About ten years ago I finished my MBA. After finishing I worked for a .com and then launched a career in non-profit management and non-profit marketing. Flash forward 10 years and I am a stay-at-home mom struggling with my identity.
When I left my last job as director of marketing for a progressive public policy think tank (sounds good doesn’t it?) I didn’t realize that I would end up annoying everybody around me and even myself continuing to drag my business school lessons behind me like old luggage without wheels.
Here are some examples…
- I justify which leftovers we eat, what goes in lunch boxes and what we eat for dinner with FIFO (first in first out inventory management)
- I justify throwing away or donating all kinds of things by tossing off, “We have to consider our inventory costs.”
- I have created a year over year chart of donations to the PTO to track donor behavior and then say thing in the PTO meeting likes, “Well if you consider our year over year numbers you can see we are exceeding our projections.”
- When I am thinking about my to do list for the day I try to think about which things are urgent and important, urgent and unimportant, blah, blah, blah…
- I try to manage child behavior with SMART goals.
So, here’s to the more experienced stay at home moms for putting up with the likes of me and to the home economics teachers of yesteryear who paved the way.
Is it a bad sign that this actually all sounds like very good management of your current job? I wish I could apply some of that to my home life/PTA responsibilities!
Also, btw, (with my brain always in the annoying mode of “mine your personal life for publishable writing material,” ) that would make a great essay. Or, um, book proposal.