The Circle of Life in the Labour Force

I find myself in the interesting yet confounding position of looking for work and mentoring younger women in the broadcasting industry looking for advice about looking for work. Would I listen to myself considering I'm out of work? It makes one question one's decisions throughout a career; decisions that have inevitably led to my place in middle age life today.

While unemployed, I'm happy. Maybe I shouldn't be happy? I'm not happy about being unemployed but content and confident that my choices throughout my career were the right ones for me at the time, choices that forced me to stop and "smell the roses" now.

I had breakfast today with a bubbly, enthusiastic young reporter who has chalked up incredible experience in a relatively short time, slugging it out and proving herself in difficult circumstances. She recently walked away from a job situation and tells me some of her colleagues say she's crazy. I tell her she's crazy to stay if you're not happy. It's a case of "Do what I say" though, not "Do what I do or did.."

I advise her not to do what I did...stay somewhere too long! Trust your gut feeling, I say, even if it means you might be out of work for a while. As long as you can get by and especially if you have no ties or obligations, take control of your career early before it controls you! It took me way too long to realize that. While I loved my job, I didn't love what was happening to me but didn't see or acknowledge how the quality of work life was so negatively affecting me. I needed a nudge and boy did I get it. Decades of hard work, and loyalty don't always earn loyalty back...a tough lesson.

Learning does last a lifetime. I've also in my mature years learned another lesson: there are certain times, certain milestone moments in life when careers must take a back seat. Burn-out is becoming rampant in today's workforce and family/life balancel must be brought back into the equation. In my rush to get back into the workforce, after giving birth to my son, I gave up precious months and years with him. In my desperation to hang on to a media-made "identity" in a growing negative landscape, I lost my own sense of value. I have it back again. I also have time to focus on the things I'm passionate about: my family, my home, my community and MY future. And yes that includes a pay check down the road but not at the price of my sense of self and well being.

The Art of Dog Walking

I promised her today. When I joined the Free World a few months ago, dog walks were supposed to be a daily event. They are most of the time...all through the long cold winter, EXCEPT when it was blowing snow or icy. And all through this spring EXCEPT when it's raining....or...more and more now...except when I ve filled up my daily calendar with events!

Yoga twice a week, a good thing I decide, having tea with Mom and or Aunts and or sisters or lunch with Mom and or Aunts and or sisters and or friends. There are weekly, often many times weekly charity and community functions and the occasional promising business meeting a.k.a dipping of the toe in the work force, albeit ever so gingerly and fleetingly...at this point.

My point is, like moving into a house with bigger closets, I am filling up by social space and the worst culprit, which I still maintain is keeping in "the loop", and "up to speed" is the square box on my new home office desk. I "go to work" every day around 9:30. My hours are usually 9:30 to 12:30, then, perhaps an hour or so in the afternoon, depending on the weather. Today it's sunny and warming up and my new boss is very open to cutting me some well-deserved slack.

She knows all this. Tilly knows that if I don't put on shoes right after breakfast, she has to wait until "after work". There is the look of anticipation in her eyes as I peruse the morning paper but... no shoes...no walk...not yet. It's 10:42 and she's given up on me, lying on the living room floor trying to lose her doggie disappointment in a late morning nap. But I do love my dog walks. It's one of the few times I really breathe, outside of yoga class. I think as we go, about what I have to do in the next few hours, days, weeks. I think of how wonderful it is just to walk and breathe and think ...and smile! Okay Tilly, let's go!!!

Yoga in the Morning

There's nothing like "double pigeon" to loosen you up and stretch you out to start the day.
There's also the benefit of clearing the mind and clarifying thought just ahead of an important business meeting. It's great to have a yogini in the family! Transformation time: from yoga pants and poney tail to business suit and tamed tresses! Here's hoping for some good news on a rainy day... I feel myself edging closer to a microphone once again. I see such a void in the kind of broadcasting I enjoy most at a time when we need it most! Stay tuned!