It turns out that a totally blank new blog is kind of intimidating. I've been keeping up our family blog, The LilyPad, for so long now that I take for granted the ease of posting something there. I wasn't ready to be faced with the emptiness that was the "create a blog" dialog.
So what's this new blog about? The short answer is that after 10 years of education and 5 years at an aerospace research lab I'm no longer sure that I want to be in aerospace engineering. I've held this suspicion for some time, but until now have been successful in ignoring my discontent or finding something to blame it on (this job, this project, this team, this environment, etc). In the past I have had enough "good periods" at work to get me through the overall malaise. But lately that mojo has been wearing off.
I suspect that the big change that brought my work unhappiness to full scrutiny was having children. There are a few ways that being a Mom has forever altered my work experience. The first is the obvious effect on my time. Since I returned to work 6 months after my daughter's birth I have been working 3 9-hour days instead of 5 8-hour days. I took another 6 months off when my son was born last spring and am now back to my part time schedule. In many ways its wonderful and I feel very lucky. I am home with my children 2 days a week, but I still get to go to work 3 days and "use my brain". I have been working on flight control certification and design for space shuttle missions to the ISS for the last five years and it's a wonderful part-time gig. I get to be part of some pretty exciting stuff, yet the work is pretty well-defined and I have ample time to get it done. My team respects my schedule and we work together well to make sure that my reduced hours have minimal effect on the work getting done. My boss and teammates are all very supportive.
OK so you're probably asking - what the hell is my problem? Well there are a couple of issues with my job that I could tolerate before, but am having a harder time dealing with now. One is the loneliness and isolation that can come with being an engineer. I spend many hours a day at my desk with my computer. A number of the people at work are nice, but not super social. There are a lot of folks who never really leave their offices. This problem is amplified by the fact that my entire team is based in Houston. So all of my "meetings" are by telephone. I have few chances to see the folks I work with face to face. There aren't many offices I can walk into and start brainstorming on a problem. I tend to lean towards extrovert and my work environment is not great for that. I think this was less of a problem before I had kids because I got a lot of adult socializing time outside of work. Now - not so much.
I recently attended a woman's lunchtime talk at work where the guest speaker was a woman who's been at my company for awhile and has made it all the way to head of a directorate. I think she's the first woman to do that. I'm pretty fascinated by her as she has three children, has taken longer than normal maternity leaves, worked part-time here and there and has still managed to do really well at a company with a technical staff that is at best 10% female. She said one thing during that meeting that really struck a chord with me. She said that when you're trying to balance a busy family life and work that you have to be sure that you're doing what you love. Because if you're not... well it's just not worth all the effort. I swear when she said that I almost started to cry - it describes exactly how I feel. At times, I like my job, but I really don't love it - not even close. And lately the daily dance of juggling two children, household tasks and a job that fails to fire me up is starting to wear on me.
So that's why I'm here - to get on the path to doing something I love. But first I have to figure out what that might be!
No comments:
Post a Comment