Do you work to live or live to work?
Never had I imagined juggling a career, motherhood and a family would be so tough. The first few months back at work were interesting to say the least...between missing Adelina all day at the office and dealing with the little sleep I was getting, it was a blur. Luckily after eight weeks or so we started to get into a routine... and I say that with a grain of salt because our routine doesn't always consist of sleep but we try.
I've heard the saying that some people work to live and others live to work... I would say that I fall in the category of working to live, especially now that I have a daughter. I work to provide the life for her that I didn't have growing up. Cliché'? Maybe... but its the truth. And I don’t mean that in the sense that I didn’t have anything growing up but more so in the sense that I simply want Adelina to have better than I had. Now let me be clear that I enjoy what I do and I love the company I work for, I see lots of opportunity and growth for me in the future. But lets be honest when push comes to shove if i won the lottery, I would probably stay at home with Adelina.
After a couple months back at work I randomly interviewed for a Financial Analyst position at my company. It came about after a rather odd water cooler conversation with the CFO but I was thrilled that he and the team would even be willing to consider me. I have a degree in finance but my 8 years (yes I just said 8 years, holy cow!) of experience out of college are all human resource and recruiting related so my learning curve would be slower than someone with a couple years of recent financial experience. It was a casual interview process and after a couple meetings with the hiring manager and the Director of that team, I decided that it might not be the department or position for me. I suppose you could say one specific conversation really stuck with me. I was at lunch with the hiring manager and his boss and they asked what I thought about staying late (in not so many words). Knowing what I know about that team (95% of them were at the office until 6 or later during the week, some legitimately working, others just hanging out). I have absolutely no issue with staying late and working to get projects or my work done if that is what is needed BUT I do not want to stay at the office for "face time," its silly, I've done that at previous jobs and I refuse to do that again. I responded that of course I had no issue with that, but also pointed out that two days a week I have to pick up my daughter but I could be flexible when needed. One of the gentleman responded with "that’s a hard questIon." It was at that point I just knew it wasn’t going to be a fit. My current department culture is relatively flexible and while that’s nice, it's also not essential to put in face time to seem like you are getting your job done, when we can easily take our laptops and blackberries home and get the work done from there if necessary.
I may have shot myself in the foot with that team by deciding to take my name out of the running, but while I want growth within my current company, I also know what type of culture is a fit for me and what is not. As all of this transpired, I also took some solid time to figure out what I really "want to be when I grow up" and with some help from my current team I may have just figured it out. I took my first compensation class a few weeks ago and hope to continue to take more until I am ready to fully transition into a compensation analyst position. Wahoo!