The C of Living Imperfectly: Choice and Career #atozchallenge

Talk as little of yourself as possible or of any science or business in which you have acquired fame – Martine’s Handbook to Etiquette and Guide to True Politeness, Arthur Martine, Dick & Fitzgerald Publishers, 1866.

A couple of years ago, I went to see John Farnham in concert. For those who are unfamiliar with Mr Farnham’s work, he is an Australian legend singer whose biggest hit was a song called You’re the Voice from an album by the name of Whispering Jack. This particular concert tour was a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the release of the 1986 album. He sang the whole album track by track in order. As John (who has a wonderful sense of humour which comes through in the concert banter between songs) explained he had the idea of undertaking this concert tour in his kitchen one night and that unfortunately, he didn’t really think it through. For you see, his biggest song was track number 2 on the album which meant it was sung early on in the show.

I feel the same way about the letter C and the concept of perfection as applied to career. This is a real big one for me. And it has come earlier in the Challenge than I would have liked. So much for building to a crescendo.

For this post, I have no real wisdom to share other than my own experience.

Career has always been a big issue in our family. Being the child of immigrant parents it was drummed into me form an early age that education was a priority and that I should pursue a profession. My parents had sacrificed a lot in delivering to me a world of opportunity in this land called Australia. I just had to do my bit.

And I did. And it was good for about the first 20 years. My identity and much of my energy were firmly tied to my career. The one other thing I really wanted to be outside of career woman was a parent and thankfully, the Universe blessed me to have that experience twice.

But one day, I woke and it was good no more. Every job has its ups and downs, stresses and strains, wins and losses. Mine was no different. Every other time though the feeling of malaise lasted a matter of days or weeks. This time was different. This was a lingering, confusing doubt that had me thinking “what if” and what really was on the other side of that office divide. I remember leaving every office at lunch time and breathing some real air and watching people having a life and feeling very disconnected.

For the next seven months I tried everything to push through the feelings as I had always done in the past. And with every passing day, I sank deeper and deeper into despair and confusion. Tasks that had been easy and second nature seemed insurmountable and I had lost my will to learn. My thoughts swirled round and round in my head in ever-increasing circles, the answer was there somewhere but it was just beyond reach.

It was dumb I suppose, but the thought of changing careers was impossible. Based on the remuneration and status I had achieved, by earning and being anything less I felt I was letting both myself and my family down. How could I possibly justify such a radical change given the sacrifices my parents had made, given how much I had invested in my career? How could I justify having to spend money on being retrained and reskilled whilst not bringing in an income and how could I justify being so selfish? How could I do any of it at my age?

The perfect wife, the perfect mother, the perfect daughter and the perfect income earner all were at stake.

So I quit. I quit so I could think and strategize and I firmly believed that when I walked out the door, I never wanted to work again. Everything that I held certain was up for grabs. It literally felt like I had walked off a cliff and had no idea whether the landing would be painful. I had never, ever just walked away from anything before.

During my time away from work, I explored that non-office life and provided for my family in a non-monetary way. I walked and thought and thought and walked and came to the realisation that priorities can and do change in life and that it was quite acceptable to change track to give effect to this new world order. That was my light bulb moment, career perfection blown away by the wind that was enveloping me on the cliff tops which formed my favourite walking path.

I had been stuck in a prison of my own making and at last I found the key.

What then transpired was that I went back into the workforce in a similar, but not the same area. What I lost in income, I gained tenfold in motivation, focus and learning.

Career perfection or career satisfaction, the choice was always mine to make and I didn’t even know it.

In the words of John Farnham, from You’re the Voice”

We have the chance to turn the pages over
We can write what we want to write
We gotta make ends meet, before we get much older

Saturday Soapbox: Keeping It Real With Role Models

True it is that it is Sunday morning here, but in cyberspace everyday lasts 48 hours and it’s still Saturday somewhere – hello to all my West Coast US readers!

Earlier this week, I wrote about Nigella Lawson and how she seemed real to me as a domestic goddess. Nigella is in stark contrast to Martha Stewart who is about as real to me as a set of silicone implants. I am not talking about Martha’s appearance rather her approach to domesticity. With all due respect to Martha and her followers there is no way I am spending two hours a day folding my towels and sheets so that they form colour coordinated, scented sentinels at the ready. My linen cupboard, as a place for storing functional material, is a semi-organised lucky dip.

This got me thinking about the role models I have had and the women who have been seemingly trotted out to me as role models during my life. As most of you know, I am in my 40’s. I have read various articles which place the year of my birth anywhere in the late Baby Boomer category to the early Gen X basket and if that were not already confusing enough within something called “Generation Jones”. What is Generation Jones? I regard myself as a Gen Xer but whatever the label, I am amongst that generation of women who were led to believe we could have it all. Just how we were to have it all was the $64 million question.

I have spent my working life in a male dominated industry. When I started my career there were very few women in senior power positions and those who were did not seemingly have it all. They had parts of it, but never the whole box and dice. Even now, some two decades later, the statistics are sadly lacking in terms of senior women relative to the percentage of women in the industry as a whole. I will be upfront and say that I have never placed much credence in the view that there is a glass ceiling. There are a whole lot of reasons as to why the statistics are the way they are that have nothing to do with a glass ceiling – I won’t bore you with those reasons. Let’s just say the statistics are now trending in the right direction, albeit at a pace that is certainly not hare-like.

In all fairness to my industry they have tried to grapple with the lack of senior power women. Some of the measures employed include women’s networking functions, skilling and reskilling seminars for women and even affirmative action. I will be upfront again and say I am not a fan of any of these. The answer to me lies more with a change of culture and attitude towards flexible working practices – an issue, that with an aging population, will increasingly affect women AND men. But’s that’s a whole other blog post.

Time and again, I have sat at these functions listening to these supposed power women role models and thinking that people need to keep it real. There was one female executive who was paraded as a role model who indeed had reached the dizzying heights of corporate success whilst being a mother to three children. What became evident as she spoke was that she had a passel of nannies and other paid help and a schedule that enabled her to sleep four hours a night. Whilst I am very pleased that it worked for her, how many of us can function fully on only four hours sleep a night? I know I can’t. Also how many of us can afford paid help, especially at the start of our careers?

Yet another woman who travelled the world in her corporate guise had been married three times and had the reputation of a ~~pit bull~~ ball breaker. After hearing her story, not only was she not someone who I wished to model myself on, but she was someone with whom I could not identify. In saying that I make no judgement call on the reasons for remarriage/divorce or the state of being divorced. All I know is that it is not something to which I aspire.

Show me a woman who has a successful career, a family, gets at least seven hours sleep a night, is involved in her family’s lives, is personable and approachable and possibly has a bit of baby spit on the shoulder of her business suit and I am on board. I appreciate that everyone is different and that the issue is quite subjective, but it’s important that we keep it real for those that are coming behind us. There is way too much spin in the world already. Maybe the lesson here is that one can’t really have it all.

Right now my hands are fully occupied juggling balls that don’t include a perfect linen cupboard. Maybe by the time the perfect cupboard comes under my radar domestic science will have evolved to a degree where I can have my colour coded scented linen sentinels at the ready in under an hour. One can only hope.