To say that I’ve been in denial about returning to work is an understatement. I avoided offering my availability, and when I did it took 3 times of sitting at the computer to submit it. I was supposed to visit a sitter 2 weeks ago and finally went today. My mom and I toss around things like going to Ikea in October, when I’m supposed to be back in full swing.
I had fully anticipated that moving to a new area and knowing no one would encourage me to be excited about work again. After all, at least then I’d get to interact with grown ups. But the opposite is true. I love my job because I have excellent coworkers, and now I’m not a quick jaunt away from Emily’s candy bowl or a visit with Dan Who Knows Everything. I won’t run into the other Emily in the bathroom every hour, on the hour (but we’re both now un-pregnant, which will also change that dynamic). I won’t people-watch as others use the back aisle. I won’t hear Janet get all excited about the deer coming out to the salt that Don left for the “wildlife.”
In short, I’m going to be doing work without the perks of going to work. And I don’t think this is fair. Yes, my whiny voice just came out to play.
To some, this type of work is what they trained for; they’ve wanted to be in business or HR and so they took steps to get there. I simply wanted to retire my professional youth ministry hat for a while for a slower pace, so I fell into this position via a strong employee referral. I gradually added to my “skill set” and it turned out that I had a knack for talking to people on the phone and checking my email. Very few who know me are surprised.
After today’s visit to the potential sitter, I want to dunk my head into the near-boiling crock pot of chili on my counter (and WHY does it near-boil on LOW? Sheesh). She was not what I want for my kids each day. Not that she doesn’t give effort; it’s just that we have very different guiding philosophies. But, as previously mentioned, the market of people dying to take on 3 kids under three is…well, slim pickins’.
And then there’s the part of me that has really enjoyed this time with my kids. We’ve finally got a groove going and the whining has decreased and the happy direction toward play has increased (a significant development from a month ago). Not to mention there’s a list of places I’d love to visit, like library story time, the cloth diaper play dates, the museum, the zoo… all squeezed into our social calendar currently filled with EI appointments and evaluations.
But to stay home is to come up with a new strategy for income. Or scraping several hundred dollars from the budget. Neither is appealing, let alone considering feasibility. And I’m not completely naive to know that our good days could stem from and undercurrent of me knowing it’s short-term. If I were faced with an open calendar of days at home with the kids, I’m not sure the attitude would be the same.
I either need a rich Aunt Edna to suddenly decide to include me in a will or grow a marketable trait worth $50/hour that can be completed between the hours of 12-2 and 7-9pm. I’ll take wagers of which will happen first (hint: I don’t have a rich Aunt Edna. I don’t even have a poor Aunt Edna that could be concealing riches). But then I’ll need to start a recruitment strategy of people to be my friend so that I don’t indeed go crazy from being home all day.
I guess once a recruiter, always a recruiter…