Category: Work

51 is not my Favorite Birthday

On By aftheadIn Meet Afthead, parenting, Rants, travel, Uncategorized, Work1 Comment
Who took this vacation picture? Was someone else here? We’ll never know.

Last year I was on the cusp of my life changing. Sure, I was turning 50, but I was about to take a year off to live my dream and write my first novel. Kamala Harris had jumped into the presidential race and was going to be our first female president. That meant I was going to come back to work inspired about working for a female commander in chief and having ample career opportunities to pick from. The self-improvement goals were numerous. I was going to get fit again and eat better. I was going to spend my daughter’s junior year being present, not be such a bitch at home, spend more time with my folks, and be a better friend. It was going to be glorious.

A year later, I’m feeling kind of (using an out of date gen-z word here) meh. I’m proud of my book, but a smidge disappointed in my early reader’s feedback. Now that I’m done writing, what do I do next? Do I take the terrifying step to polish it and try to publish, write the next book, or just quit knowing that the publishing world is cruel? The country is a hot pile of steaming shit for so many reasons, but personally I have zero future job opportunities: there is no work in electric vehicle charging, climate change, or green careers because Harris didn’t get elected. My ex-colleagues are all fired, quit, soon to be fired, or scared. My network is decimated. During our family summer vacation I refused to let my family take any pictures of me because I look like a chubby bridge troll with a permanent scowl and wiry hairs growing out of my mole. Someday we’ll look back on our nine days together and wonder if I was there. (Honestly, did the semaglutide botox fervor have to hit now? Many of my friends look better than they did in their 20s, but I’m terrified of a med spa injecting stuff into my body and face. Sigh.)

Poor me.

Yes. I know things could be worse. I know people are starving in Gaza. Shit’s about to get real in the United States as support benefits are crumbled by the Big Beautiful Bill. I saw the impact this administration is having even on the privileged as we toured colleges this summer: less emphasis on services, less emphasis on equity, less emphasis on choices, less emphasis on diversity, and the University of Delaware didn’t even mention that President Joe Biden was an alum. Meanwhile, I feel guilty because we are a rich white family so my kid will be okay even if we have to pay more tuition. Heck, she may be better off, because international students aren’t interested in attending school in a country where they might be being swept off the streets by ICE agents. (We toured Tufts right after Rümeysa Öztürk was arrested by a plainclothes agent off the street in Boston. Unsurprisingly, it was the worst tour we’ve been on. They were probably distracted.)

I know I’m a whiney old lady. I have had a year off. I have enjoyed quality time with my family and friends. I have delighted being available for my kid before she goes off to college next year. Having my mom and husband read my book (and enjoy it) has been a highpoint of my life. Financially we are doing okay, even without my year of salary, because somehow the chaos since election day hasn’t impacted our investments – see rich white family note above.

Tomorrow I will suck it up and be grateful again, but today is my birthday. Today I get to be frustrated at myself for my lack of willpower and becoming a dumpy old lady. Today I get to be aggravated because in less than a year I’ve gone from being a very successful career woman, who did things like meet Secretaries of Energy and Transportation and accepted invitations to the White House, to a worthless 51 year old woman. Today I get to be frustrated because there is so much work to do with my book, and my dozen this year (so far) for short stories, writing conferences, and jobs don’t give me any hope that I can write more than drivel, so what’s the point anyway?

Tomorrow I will celebrate my birthday with friends. Next week I will celebrate with my family. Today I miss the hope of turning 50.

Celebrating writing “The End”

On By aftheadIn Best Day Ever, Designing Your Life, finish something, Publishing Process, Work, writing3 Comments

This is really hard for me, so I’m just going to blurt it out. I am proud of myself. Whoa, honey. No one likes a braggart. Probably everyone is going to stop reading this post now, right?

When I walked away from my career last September I had one goal: to finish my novel and make it good enough for my mom to read. Why my mom, you ask? Because she’s a devourer of all types of books and no matter what genre I wrote, she would appreciate it. Because she’s an English teacher and could tell me if my book actually met standard and historical book criteria. I love books because my mom loves books and she encouraged me to read whatever I wanted my entire life. (She actually had to stand up to the elementary school librarian on my behalf for reading a “age inappropriate” books. Poor librarian.) I wanted to write this book, because it was a story I wanted to read and I wanted to share it with my mom.

On Friday June 13th I wrote “The End.” (Which is a totally fine date to finish your novel. No bad omens associated with Friday the thirteenth at all.) Then I read and edited and spell checked and edited some more until June 23rd when I printed out all 285 pages and presented it to mom. Part one of my goal accomplished.

(Mom took this picture of me and my book. We are at her kitchen table. I normally hate how I look in pictures, but not this time. Look at how happy I am.)

I’ve read many writing books. I think Stephen King is the one who said that writing is magic. In my head was a world, characters and actions. Part one of the magic is the transference from my head onto the paper. To the best of my abilities, I accomplished that. I’ve read my complete book twice since writing “The End” and I believe the story is there. Could it be better? Yeah. (The comma situation is certainly dicey.) Could the story be better? Maybe, but not from what my own eyes can see or my own brain can comprehend. Now I need to find out if I accomplished the second part of the magic: can someone else’s eyes and brain read the story and interpret it? I don’t know, but I’m about to find out. Feedback from my mom, my writing group, and my husband is coming. I’m trying to be brave.

I have little glimmers that give me hope. As they have finished, my writing group has sent texts saying “It’s wonderful” and “It’s a big wonderful book.” (At 107,000 words, it’s a bit of a behemoth.) Mom finished on July 7th and sent me a picture of the last page of my book. On it she wrote, “So good” underlined three times and “I got teary eyed.” I got teary eyed when she sent me the picture.

Mom’s “The End”

I’ve had a month to celebrate. A month to marvel at my accomplishment. I left 20 years of stability, a nice paycheck, and great benefits for a dream. That dream is now a physical hunk of word-filled paper big enough to cause death to a bug or pain to a foot if dropped.

No matter what the next few weeks of critique and discussion brings, I want to acknowledge that I achieved my dream and that’s pretty gosh darn amazing. (I can say that here, because everyone stopped reading after the first braggy paragraph, right?)

The End

So, Watcha been Doin’?

On By aftheadIn Designing Your Life, Uncategorized, Work, writing2 Comments
My desk at Library #4

It’s been two weeks since I left my job to live the dream of being a full time writer. Inevitably, everyone’s first questions are “Are you writing?” or “How’s your book coming?” My first week I had a list of activities that would prove to myself and my friends that I was doing the writing thing. I investigated libraries as writing offices. I became my own tech support and installed a new battery in my laptop, then downloaded Scrivner (a software package for writers). I took the Scrivner tutorial, then found all my novel files, and uploaded them into the Scrivner novel template. I rearranged my desk into a writer’s desk, rather than a worker’s desk. I wrote a blog post. I made a writing plan. I worked on a short story. I created a to-do list for my novel rewrite. I started reading a writing book. Look at me becoming a full-time-writer.

But I also left my job for personal reasons. My connections to people outside of work were degrading. So I made cookies for a friend who had a death in the family. I attended parent teacher conferences. I went to therapy. I sent a short story to my mom, so she could help make it better. I went on an anniversary hike with my husband and cut his hair. I fixed our YMCA membership so I could start taking classes and work on my physical health. I managed to slowly run a 5k. I drove my kid to volunteer activities and concerts and helped rescue her broken car. Look at me fixing myself and my friends and family.

The first week was just like working, but at a different job, which is what I told everyone I was going to do. I was proud of my accomplishments, and friends were impressed with how I’d transitioned right over to this new life.

The second week tells a different story.

I also left my job because I was exhausted and my personal life and home life were suffering. All that came crashing in the second week. The cat boxes and guinea pig cages were filthy. I still had seven performance reviews to write for the job I quit. (Yeah, I know, unpaid labor, but it was for people I care about.) My health insurance expires soon, so I got my COVID and flu shots, then spent a day and a half asleep in bed. (My normal booster after-effects, but since my only COVID infection lasted 10 days, I keep getting boosted.) I had my final OB/GYN appointment complete with pap smear. Midweek, I tried a full self-care yoga-mom day: I bought tickets for our winter trip; I actually went to a yoga class; I got my nails done with my daughter (homecoming for her, simple vanity for me). I tried to include more people in my week. I had lunch and walked with friends and spent an hour picking apples with my mom in her backyard. The weekend was filled with homecoming activities – volunteering, unexpectedly staying for the football game to visit with friends, steaming my kid’s dress, taking homecoming pictures, and delivering forgotten items around town. The only writer thing I accomplished was working on my short story, visiting a third library, and thinking a lot about my book. One might say I failed week 2 as a writer.

Three weeks ago my days were dictated by my Outlook calendar. Life was scheduled from 8-4 (or 7-6 on a bad day) in half hour or hour chunks going from meeting to meeting to meeting. Often I didn’t have time for lunch, and bathroom breaks were quick jaunts where I had to wait to start my next conference call because you could hear the toilet flushing from my desk. Milestones were set and documented with clients. I had no time to think deeply or be thoughtful.

My other issue is that I’ve been working since I was 14, and working full time since I was 23. Gosh. I’ve been working full time more than half my life. The only break I’ve had in those 27 years was 13 weeks for maternity leave. Okay, I also went down to 32 hours for about a year when my kiddo had non-stop ear infections, and then went down to 32 hours during my last year of my master’s degree, but in both of those cases the extra hours I wasn’t workin’ for the man were dictated by someone other than me. It wasn’t like this. I really don’t know how to not work a regular job.

This is a whole different life in an unexpected way. I’m responsible for deciding what I’m going to do. I’ll write my own performance review. I get to report if I’m succeeding or failing. Am I allowed to take a day off? Can I knit during working hours? Can I write after hours? What are my hours? Is napping allowed? Someone forgot to give me the unemployed workers handbook. This week, I’m going to choose to be kind to myself. Anyone who has worked for me will say that I tell everyone to expect a struggle in the first 3 months of a new job. I’m going to give myself a little of my own managerial grace as I figure this out.

I’m writing this post from library number four. (Oddly, a library I started working at when I was 16.) So far, I’ve found 3 of the 4 libraries to be productive writing work spaces. They have the right amount of background noise and I like being surrounded by books. Today I was able to research points of view from books in the 808 nonfiction section. (I love the Dewey Decimal System.) I’ve got a plan for figuring out if my novel needs first person, third person omniscient, or an editorial narrator. I’m excited about doing some writing on my actual book, not because it’s on a to do list, but because I’m curious. Tonight is writer’s group and I have a writing conference this weekend. I have absolutely promised myself that I won’t let the writing conference crush my soul, as they often do. If I start to hate a session I can leave. I don’t have to go the whole time.

I’m glad that I’m keeping track of my days, because I want to know what makes a day good and productive and what days are frustrating. Just like in my other job, I’ve found that the to-do items I don’t finish make me angry at myself, but I still forget all the things I did accomplish. Going back to review makes me feel better. I haven’t “wasted two weeks” because I haven’t rewritten 87 pages of my novel. I’m being thoughtful with my time and activities. Instead of thinking that I’ve squandered 1/26th of my year off, I’m going to focus on how I’ve set myself up to make the next 25/26ths a success, however I end up defining success.

I Love a Story with a Good Ending

On By aftheadIn Work2 Comments
My office, before my last day

My last day of work was Friday. A month shy of 21 years, I went into the office for the last time. I had 17 performance reviews to write, 72 timesheets to approve, two exit interviews, an office to clean, a final lunch, and finally, turning in my badge and computer. It was going to be busy – no leaving early.

I hadn’t accounted for the fact that my last long day was a post-Covid Friday. Not traditionally a day where folks linger in the office. By 2:00, I was the only person in our wing and still had all the performance reviews to write, my office to clean, and my stuff to turn in. Luckily, one of the “pros” for leaving my job (on the pro/con list) was that things had gotten a little to people-y for this introvert. So while the afternoon and evening were a little lonely, it was nice to be able to get my packing and crying and writing and goodbyes to inanimate objects done without interruption.

At 7:00 the cleaning crew turned up. Once I was a person who knew the cleaning crew. I was in the office 4 days a week and worked a later shift then many of my colleagues. It wasn’t unusual for me to roll in at 9:00 and still be working at 6:00. Those people who empty your trash and recycling, vacuum the floors, dust, and clean the bathrooms? I knew them. Post-Covid? I didn’t really interact with the cleaning folks. On days I actually worked in the office, I’d take 2 hours of meetings from home, drive in, work 5 hours, get on the road before traffic got bad, and then finish my day off at home.

But this last week I finally met the cleaning crew on Wednesday, when I was in the office until 8:30 p.m. A guy in the red polo shirt, his and his team’s uniform, politely asked if he could empty my trash and recycling and I said “yes” and thanked him. Friday we had the same exchange. Then, shortly afterwards I took my computer up to my boss’s empty dark office, said a weepy goodbye to my dedicated laptop, and then went downstairs and took a last few pictures of my empty office. I picked up my backpack, my purse, the flowers my friend had given me, and my two funny bird pillows then headed out. Arms packed, I opened the first of three doors between me and my new life, and scared both myself and the cleaning guy. He was about to mop behind the door. We jumped and laughed and then he looked at my full arms, and held the door open for me. Next he raced ahead of me to open the final two doors. I teared up a little, and thanked him at each door. As I exited he said, “See you tomorrow.” Then he paused and I thought maybe he’d ask if I was coming back to work. Maybe he’d noticed how my colorful preschool like office had become duller during the week and he knew I was leaving. But instead he said, “No. See you Monday!” And I replied, “See you Monday” and gave him a small smile. I managed to unload my stuff and close the car door before I started sobbing. It was the perfect goodbye.

While my career had highlights with powerful people — meetings at the White House, virtual meetings with the Secretary of Energy and Transportation, awards, and accolades — that wasn’t the part of the job I loved. I loved the people. I loved helping my team of 24 find good work and help them through the challenges of simultaneously working and living a life. I loved the clients who were also human beings. I loved all the support folks who helped make work things work: HR, IT, Purchasing, Payroll, and yes, the cleaning crew. I tolerated leadership and upper management who valued hierarchy, and these upside-down priorities of mine are what made me want to leave my job.

One of my proudest moments at work happened several years ago, right as our current leadership came into power. Our lab had a sweet tradition of letting folks leave a few hours early before a holiday. It wasn’t announced in any formal way that I ever saw, but the afternoon before the 4th of July or Thanksgiving a manager or a director would walk around and say, “Why don’t you go ahead and take off.” We’d all pack up and enjoy a couple of special hours – getting our kids early, working out, going for happy hour, or picking up that last minute need before the grocery store got busy.

But leadership ended the tradition. Days before one Christmas, there was an announcement: there would be no early release on Christmas Eve. Staff were angry. People had planned flights and Christmas Eve dinner thinking they’d be able to go home at noon, or two at the latest. Of course, leadership said, staff could still take time off, but they had to use vacation time. The grumbles quieted. A tradition had ended. That’s how work goes.

I wasn’t thrilled, but had resigned myself to taking a few hours of leave for Christmas Eve. Working late one night before the holiday, I struck up a conversation with the lady who cleaned my office. My annoyance was a tragedy to her. The contract between the lab and the cleaning service stated if the lab was open normal hours, they couldn’t clean earlier, and she was going to miss Christmas Eve with her family. She confided that she probably wouldn’t be home until midnight, would miss church and her family’s celebration, and she was crushed. Cleaning staff doesn’t just get to decide to take vacation.

My annoyance bloomed into anger. Me, who despises talking with leadership, started sending emails explaining to my boss, my boss’s boss, and the head of the lab what they had done with their little maneuver. Sure all our staff was aggravated, fine, but their move was a full-on Grinchy-Scrooge for the cleaning folks. I not only told leadership what they’d done, but I ratted them out to all my colleagues.

My explosive protest found a champion among the directors, and the cleaning staff was allowed to start early on Christmas Eve. It didn’t cause a problem, because most of the lab folks were leaving early anyway. Friends on my floor had thought about the situation, and pulled together donations for our cleaning lady. There was also a card, where we all thanked her for everything she did for us. From that point on, there was a different relationship between the lab staff and her. I found out about her side job hand-sewing pet toys. (Now I know where those specialty “hand made” toys at pet stores come from.) She got to hear about my family and my mom who also enjoyed sewing. The lab leadership had made a mistake, but we had turned it into a chance to make and help a friend.

On my last moment of my last day of my twenty year career, there was no lab leadership to thank me. No final hobnobbing with other managers at a happy hour. When he opened the last door and the sweet red-shirted guy said, “See you Monday,” it didn’t just feel like a kindness. It felt like the perfect end to my work story.