It’s a lesson I fear I’ll never learn.

Yesterday I was feeling stressed.  You see this morning is my child’s first Field Day and she is excited to have one of her parents come and watch and play.

• As my husband is traveling…that would be me.
• I would really like to get a run in.
• I have 2 clients currently and one potential who would like my help…yesterday.
• There is a luncheon happening nearby that I would like to attend.
• I usually make sure to get in a pilates session once a week and have not yet done so this week.
• My little one has baseball at 4p.

And that’s when my heads starts twirling and my stress level rises and I start to get upset. Until…I remember.  I cannot have it all, all at once.  And I cannot do it all.

Now my life would have been easier if I had scheduled pilates for yesterday when my calendar was more clear.  But hey, I’m human and yesterday was a nice procrastination kind of day.

Today would be less stressful if my clients had gotten me what they said they were going to early yesterday instead of me still waiting on it, so I can do my work.  But hey they’re human and I can only manage that process so much.

So something will give.  And I will be able to do most of the above on my list.  And it is a good day.  I just need to re-learn that lesson sometimes…okay almost everytime.

I miss my old office job. There I said it. Yes, I know. I work from home and for myself. I set my own hours and have total flexibility. What could be better?

Well….

• Working with people I like and respect who I can learn from and continue to grow. I miss that.
• Having someone else set my goals and priorities more often because doing it all myself is quite frankly exhausting.
• Having somewhere to go that is separate from home where there is a clear definition of what is work time and what is not.
• Listening to the radio on my commute.
• Walking around the office and half-hearing 100s of conversations about things I’m both interested in and also could completely care less about. But hearing the buzz of life.
• The soda & snack machines.

Many of these may sound pretty mundane but I miss them.  So when I read that Laurie Ruettimann had taken a new job I was not one of the many who thought “how could you?!”  What I thought was “Wow, good for her.  I am jealous.”

But the reasons I don’t have an office job are because I value my work/life fit.  And last night on a chat about workplace flexibility and work life fit with human resource types on twitter (search Twitter for #TChat to see the conversation) it was once again shown to me that I won’t have an office job for probably quite a long time.

Here are some of the gems that confirmed this:

Asking about what kind of hours that company keeps during the interview process is a “non-starter” and is seen as lazy – in other words don’t even bother applying.

Well I have made the choice to pick my kid up at school during the week.  It doesn’t have to be everyday, but I would like it to be at least 3 of the 5 days of school.  And that doesn’t happen at or after 5pm.  And I don’t want to get to the final stages of an interview only to find out this doesn’t work for a future employer.  I have 20 years of experience and great references from former bosses who I’m now lucky enough to see socially years after we worked together.  But still in HR’s eyes I’m damaged goods

HR’s perception generally is still that any work/life issues you have are your problem to solve.  The company you choose to work for is simply not responsible for that.  If you don’t like it you have the choice to simply look for another job.  Apparently the fact that they need people to do the work as much as people need them to provide work still eludes them.  They feel they are still in the driver’s seat and if you don’t like the way they operate you can walk.  I don’t know about you…but that doesn’t feel like a relationship to me, it feels like an unhappy existence rife with work/life conflict.

Flexibility is still seen as more for salaried workers than hourly.  Those of us now making our working consulting sent out the hue and cry.  After all we are paid hourly and that is precisely why I have the flexibility I have.  I can pick and choose which hours I work for my clients and which I devote to personal interests.  But that seemed to fall on deaf ears.

There were glimpses of hope, too:

Like the fact that if our workplaces expect us to be flexible when they have more work than they can handle, they need to be flexible with workers when they have important non-work stuff they need to handle.

And the discussion of the term “work life balance” and how that is not really the right term.  My take was when I think of balance I think of the scales of justice perfectly side by side.  And my comment to someone was.  ”I’ve never had that work/life day.”  And he agreed.

So 3 years after leaving my office job because of lost flexibility, I don’t believe I’ll be returning to an office job anytime soon.  I feel the conversation has come far in those 3 years but human resources and companies still lag way behind where workers are on this subject – in a recent survey 87 percent of employees reported that flexibility in their jobs would be extremely or very important in deciding whether to take a new job.

The part that really befuddles me is that there are good workers out there who want work and there are companies out there looking for workers but the “rules” of work are so constrained that the two cannot help each other out.  So I will continue to set my own goals and priorities for now.  Because fixing that assinine fact would be one of them.

I went to an amazing event Wednesday night. Yes, it was filled with luminaries (Marlo Thomas, Gloria Steinem, Jane Fonda, and Gabourey Sidibe) but that was not what made it amazing. What made it amazing was that I was with people who have my back when I need it and that all around me there were extremely interesting people all highly successful in their own rights…although I’m sure some, like me, weren’t feeling it that night.

I’m in the middle of the project. It is not going as I had mapped out. On many levels it is wildly successful. On one level it is (to me) a failure.

As I sat trying to get away from that reality something really resonated. Perhaps it’s because of this project. Perhaps it’s because I was looking to connect. Perhaps it was the Women’s Media Center logo I was looking at at just that moment.

Or perhaps it’s more universal than that.

At the event we saw a screening of a documentary that had followed Jane Fonda early in her career. She was wonderfully honest telling the group that she has a really hard time watching the documentary. It is a behind-the-scenes look at the preparation for and the opening of a play she was in that flopped with a boyfriend directing her. His behavior makes her cringe, as it did the audience.

After the showing during the discussion that followed the idea of career peaks and valleys came up. Gabourey Sidibe, who is wonderfully self-possessed at the ripe young age of 22, talked of how her career thus far has only climbed. And she mentioned how watching the film reminded her that there would be valleys…and she thought Jane’s honesty now and in the film would most certainly help her through those valleys.

I was struck by the concept of career peaks & valleys. It seems to be a phenomenon that is unique to celebrities. Only it is not. Everyone has peaks & valleys in their careers. But most in the corporate sphere don’t like talking about it. Unless of course you’re applying for a job and they see an obvious valley. Then it needs to be discussed. The peaks are expected, the valleys are some kind of character flaw that you need to explain, tell what you learned and assure them it will never happen again.

And it will happen again…and it’s okay. Without valleys how would we know we’re at a peak? Without valleys when/how would we gather our strength for that climb up? It is time for colleges and corporate spheres to get real and admit that valleys happen along with the peaks. Careers are not straight lines. In fact if a resume comes through that does not have some, then perhaps something is missing in the telling of that career story. And perhaps that is what interviewers should pay attention to, instead of seeking false reassurance we will never have a valley while with their organization.

I’ve got a little extra spring in my step today. I’m sort of feeling like a kid again. After all that was when Title IX came into being. It gave girls and women the right to play any sport they wanted. They could no longer be told “no, only boys can play.” And think of how that has changed the world as I know it.

When I was little I never even thought of playing hockey, a sport I happen to love and probably would have been pretty good at. Why? Girls didn’t play hockey. I had never seen one, all the adults around me never encouraged or even suggested it. I simply didn’t know it was a possibility. Think of how that ruling has changed so many girls’ lives today…including many Olympic Champions.

I did become a runner, though and it floors me to this day that the first time women were allowed to compete in the Olympic Marathon was 1984. I was in 10th grade. Seems ridiculous, right? I agree.

Well now women are standing up for working for real wages and not “pin” money. And they are taking the case all the way to the Supreme court. Alright, it’s actually a hearing to see whether or not there can be a class action…but don’t take my thunder away!

Just this day, regardless of how the Supreme Court rules I believe will begin to change everything about the relationship women have with work. There will and already has been great discussion about how women used to work for “pin” money, flooring many of the younger generations. I don’t think the work world will ever be the same.

And while I’m sure this will have implications that are also negative for everyone at work, I’m not yet sure if the positives outweigh the negatives. Perhaps I’ll know better in 39 years.

Or at least what it looked like last Friday.

Why would I admit this? Because for some reason our society thinks being able to do it all, all at once is attainable. And I find it not to be so. And apparently this is a trend according to a new book. Now I don’t need a new book to know that “good enough” is perfect for me. I live it daily, I’ve read blog articles about others living it and I see my friends all making life work this way. And here is what it looks like sometimes.

Yes, that’s right. I’ve become that mom. The one that will clearly have my future teenager asking me to drop her off at the corner far away from where her friends can see. Why? Because something has to give. And for me on Friday it was clearly wardrobe.

Neither my husband nor I had managed to do laundry so my 2 pair of full-length yoga pants were unavailable. And there’s nothing I dislike more than to shower before a workout only to have to shower again right after. So school drop off had me looking like this. And then the need to get a workout in for the first time in 3 days had me walking through the crowded streets of Boston like this. And you know what…I didn’t miss any work deadlines, my kid got to school (almost) on time, my mother-in-law’s visit was chugging along nicely and my husband made it to that doctor’s appt. he’d been trying to get to for weeks.

I say “good enough.”

I am trying to change the work world.  To change doing things “the way we’ve always done things.”  To get people to think outside of the box.  And honestly there are times it feels like tilting at windmills and spitting into the wind.  Luckily I have a great group of people tilting with me.

And we’re making progress.  Looks like the conversation has most definitely moved beyond the word balance.

Hey, if it’s become comedy…then it must have some main stream traction!

But clearly the conversation continues.  On the wording to use as well as how best to manage life.  All of life.  The part that is considered work and the part that is considered home and when and where those two intersect, separate and blend together.

Now that Dilbert is on board…I’m wondering when we’ll be seeing this as a topic on the agenda at the major HR and recruiting conferences? Yep I’m still tilting & spitting with my fingers crossed.

I was asked recently to be part of a Podcast at ERE.net about women in leadership roles in the workplace.  It was a very good discussion over 15 minutes.   And I believe what we all said in that short amount of time was highly accurate.

But I also think there is so much more to the story.  For one women have been in the workforce for the blink of an eye.  Seriously. When my mother was growing up the prevailing wisdom was she had 3 choices  - she could be a teacher, a secretary or a nurse…yes there were variations on that theme…but those were predominantly the careers open to women.

And one generation later we are looking around and saying – why aren’t more women managers? directors? ceos? on boards? C’mon give us a break.  We’ve accomplished much in 40 years – let’s celebrate that.  And let’s also really look at reality at work in that time.

Now I agree with Darren Shearer that there isn’t outright discrimination usually when hiring for a position.  I definitely do not believe that someone looks at a resume and says “we can’t hire that person, they’re a woman.”  Absolutely.  However as I look at my history in the workplace, the amount of unintended and societal discrimination that I’ve faced over the years is both shocking and yet, normal.

Job #1

• I overheard about 2 weeks in that I was essentially hired because I looked good in a skirt and had less of a Boston accent than the person I replaced.  But it was a recession and I had student loans to pay 6 months after leaving college so no fuss on my part.
• My duties in that job included going to the ATM for my boss and taking money out for him and shopping for birthday presents, Christmas presents, etc. for his wife.  Clearly not what I went to college for and certainly not what any male around me was doing for his boss, but again, a recession was on and I had already pushed back on fetching my boss’s coffee daily and getting his lunch from the cafeteria.  Mind you, this was 1991!

Job #3

• Each dept. had to cover the front desk during the receptionist’s lunch hour.  My dept. was made up entirely of men, except me.  Guess who was asked each week to cover?  Until I pointed out that it was not fair as I was not the lowest ranking member of the dept nor the highest – so why couldn’t others help out.  The result…my dept. no longer had to help cover the receptionist’s lunch hour.  A win for me…but definitely not for women in workplace.
• I became aware of a survey being done at work – who had the best body part.  Some of the men put together the ideal woman using fellow workers body parts.  They voted on who had the best legs (apparently I, the long-distance runner won that one), face, smile, hair, etc.  Even when this survey became public…no discipline was handed out for it.
• I mentioned I was the only female in my dept. – my boss – who actually was highly evolved and cared more about how well your work got done than your gender was a large champion of mine.  But he had to constantly fight to get me high-profile projects and when I did get them, it was clear to me that I had better do a much better job than my male colleagues would..or another good project may not come my way.  He said it much better than I with “I got you this…now don’t fu*@ it up.” No pressure.
• There was a male co-worker who was notorious for making women uncomfortable by complimenting their clothing, and leering at them constantly.  He was written up multiple times for this behavior, but never formally disciplined.  He was also in management.
• I was a sports producer.  It was my job to interview, get information about and be around male sports professionals.  I was good at getting interviews…just so long as I didn’t complain too much about the leers, totally inappropriate comments & proposals, or locker room behavior that was simply offensive.  I knew the minute I complained I would become too much trouble and lose my assignments and possibly my job. Mind you, I never gave anyone reason to think I was available…and in fact was already engaged and simply not interested.

There were other examples…but I think these show that women are in no way considered the equal of men in the workplace – in fact they are seen as less.   They are still too often not judged on their abilities, but other factors.  Which certainly helps explain the wage discrimination that is still a reality.

I also think my Dad’s words way back in my 20′s are still far too true.  He, the father who watched us kids 3 nights a week while my mom worked, who told his daughters we could be anything in the world we wanted to be, he said, “I don’t know why you’re spending all this money and time on grad school.  Some day you’re going to have kids and stay home with them.”  He was and is certainly not alone in his thinking.

Finally I think there is one other thing that studies about women in managerial roles do not take into account, who is being managed.  I’m guessing if you really look at how many people professional men & women are managing – it’s close to the same.  It’s just that the men manage people at work and the women manage people at home from child care workers, children & their schedules, house cleaners, babysitters to teachers and school bureaucracy.  I’m thinking maybe when men start managing more of the home workers, women might have some time & energy to manage more of the professional workers.

I feel like it’s been a quiet winter.  Like there was lots of fall activity and then we all went into hibernation for a bit.  Of course there were all those snow days.  And I am still getting used to the next phase in my work/life – living on a 9a-2p schedule now that my little one is in school.  So it could be just me, but I felt pretty disconnected from the HR gang, the work/life gang, and my Boston networking gang the past couple months.

Thankfully the thaw is on in Boston both for the snow and ice and also for the quiet.  Today I’ll be participating and leading a few online discussions on topics that definitely affect everyone…at some time.

At noon I’ll be talking about how cancer has touched my life.  And it has.  3 years ago I lost my Dad to lung cancer after a long cardiac illness and last May we lost my husband’s stepfather ironically to a heart attack, even though he had been fighting cancer for the entire 15 years I knew him.   For both of these men their families supported, nursed, drove to appointments, held hands, took a deep breath when they were appropriately cantankerous and had their lives turned upside down by the disease as if they had come down with it themselves.  It is one of those issues that will become more and more of an issue that needs to be thought about and dealt with in the work/life sphere.  Please join if  you’d like to share your story or learn from others who have been there or are there now.

Then tonight I will be a bit less reflective and much more radical on a twitter chat called #RadChat.  Here some recruiters, HR folks, work/life folk, everyday Canadians, Americans, and all around good tweeps will get together and chat on different topics.  Last time it was personal branding.  Today it’s work/life balance.  I’m hosting which with this crowd probably means – throwing out questions, getting a few jokes & barbs thrown back at me, me learning from lots of smart people, and having lots and lots of fun.  If you are feeling balanced, aren’t feeling balanced, hate the word “balance” as I do.  Come on along at 9pm on Twitter and type in to the search box “#RadChat” to lurk, listen or participate in the convo.  I think I’m ready for all that will be thrown my way…but won’t it be fun to find out?

It’ll be quite the day for me from somber to laugh out loud funny.  But isn’t that what life is all about?  No ability to really balance, just rolling with what comes and having the support system at home and at work to help it all fit together.

So let’s talk.

I’m not sure why we have become such a black and white world.  Perhaps it’s the political climate we live in today where either “you’re with us, or you’re with the terrorists,” is tossed around.  I mean I’m all for  healthy food at school – but I also think things in moderation are best.  Apparently I am in the vast minority, at least according to this poll.

And it appears to be so in the work world as well.  The pervasive attitude is still, either you’re at your desk which apparently equals working. Or you are not and therefore you are not working.

If you ask to work from home, you must be really be “working from home” and watching Oprah and eating bon bons.

If you don’t come to the office when it’s snowing out – you are not a good worker.

No wonder we all feel out of balance.  In black or white worlds you are either in the right or in the wrong.

In this environment how are we supposed to function as decision makers?  And don’t we want workers who can make good decisions on their own in the workforce?  I mean, if we take away all fat & sugar from school how will we expect our older kids to make decent choices when actually given a choice.  We need to act like and be treated as adults.  Which means accepting that if work gets done and done well – who cares where it’s done?  If it’s snowing and someone has stayed home – who says they are shirking?  And working from home should mean just that…someone is working while at home.  Those who abuse should be punished but the rest of us should be left to live away from the black and white and in a shade of gray…without repercussions.

Because I don’t know about you but I like the occasional bout of junk food at a Superbowl party and my kid has cupcakes on her birthday..and I don’t think that needs defending.

It takes a village.  How many times have we heard that, I wonder?  I know I’ve heard it, repeated it and thought I meant it many times.  But I really didn’t.  Because we live in America.  And capitalism is often about looking out for #1.  Getting ahead, not necessarily at all costs, but certainly by putting you and yours first.

Also, I’ve been a runner much of my life.  Started when I was 12.  It was about me vs. the clock.  Sure in high school and college I was part of a team, but even on a track or cross country team it really is more about individual performance first, collective performance second for most.

So what happened last weekend was a bit mind blowing to me.

Yep, that's me at the top...frozen stiff with fear

I came across some good capitalists who had an idea.  That endurance athletic endeavors being all about you vs. the clock are, well boring, not to mention selfish.  There can be a better way.  And they have put it into place.  They put together an event where people stop, turn around, help each other out, and don’t fret (overly) about their time.  And this is not an event for the faint of heart, mind you.  My 15 foot plunge off a tower into cold water was truly breath-taking and not in a good way.  But in an invigorating way.  And the help I had climbing the tower, overcoming my fears of jumping off a perfectly well constructed tower, swimming out of the really cold water and getting warmed back up after finally getting out of that f*@#ing cold water was amazing.  As was the whole day.

Maybe it’s because I have a child now and truly without my village I could not do what I do each day (although I could use more villagers!)  Maybe it’s because I’m older now and my fastest races are behind me so who cares about time, but I don’t think so.  The people who started the Tough Mudder challenge are in their prime competing years both professionally and athletically and they have chosen this path, specifically.  And many of the participants were in their prime years for PRs as well.

So I think maybe we’re seeing a trend here.  More of a village mentality.  And if that is true I think it is a great thing for those who embrace it.  Because throughout life you will rely heavily on your village.  And if you are used to appreciating, cultivating, working within that village it will be much easier for you.  Many of us came to that realization later in our careers when we finally took a moment to have children…and had no village.

I applaud the organizers of Tough Mudder, I thank my team mates and I thank so many participants of the challenge that I will most likely never see again.  I never felt this good after a race before.  I am now and will again be one Tough Mudder and I pledge that:

* I understand it is not a race but a challenge.

* I put teamwork and camaraderie before my course time.

* I do not whine – kids whine.

* I help my fellow Mudders complete the course.

* I overcome all fears.

Perhaps if more of us pledged to uphold this motto throughout life we wouldn’t feel so stressed and unbalanced.