Friday, September 28, 2007

My new job

so, since i'm new to this blog thing i'm doing some catch up.

i got a new job. after over 6 years of selling my soul at a job that i really think i thought i loved, i had a baby. this newfound family member forced me to take stock of my life and where i placed my priorities. i was way off. i think this truly hit me when i was sitting at my desk at 7pm the day before connor was born having full on horrible, nasty contractions and trying to train my replacement. what the hell is wrong with me??

now, this wasn't totally the fault of the job...i take responsibility as well. i tend to take on a lot. i've recently been labled a "joiner" which i fully concede to. i'm the president of our hoa (shut up, i don't care if you hate your hoa and they fined you for leaving your garbage can out-it's been two weeks, bring the sucker in!), a member of my sorority alumnae group, i'm in a book club, dinner club, card carrying member of the Republican National Committee. i'm sure there are other things, but i'm so damn overscheduled that i can't think of them now. i have a friend at the new job that relates me to Tracey Flick from the movie Election. This is an accurate comparison. Plus, it's reese witherspoon and i think that if i were a celebrity or she were a normal person, we'd be friends. Anyway, i digress, the job was quite overwhelming. 10 hour days at the office just to come home and work for a couple hours. then there is the cell phone umbilical cord that would suck me in at least once a night and several times throughout a normal weekend. i couldn't hide from this job. there was constant turnover in certain positions that i was responsible for and why this came as a shock to some people there, i'll never know. when you hire an 18 year old and pay them $10/hour to do way too much work they don't tend to stick around. it's called self preservation.

anyway, what this is leading up to is that i went on a quest to find a job that my responsibility was minimal and that when i clocked out for the day, i really went home. i left the job at the office and my time at home was spent the way it should be--with my family. now, i realize that this is not such a novel idea to some of you, but when your entire life has been overtaken by a job for several years you start to trick yourself into thinking that it's normal. it's not. my new job is great. i traded a job where i had several assistants booking my travel, getting me coffee and all that goes along with it to a new job where i am the assistant. i've got to say that at first, i struggled a bit. i was somewhat embarassed to say that i'd taken such a cut in "work status" which i know sounds horrible. but it is what it is. my focus was improving my quality of life and i truly did. this new job has vacation time that is nothing to scoff at, unlike said previous job. the benefits are amazing and you actually get holidays off. i know that getting holidays off is something many feel is obvious, well not in the previous job. you're lucky to get the big 4: xmas, easter, thanksgiving and new years day off, so you can imagine my delight at the thought of enjoying Labor day at home:)

3 comments:

Ern said...

Why is Katy's nickname "the zit people"?

Unknown said...

ha! wow, it's from a million years ago, really about 20 years ago...i'll find the photos and show you!

Katy said...

oh god! I saw that photo not long ago, was it you or me that had it. I know both of us do, but I did you show me? Erin, we dressed up like homeless people and put these white stickers all over our face and called ourselves the zit people. Yep we knew how to entertain our selves. Linds, you've gotta find that picture