my boss felt it warranted a sit-down meeting about the quality of my work. A couple of my coworkers thought it was bunk, but they had pretty much been over anything that came out of the boss’s mouth for months now. Everybody hated her and everybody was just waiting until their year was up so they could post for another job.
There was also the corporate culture that made me realize I had to get the hell outta dodge. The company operated in a lot of arcane ways that my boss depended on to keep her position, to keep our useless department working, and to keep people under her. Meetings always ran over, no matter how unproductive they were (I had to skip pump sessions many times because my boss just felt like bringing me into her office to spend an hour talking about a project she could’ve just emailed me about — she had no respect for anyone’s schedule). And the workday started at an ungodly hour just so people could get a parking spot.
Work-life balance was severely undervalued at that corporation, and since I really didn’t enjoy my job, it made it even harder to enjoy those first few months of my daughter’s life. The whole time I was being patronized by my boss, I was fantasizing about being at home with my daughter. Once I started my job search, I gave myself six months before I’d quit, whether I found something or not. I’m extremely lucky that I was able to find another job at all, let alone something I really love, and I’m glad it didn’t have to come to budgeting for a one-income home.
I have to count my blessings every day and thank God that she plopped this opportunity in my lap before the economy went to shit. I’ve mentioned this before, but the biggest perk to the job is that I’m able to work from home — and I’ll usually work from home at least one day a week. Ultimately, I’m more productive because I don’t have to take an entire day or afternoon off for a short appointment (for either Hugga or myself), and I can still stay on top of my work when I’m too sick to go into the office (which happened for most of this week). Aside from that, I’m more present in Hugga’s life — not just because I’m home more often, but also because I’m generally much happier about work. I don’t waste the weekends away dreading Mondays anymore. In fact, when I log enough work-at-home hours in a row, I actually look forward to going into the office again.
Now, one of the biggest issues of working at home is that I’m basically doing triple-duty. I try not to be stuck alone with Hugga while I’m working in case I’m caught off-guard with a meeting or an emergency assignment. But if I’m working when Boyfriend is at home, the responsibility of baby somehow naturally shifts to me. Aside from that, since I spend more time at the house and I’m more available to do chores, the responsibility to get those done also naturally shifts to me. So at any time during the week, I’m juggling baby duty, housework, and staying on top of a full-time job. The one good thing about being in my old job and working exclusively outside the home was that it was an automatic excuse for when the housework fell behind.
It’s made me love going into the office because it’s the only place and the only time where I’m expected to concentrate on just one area of my life. I may be juggling three different projects, but I never have to juggle all of them while loading the wash and making sure the little one doesn’t get into the spice cabinet.
I love being a working mom — my job gives me a sense of pride, having my own income gives me financial security, and I’m confident that I can be a positive role model for my daughter. I’m extremely lucky to have struck that perfect work-life balance. But ironically, it sometimes feels like it’s just become an officework-housework balance, with no time for life in between.
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