Bumping my head on the blue and pink ceiling

May 2, 2014

Time to go back to working outside the home. Of course, I’m ambivalent, but it’s time for him to start socializing with other toddlers, and I guess the same could be said for me, taking into account my experiences of the general maturity levels in a lot of workplaces. Stories for another day, tho. Or another post….Maybe I’ll call it, “The F@#kwits I Have Worked For.” I’ve had some wonderful and inspirational bosses (Steve, Irene, Brian, Rob, and Roy to name a few), but I’ve also had more than my share of crazies. Here’s a smattering:

A particularly loathsome dot-com doofus who told me that he didn’t want me to use punctuation anymore. Honestly, I’m not kidding. And I’m a technical writer by trade, which is a profession that generally espouses–and dare I say it, rightly so–the use of punctuation.
A kookie-pants who I later found out hired me only after she had given my date of birth to her astrologer so that our charts could be compared. You can’t make this stuff up.
A boss (well, not really technically my boss, but the husband of the cookbook author and restaurant owner for whom I worked) who took a swing at me in the kitchen because I refused to wait on a table on a night that I wasn’t even working! I had dropped by the restaurant to wait for some friends to finish up, and this fool had done so much coke (it was the early 90s) that he didn’t want to close up the kitchen. Everyone else had already walked out and I happened to walk by him too closely, and yep, he took a swing at me. He missed. Cocaine doesn’t do much for one’s aim, apparently.

Suffice it to say, I’m not spending a lot of cash on cards on Boss’ Day.

I’d been looking actively for longer than it usually takes me to find a new job, so I was pretty excited when a headhunter called me in December, 2013. He’d found my resume online and wanted to tell me about a great opportunity at a large media company. The job requirements matched my resume very closely, so he asked if I would sign a consent form to allow him to represent me to this company, which shall rename nameless unless my lawyer tells me it’s OK, and then I’m publishing it all over the place! Stay tuned for that one.

Ten minutes later I did get an email from the headhunter, but it didn’t contain a consent form. Instead, he was emailing me to tell me that I have been unemployed too long to be considered for the job.

There you have it! In actual print, yet. Proof that companies are discriminating against people looking for work if they are not currently employed, a designation I resent, by the way. Not only do I work, someone’s life depends on my work.

Fortunately, within a few weeks, I heard from another company and started my new job in late February. It’s an enormous challenge, but so far, so good, I think. I’m lucky that my boss is herself a working mom and has been extremely supportive as D and I stumble through the first few months of working-outside-the-home parenthood.

The first “casualty” of my resumed career has been this blog. I just haven’t had the time, but with the encouragement of my sweet and supportive pals, Darci, Colleen, and Vicky, especially, I’ve decided it’s time to try to make the time.

So stay tuned here for more on the Manhattan preschool scene (hint: bring a bag of cash to your toddler’s admissions interview), the Mommy Career Track in your 50s (hint: see that Dead End sign?), and How to Potty Train While on a Conference Call (hint: test your Mute button thoroughly before the call begins!).