I was born under a rock.

I have no other explanation for how I ended up, at nineteen years old, living on my own without any of the most basic skills.

My first month in that first apartment, I washed my car with undiluted Spic and Span. Just poured the granules onto the car one sunny day, sprayed the hose and went to town.

The cop who pulled me over the next week had to ask.

Miss, what did you DO to your car?

I told him. I said I washed it with Spic and Span and now it was fugly and I didn't know why.

To this day I think he gave me that speeding ticket partly on account of my being so stupid.

Other people, they are a story of great romance or high mystery in their walk through life. They are self-help relevations. They marvel at the world as though it was a travel book full of big glossy pictures.

Me?

Yeah, I'm the 'How-To' experience. White paper, black ink, and some 3D sketches.

My very competant parents tried, Heaven help them. You clean the gutters every fall. You break an egg like this. You write thank-you notes immediately.

But somehow, none of it stuck to my brain. The words went in, bounced around, and then fell out my ears while I slept.

So there I was, on my own. And I had no idea how to check the oil in the car, how to balance my checkbook or create a budget, had no clue from pilot lights in the stove and couldn't properly shave my legs.

A day didn't go by that I wasn't either bleeding, broke, hungry or scrambling to find a ride to work.

This went on and on. Until I realized, Hey this is life.

As soon as I learn one thing, shit if there isn't always going to be another to learn right behind it. And knowing me, the hard way.

I was thinking about that today when I got a call from one of the junior folks.

My vendor had a meeting with my customer. Without me. She confessed. What do I do?

This was bad.

As a project manager, you are the Contractor on the job site. You represent all the work and all the vendors to your customer seemlessly. If the Roofing guy talks to your customer and tries to cut you out, that is a violation of the entire process. It's also a breach of contract.

And Junior was counting on me to tell her how to deal with it.

So I did. I walked her through it.

How do you know how to deal with this? She asked me.

I could have said, it's standard Project Manager process. Which it is, but of course I didn't learn it that way.

I learned because I once took a flamethrower to a vendor over a 50 million dollar contract. And once I had pretty much burned down the house, the yard, the block, the car, the vendor, and oh - myself.... along came a guy, probably dressed in black.

He leaned over my steaming self and said, calmly, You know Maverick, we got lawyers for this.

Junior laughed. They say there isn't much you don't know how to do.

I thought about the Engine light on mini-van, my "Universal" remote control, the so-called instructions to my son's Lego Pirate Ship, the dozens of burnt Christmas cookies I threw away this year, my unused wireless laptop, my unsubmitted travel expenses, and the 72 inches of paper that represents my retirement plan.

They, I told Junior firmly, would be wrong.

Posted by: Elizabeth at 11:29 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I guess "Mr. Anonymous" may have had a point, because tonight I have morphed into SuperBitch, the Boss From Hell (*echo* Hell... hell... hell! *echo*) more...

Posted by: Elizabeth at 02:12 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Note: This is my entry for Jay Allen's cool Blogging for Books contest. The assigned topic: best or worst experience you've ever had working for someone else. I picked "all of the above". Jay has said that for this we should get our funny going. And I tried. But I have written, instead, what my husband is calling "A funeral hymn for a dream". I hope you forgive me.
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Late at night, I'm holding on for tomorrow.

My son woke up this morning, and came looking for me. I wasn't there. He asked my husband "Mommy not home yet?" Because he hadn't seen me in a day. Because I came home so late last night and left so early this morning. I told myself, when I heard this with a flinch at lunch, that I would make it up to him.

I left the customer's office at 3PM but it took 2 hours to get home. I found my son, wired from watching TV all day. His teeth still unbrushed. I found my husband, writhing with the flu and a fever and hanging on by a thread.

I meant to help. I meant to.

But I had to collapse for a few hours before I could even remember my name.

I've become the kind of parent that I can't look in the eye. I cringe to think how easily I sometimes unplug from my son's life.

This isn't how it was supposed to be.

Growing up, I knew my life's ambition was to be a mom. I played teacher. I played author. I played rock star. Inside I knew being a mother was the one true thing I wanted to do with my days and my nights. Knew it like some people know they want to be astronauts, or doctors.

I also knew that paying jobs and me, well, let's just say that we didn't get along so well.

My first job? Babysitter. 13 years old. Let the popcorn catch fire and their kitchen was never the same. Paint took care of the most of this discoloration but the smell lingered for about 5 years.

My second job? Grocery store. Cashier. I stank. The manager was a family friend and he would regularly key into a register with my code and work it, in order to bing up my all-important "Items Per Minute" average.

Then my uncle died and I took off some time for the funeral. Then I asked for some more time off to go to his funeral again. Naturally, they had to fire me.

I actually felt bad for them when my father went in and demanded they expunge my records. How could they know that the shipping company had temporarily lost my uncle, necessitating an actual second funeral.

Even I thought it sounded like I was making it up.

My third job? At a restaurant. On my first day, I succeeded in committing a series of errors that, cumulatively, was nothing short of felonious.

But even after using a paper cup on the shake machine (to save time) instead of the metal one and spraying an entire line of customers with chocolate shake. Even after dropping the cash register tray on the floor, causing a scramble for money all over the restaurant. Even after exploding the top of the iced tea dispenser. Even after spilling the oil from the fryer and causing a nice cook to head to the the hospital with a possible concussion...

...Even after all that, they made me keep coming back.

Like my own "Twilight Zone" meets "Groundhog Day". The manager was my English teacher. Clearly on some kind of a Yoda trip. I, however, am no kind of a Luke Skywalker.

My first job in college? Campus tour guide. Accidentally led a group of alumni into a wedding in progress at the campus chapel.

My first job out of college? File clerk at a factory. Walking around and around a table collating a handout. And around. In nylons. In summer. In a break room. In a factory. With, you know, beefy men around. Taking LOTS of breaks. And trying to pat me.

My next job? As a temp in a trucking company, as a receptionist. I was fired after 4 days and called into my Temp Manager's office. "Elizabeth," the woman said sternly. "Don't wear your skirts so tight. Or so... yellow. And only one button undone on your blouse."

"Can it be the bottom button or does it have to be the top?" I snarked. She fired me on the spot.

Eventually, I became a chaplain. The kind of warm fuzzy job that didn't include me being near money, electricity, food or food by-products, or hornball truckers.

I regularly worked projects with other charitable agencies. One time a group of us was making our way into one of the Projects here in Chicago, when a big guy tackled me to the ground. He covered me with his sweaty body and kept telling me to shut up.

I screamed and never noticed the rest of our little group huddled nearby.

"Quiet!" He ordered in my ear. "Stay still for God's sake. Can't you see we're being shot at?"

It wasn't for another 10 years that I finally "fit" somewhere. I intuitively understood MegaCorp. It was like all these bizarre half-skills that I'd acquired all my life suddenly knit together to make me really good at something.

Hard? Yes.

Crying in the bathroom, hoping no one notices me. That kind of hard.

Learning to swim with the corporate sharks, I had a few bites taken out of me. But I am good at this. I am better at this than anyone I know outside my corporate life. I want to sing the chorus from Handel's Messiah. I love this job! I LOVE this job!

And looking back, I would have done it for a decade, maybe a lifetime, happily; stuffing my first dream away.

Then Bear came along.

And in an instant, I remembered why I was put on this Earth. I was born to be his mother.

And I dropped Mega like a hot rock.

Once he was in my arms, I knew certainly what I had known as a dream growing up. Motherhood was the only job I want as a full-time occupation. Luckily for me I had 7 months. 7 months where our plans worked and my job description was two words: Bear's Mother.

There isn't a word for how my soul felt. Happy is the pastel wannabe of the word. Amazing is a dim cousin.

Then circumstances changed and I was suddenly scrambling to nail down a paycheck job. Thank God, Mega took me back. Thank God, I do well at Mega. Thank God, Mega pays me well in return and set me up to work from home.

But there are days when I have to leave before he wakes. Days I am still gone when he goes to sleep. And I don't get to pick the days. Sometimes those are the days when Bear really needs me. One time it was the day he took his first steps. This is not Mega's fault. These are my choices.

Even though it's the only job I ever wanted, it's not my only job.

That means after doing dozens of jobs really, really, really badly I find myself torn between 2 jobs I love.

Well, maybe "torn" is not the right word. "Torn" implies that I am tugged between knowing which one I should do. I know I should be with my son.

What has me "torn" is the work. Ripped up inside over increments of hours, when my ability to prioritize is hog-tied. When the almighty dollar comes first and I twist in agony waiting to get back to who is really important.

God help me, I have not turned out to be the mother I could have been or the mother I wanted to be.

I am trying, instead, to be the best mother I can be.

I'm making decisions in the creases and sometimes? Too often? I am getting it wrong. Those are the times, like right now - like at this very moment in the deep of the night -that I just pray and hold on.

Hold on for tomorrow and try again. more...

Posted by: Elizabeth at 06:58 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Some days, you just can't win.

"What's the schedule?" "Where's the process?" "Are you going to use the new Change Control?" "Do I have some of that budget?" "What pool is providing resources?" "Where is the testing lab? How long is the soak?" "Will this hit the account P&L?"

Being a project manager means putting up with a lot of people wanting to know, in essence, "Are we there yet?"

Ick. bah. stresscakes.

At times like this, I do what I must. To mangle James Taylor (more than he did to himself): For a few moments I take my mind on vacations and I go to Spetses in my mind.