Posterous theme by Cory Watilo

Filed under: work

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!

balancing...

Is there such thing as balance when you have an infant at home? To say that we have had sleepless nights is probably an understatement. And to say its been tough balancing work, wanting to spend time with Adelina and time as a couple is probably a major understatement as well. I suppose a part of me thought "balancing" would be easy... ha!

The first few weeks at work were tough for many reasons but I figured once we got through the "transition" it would become second nature and we all would fall right into a routine of wakeups, work, home and sleep. I laugh now because as someone said to me just a few days ago... just when you think you have your kids figured out something else changes. It's SO TRUE!

Now, two months back into work its still a struggle on a daily basis. The mornings are always interesting because Adelina still isn't into a morning wake up routine, it seems to be either a super early wake up (like 4 or 5am) OR we have to wake her up to get her going... it would be nice if there was some sort of middle ground but oh well. I have to admit that while mornings are always interesting with trying to figure out how we are all going to get ready and get out of the house, its also one of our favorite times of day. The minute Adelina starts to wake up both Brent and I rush to get into her room first *yes we race*. She will look left and right until she focuses in on us and then we get the most beautiful smile from her, she gets so excited to see us in the morning... it literally brings tears to my eyes writing about it. Typically its one of her happiest times of the day and that means more smiles, a few giggles and these days more and more sounds!

The day times (during the work week) typically fly by and yet half the time I feel like I never get enough accomplished and there aren't enough hours in the work day. Whether thats because I suck at time management these days, I am day dreaming or maybe I am just that busy I am not sure. Regardless after we get Adelina down for the day I have been logging on to get more work done on a relatively regular basis. Which means, of course, that I get less and less time with my hubby. Luckily I think he understands but it puts me in a situation where I really need to work on my time management skills because I swear I never brought work home as much as I do now. In addition the last thing I want is for my team to think I am not putting in the same effort as before because when push comes to shove I want to continue to grow my career and move forward within the company. I suppose I need to realize that I can't do everything but I truly do feel like there is some improvement that can happen on my part during the work day. So, thats my big to do for the next few weeks... focus, work hard, and then come home without work so I can enjoy my family. I'll let you all know how that goes!