My small-town paper ran an article on a local marketing firm celebrating 10 years of business. It’s a great little firm; all women, minority-owned, successful. In those 10 years, this woman started in her living room and now employs 4 other women, and perhaps, just maybe, me.
I sent them a quick pitch letter, congratulating their 10 years of business, and saying coincidently, 10 years ago, I shelved mine to work on the family. In the ten years she’s grown her business, I’ve grown my family and discovered the vast benefits of minivans, the lack of benefits in healthcare, why you need deodorant in your car, staying up ‘til midnight for Harry, soccer, scouts, divorce, braces and just how long past the sell-date you can ingest without going to the ER. What a long strange trip it’s been.
I didn’t plan on completely shelving the work, but let’s face it: the only person that can seem to actually work with a kid (or 5 ) in tow is, apparently, Sarah Palin. (someone please do a urine test on that woman, would you?) The rest of us know that the moment the client calls, is the moment the dog pukes, the fights commence, the toilet overflows, the in-laws invade, the teens taunt, bats fly down the chimney, doorbell rings, kids cry, the storm hits.
Ten years is a long time. Congrats to this woman-owned business and her well-deserved success. But to all prospective employers: please be patient and forgiving of my ten year hiatus; really, I too have been working quite hard, and am now ready, willing and able to jump back to the workforce. Please don’t dismiss my absence as folly. I’ve been hard at work too. Really, it’s not as easy as Palin makes it look.
Sarah Palin seems more like a machine than a mom
“Folly” !! You’re not just reading Sarah Plain and Tall with your Kids, kid #4 must also love Mercy Watson. What a good mom. You’ll get there – merge from the on ramp back into the fast lane, then you’ll be blogging about how much you miss reading under the covers with your kids. Anonymous is for wimps – so what if you offend. They get over it. You’re smart, funny and unless that’s your good-looking friend, adorable. Write it all; it’s amazing to read someone who’s saying what I think.
Hiatus? Or “only the most important job in the world”? 🙂
Seriously though… your hiatus was really extended in depth research on what prospective customers think and purchase.
O.K. I can really relate to being technologically challenged, but I’m especially embarassed to admit that I got my kids to help me send my syllabus to the college for the Methods of Teaching Math, Science and Technology to Young Children course I am teaching this fall. Now, there is irony.
Can we PLEASE talk about Palin. My blood pressure is rising daily. I don’t want to believe that Obama’s chances of winning or losing are contingent on women voting for Palin. Please tell me that women in this country are smart enough to read what she stands for and realize that she is NOT good for women in America.
This cracks me up. After a similar hiatus, I recently starting consulting at a hip design agency and adapted the lie, lie, lie policy (regarding technology smarts that is) and so far so good. I am blessed to have a best friend who is a computer wiz and I am eternally grateful to her for taking my frantic phone calls for a refresher in all things Excel.
I long ago learned that to accomplish something I want to do I can pretty much learn anything I put my mind too all I need is the time to do it (which, as you know, when juggling family and work is in short supply). And I am a slow learner, but those AHA moments are wonderful when I finally do “get it” and wonder what took me so long.
Instead of comparing yourself to Palin whom I have reservations about I think you’re more like Angelina, Not that I reccomend reading trash mags, but the fact that she seems to juggle it all between her trillion kids and her career which doesn’t seem to be suffering I have faith you can do whatever you set out to do. I don’t think your hiatus from the work force was idle, it seems you kept up with whtat’s going on in the “real” world better than any of us who were supposedly in it. But welcome back with open arms anyway!