The BIG Experiment!! Day Three by Diane

4:38 am  Wonderful Hubby wakes me up with his snoring.  This is a recurring theme in our household.  Move to spare bedroom.  Spend half hour worrying about interview.  Fall back to sleep.

6:25 am  Woken by small dog who wants food.  Wonderful Hubby comes to wake me up as well, since my alarm has gone off, and then goes to wake the kids.  I am grateful for having prepared the coffee to start automatically.

6:30-7:30 Take out recycling, drip stale beer down my shoulder.  Not going to ruin my mood, however. Got the kids out the door on time and with most of their morning chores completed!  Even stopped the car before pushing them out at school!

7:30-8:45 Have a walk with Kim.  Good discussions of why our hubbies are helping out MORE than usual this week.  BOTH husbands have pointed out that they'd do whatever around the house, we only had to ask.  Strangely enough, we haven't had to ask them to do anything so far this week, they've just seen something needing to be done and done it.  Think the blog is great in more ways than one!  Got a bit lost and had to use the iPhone to find our way back to our cars.

8:45-9:30 Yikes!  Gotta hustle to shower and prepare for interview.  Try on aforementioned out of date suit.  Marvel that it still fits (see that scheduled exercise really pays off!) and looks okay.  It is a bit uncomfortable because it has a waistline that goes over the navel, and I have been wearing low-rise pants for the last 5 years, but, with the jacket on, no one will know but me!

10:00-11:00 Meet with a wonderful friend who has a need for some part-time contract work.  (It really is all about who you know!)  Work out a win/win for both of us.  If CFO agrees, I start next week!  Really great company with bright engaging professionals.  Got to use big words!  Head home, starting to really HATE suit and want to pull an Al Bundy.

11:00-1:15  Voicemail from teacher who says son might have pink eye.  Ignore it.  They'll call again if they need to send him home.  Panic about what happens now that Wonderful Hubby is traveling.  Emails from volunteers in a panic.  Get home, want a stiff drink, settle for what's left of the coffee, RIP off evil suit and throw it into a pile - climb into comfy jeans and slouchy sweater.  Sit down to work.

1:45-3:00  Realize that I forgot that I'd help out at kids' school and hustle out the door so that they don't wind up riding the bus home to find that I'm not.  Have kids do homework while volunteering.

3:30-5:00  Take kids to Toys R Us.  Need birthday gifts, and kids are dying to spend gift cards.  Curse gift cards given by well-meaning family members.  Tell kids only 1/2 an hour.  1 and 1/2 hours later, leave store.

5:30-7:00 Yay! Awesome brother comes to rescue and grabs kids for dinner.  Work on volunteer projects in peace.  Have glass of wine!  Forget to make to-do list for tomorrow.  Remark that I need to 1. take dog to the vet, 2. take car in for repair, 3. am almost out of milk.  Wonder when the heck I'm going to do that!?

7:00-9:00 Friend time!  Enjoy get-together at friend's.  Feel connected with other women/mommies.

9:00-10:00 pick up sleeping kids from Awesome Brother's and try to sneak them into bed before they wake up too much.  Have LONG conversation with emotional (and tired)7 year old. Realize I have only had string cheese, coffee, and wine to eat today.  Have another glass of wine, eat frozen dinner and a bunch of potato chips while catching up on DVR TV(so much for that workout).  Feel guilty, throw away bag of chips.

For the most part, this was a good fulfilling day.  Didn't spend enough time with children, which seems to show.  Plan on making up for that tomorrow!

Losing Confidence (and finding it again)

So I know that I promised a follow up story about THE INTERVIEW, but it's just too humiliating to recount...suffice it to say that the formidable, confident, well-spoken woman who had managed huge projects and earned millions of dollars for my respective employers totally deserted me. In her place was a sweating, stumbling, inarticulate mess and as I watched myself in a sort of out of body experience I wondered "what happened?"

A few years of being out of my industry had left me unable to converse about it and more importantly I'd lost the confidence, once an intrinsic part of my personality, that enabled me to sell myself, my talent, and even to spin my challenges into benefits for a prospective employer. And the farther I bumbled along through the interview, the worse it got and the further my confidence sank.

That experience was a massive blow to my belief in my ability to get back into my industry, or really into the work place at all. It stayed with me for quite a while and as a result I tabled my job search.

Sitting here and being able to look at it with the perspective of a bit of distance, I can say that I haven't lost that woman or her abilities - all that I lost was the self-confidence that propelled me in all the endeavors that I have ever decided to undertake.

I can't pinpoint when I regained that confidence again. It could have been reviewing my resume and realizing all that I had accomplished or reminding myself that although I haven't been in the office I've accomplished a hell of a lot at home and in my life during this time. It was in no small measure to the cheerleading of my husband - he's never doubted me, nor has my daughter. It's probably all of that and some stuff I can't even name - but regardless, it's back and it's been tempered with a little humility now.

I can't tell anyone else how to regain that drive, sparkle, cockiness, and complete confidence in her abilities but I would suggest that it hasn't gone away - it's just hiding, waiting for you to remember that this time away from the workplace has only made you better, stronger, more able to multitask and be empathetic. Diane's post perfectly describes the qualities that SAH moms have gained in our time away from the workplace - but they do not define us, they simply are additions to the fierce women that we were before.

All that being said, when you are ready to get back into the fray and start interviewing, a little preparation goes a LONG way in reducing the sweat factor! I found the below link today - it provides real interview questions and responses from a HUGE array of industries - it's too varied to be useful for rote memorization and boilerplate Q&A but it'll remind you of the lingo, the tightrope walk and the language of your industry or industries that you might want to explore.

http://www.consultingcase101.com

I'm now able to remember who I was but more importantly I can celebrate who I am.

THE INTERVIEW or....

How I decided that self-employment seemed like a pretty good idea. By Kim

Last April I was dying to go back into the Manufacturing Operations industry – I was eagerly looking forward to the challenges and being able to interact with peers, I just wanted to get through the summer. In May, I was eagerly searching, figuring it would take the summer months to find something and get the ball rolling but that I would be able to enjoy the time with my family. In June, I was less actively searching but still jonesing to get back into my profession after school started in the Fall. In July, eh….but a couple of prospects had come along and so I thought that I might as well go interview.

Now I’m not going to say that THE INTERVIEW(s), and everything that went along with them, completely made me want to explore the possibilities of self-employment, but….

Suits and pointy-toed heels:

After my time in Thailand, where I had to wear everything to death due to the lack of shopping for “Western-sized women” (“we don’t have extra extra-large size for you, Madame”), I came back to the US with one suit and one pair of shoes. No worries, as you only need one to interview. I found them, pulled them out and started getting dressed. Maybe you’ve heard the expression “two possums wrestling in a gunny sack”, well apparently some badgers had eaten the possums and were PISSED to be stuck in this particular gunny sack – not pretty, not pretty at all. OK, no big deal, I would just have to go shopping, I thought, that’s fine I like shopping and at least I have the shoes.

The shoes….after 20+ years of wearing heels of every type, you would think that a person’s feet would be immune to just about anything and there was a time that I could’ve jogged the NYC marathon in stilettos without even wincing. Unfortunately, after a year+ of sandals, flip flops, tennis shoes and ballet flats, sliding back into those fabulous heels was a bit like sliding into medieval torture devices. I was undaunted though, my feet just aren’t used to heels anymore, I’d wear them around the house for a while and get readjusted in no time flat. Twenty minutes later, I was pretty certain that my effing feet had also gotten fatter, and as I crawled up the stairs to my room, I cheerily repeated to myself – shoe shopping too, I love shoe shopping!

Shopping day…trying on suits. I was feeling pretty good because I haven’t actually gone up a size, it’s more like bits of me have shifted around (read: down) a little and that’s ok, it’s normal in fact, gravity and all that (full turn in the mirror)…..what the hell is that on my ass….is that….cellulite??!!!

Spanx.

The best thing that I can say about that particular shopping excursion is that I did find the penultimate pointy-toed heel – Cole Haan makes all of their shoes with the Nike Air technology in them and the Miranda Pump is without a doubt the best multipurpose “work” shoe I’ve ever worn. Don’t misunderstand, it’s still a pointy-toed heel but your “back-to-work” feet will thank you!

I know that I haven’t even gotten to THE INTERVIEW yet, but I’m going to have to regroup and have a glass of wine before I can recount the rest of my humiliating tale.

If you’re wondering why I’m (over)sharing this with you, it’s partly to illustrate one of the 3 major obstacles that Diane and I see in getting back into the workplace, which is:

"If it’s been so long, and so much about me has changed, that my work wardrobe is obsolete, I can’t begin to imagine what has changed in my industry. I know that there are new business philosophies, technology, and buzz-words, and that business practices have shifted along with the economy. But I’m not entirely sure what has changed AND if I have this much trouble getting my wardrobe together, how am I possibly going to catch up on my industry in time to sound articulate and relevant (and not like I’ve been talking “mom-speak” for the past 5 years) in time for THE INTERVIEW, much less in the actual workplace? Being humiliated in the dressing room is one thing, being humiliated in front of my peers is another!"

So one of our goals is to provide that industry knowledge so that there’s one less thing to worry about.

…..and you’ll find the Spanx link in the LifeSavers section of this blog! ;-)