Tuesday, October 28, 2008

My own personal mid-life crisis

Man - it feels like I have been gone forever! I logged in tonight and it was hard to see through the dust and cobwebs.

The last few weeks have been very bizarre. As you know, I got laid off a couple of weeks ago and in an amazing turnaround I received a job offer 5 days later. A good job with a great company. It has been quite an adjustment though. I forgot that some companies actually expect you to work during "normal business hours." Really? Normal? Business hours? Me? Oh - and they have a dress code. An REAL dress code. Not the whole "cover the fun parts" code I am used to.

I know what you're thinking and trust me...those were my thoughts exactly. I don't do well with that whole assimilate thing.

I started the new "job with a schedule and dress code" on Monday. I kid you not...I have had to completely reorganize my entire existence. I used to be able to stay up late (usually working) and then sleep in a bit and get up and make lunches and take Drew to school and then get coffee and go to work. I got to pick Drew up from school and schedule appointments during the day and go to all his little school events and generally do what I wanted so long as I got my job done and I ALWAYS got my job done.

I got to wear jeans and baseball caps and sweatshirts and flipflops. Getting ready in the morning took me about 10 minutes and that included a shower. On ball cap days I could wake up and get Drew and I out the door in less time than it takes to boil an egg.

Anyway, now that I have to be all respectable and such my evening schedule goes something like this:

Make dinner (I am sure that in some cultures ordering pizza counts as making dinner?)
Give Drew a bath (Does putting him in a tub of warm water and telling him to bathe himself and hoping he actually does it while I lay on my bed and pretend I am independently wealthy and living in Fiji count as giving a bath?)
Pack lunches (Yes. Putting a lunchable in his lunch box does, in fact, count as packing lunches.)
Put Drew to bed (This generally includes lots of tears and temper tantrums and screaming downstairs for water and snacks. Drew gets pretty fussy, too.)
Lay out clothes for next day (This gives me at least two additional snooze button slaps. Um...seriously? Totally worth it.)

After that I will hop on my laptop and work on some contract work I am doing on the side, work on building my Scentsy biz, work on stuff for the two different boards I am on, study for my upcoming PHR exam, read a bit, catch up on my overworked, overwhelmed TiVo and generally stay up too late to get a decent night sleep thus necessinating the over-usage of the snooze button.

I feel like an actual MOM now. You know. MOM. A science project completing, carpool driving, cookie baking MOM. It's weird. I think I may be having a mid-life crisis. I am considering dying my hair blonde, getting a boob job and piercing my navel. At the very least I think I am required to buy low cut jeans and pointy boots.

See? Even mid-life crisises have dress codes. Bah.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Welcome to my life. Hello, did you notice that I got my belly button pierced, own low cut jeans and pointy boots. Or maybe you did....LOL....

Anonymous said...

Yay! Where are you employed career woman?

jeff said...

Ahh, I love the smell of Corporate America in the morning. You had me at "Fiji". Actually, the Bahamas are looking really good these days--no income, capital gains, VAT or death taxes, AND you can bring guns on the Bahamian airlines, as long as you declare and unload them before you board! Now that's more American than...well...America. Expatriation never looked so good.

Beatnik said...

Sounds like you fit right in with that whole Job/Mom thing. If you get your navel Pierced, dont get a Tramp Stamp on your back. You would probably have to underline it with your T back underpants and get one of those high riding shirts for weekends when your not under Dress code.

So yeah, its kind of a Dress code all its own.