Got the job

Got the job!!  God is so good, and so good to me!

In our NorthRidge Church small group, we talked recently about whether or not our work is a:

1.  Way to make money
2.  Career
3.  Calling

I feel like I have been through all three of these in cycles.  Right out of b-school, I definitely wanted a career.  Marriage?  Probably.  Kids?  Mmmmm . . . maybe.  Career?  Absolutely definitely positively.

Then being married was so wonderful that we couldn't imagine anything better than growing our family and then work became an occasional way to make money.  Doing income tax returns for H&R Block, part-time clerical work here and there, mindless stuff where I learned how to gracefully accept criticism from people who would have worked for me in my earlier life.  Excellent humility training.

Then I re-entered Career.  Husband's pension minimized, social security unreliable, time to find a job that would get me back on an upward track for the next 15 years or so.  Thank you  to my last job for giving me that.  New experiences, new skills, new successes.

And now I am onto what I hope is Calling.  I am back, after 20 years, to doing what I love to do the most.  Supporting customers, developing relationships, solving problems, selling solutions.  And it is in a company that values sales and marketing, rather than seeing us as a necessary evil as my last company did.  And it is in a company where women are not an anomaly!

Given the financial debacle of our last 5 years, this path has been a great and wonderful thing.  Incredibly difficult, full of tears and sleepless nights, but a path that has shown us over and over again that this God who runs the universe also cares about me and my family.

The new stay at home Mom

This spring, being a stay at home Mom means than I am staying at home while my children travel the world.  My 22 year old son is touring South Korea with his college a capella group.  My daughter is doing manual labor as part of a missions trip to Haiti.  My husband and I are home, in Michigan, working to support their lifestyle.  Did that sound just a tiny bit jealous?

When I was a sophomore at Purdue, efforts were underway between the business program and the language programs to create an international business major.  Since I was a business major with a french minor, I was a candidate.  As such, I was offered a scholarship to attend school in France for the summer.  All expenses paid except airfare.  Before the days of airline deregulation (yes, I am that old), this was something around $2,000 -- about $1Million in today's dollars.  It was almost as much as a year at Purdue, meant giving up the summer job that was a critical financial component and was therefore completely unattainable.  My parents were both working but there were two more educations to fund after mine and money was tight enough that I had to add water to my shampoo bottle at the end of the month to make my monthly allowance last.  I mentioned it briefly to my mom but knew the answer before I asked.  Someone else got the scholarship and the first international business major at Purdue.

Now, my kids did not ask for any money for either of their trips.  The singers funded their own trip with a year's worth of paid performances and fundraising requests from alums.  The missionaries each sent out 100 fundraiser letters and expect to have raised all the money they need to pay for the trip.  Both of my kids will be sleeping in dorms/hostels and on floors, eating little and working hard (if 2 gigs a day can be called hard, moral advantage daughter here).  Ultimately, the difference between me at Purdue and my kids today is that they can imagine such a possibility exists and can put together a plan to achieve it.  AND they can expect to have other people understand this and support it as well! 

We had dinner with some friends last week whose son is living in Australia and daughter in South America.  The opportunities for global living in our global economy were unimaginable 30 years ago.  So I will put aside any petty parent-child jealousy, celebrate these amazing and wonderful opportunities and scour facebook for any photo updates.  Being the stay at home mom is not so bad.  But after we are done paying for college . . .

Just another unemployed Monday

So this morning I was reading about Solomon and how instead of asking God to give him wealth, power and fame, he asked for wisdom when he became the new king of Israel.  And I thought, what if I asked for wisdom?  Would my lack of employment concern me less?  Would I stop freaking out about how to pay for the kids' college in the fall?  Would I value the days more?  Focus more on what I can influence and less on what I can't?  Stop getting annoyed because my kids didn't call me this weekend?  Well, there is no hope on that last one but otherwise it seems like asking for wisdom is a good idea.

So I asked God for wisdom.  And the first thought that came to me is that maybe a really good use of my time now is to focus less on myself and more on others, starting with my husband.  There are only so many hours of a day a person can spend on job boards and sending networking emails.  I feel wiser already.

The first final interview

Yesterday I had a final interview with a company I would love to work for.  They have a valuable product, a positive culture and quality people.  And the guy I interviewed with seemed like a strong manager and good person.  I think the interview went well.

So why do I keep worrying that I am too old?  I know that because of my age, I have strengths that can't be shown on my resume.  I am more patient but also more persistent than I was 20 years ago.  I have greater wisdom about what motivates customers to make decisions and how to engage them in the selling (buying) process.  But I also know that taking time off to raise my kids carries a price.  I don't regret it, never will, never would go back and do it differently.  But now I have to face the fact that I am going to have to continue to fight my way back into credibility.

Either that or I am just a little paranoid about the age thing.