I got a job.
I know right now my family is all, “WHAT?!” since I haven’t told them yet (meaning mom/dad/sisters — yes, Josh and the kids know — it’s not like I’m a housewife with a secret life once they all leave the house for the day).
I feel a bit sheepish admitting that I have a job. I kind of take pride in being different from everyone else and one of the ways I have been different for the past few years is NOT getting a job when all the kids were finally in school. It’s the thing to do: baby goes off to kindy and mama goes to work. It’s practically assumed; a cultural automatic next step. Cause what good are you if you aren’t earning an income? Last year one of the boys even asked “when are you going to get a real job?” before I set him straight that taxiing him to soccer practice, youth group and bringing his forgotten items to school was more than a full time job.
If I’m being perfectly honest, since I have zero paid work experience in the past 17 years, I always felt that an entry level job couldn’t pay what I felt that my time and skills were worth, so why bother? (Yes, you get 100% honesty here). Was I going to give up knitting and Judge Judy time for $7 an hour? Um, no. I figured I’d be happier volunteering or doing other unpaid work that left my schedule flexible for the foreseeable future.
Shortly after our arrival in Abu Dhabi I was approached by someone in the admissions office at the kids’ school who asked if I’d be interested in applying for a job opening in the front office. She was my point of contact throughout the admissions process and said she was confident that anyone who could complete 4 applications and all the paperwork required for that had the skills required for the job.
At the time Camille was crying daily and we discussed the idea that having me on site might make the transition easier for her, but when it came down to it, we decided it was too much, too soon. I needed to put together a resume, but our household goods (and printer) hadn’t even arrived yet. Of course I could have overcome that obstacle, but it was symbolic that I couldn’t think about a new step until I had finally settled here and wasn’t living out of a suitcase anymore.
Two months later a part time position at the school library opened up and the librarian asked Calvin, “Do you think your mom would want to apply for the job here?” His answer, which is so accurate makes me laugh every time I repeat it, was this: “I don’t think my mom wants to work, but if she did, it would be in a library.”
That’s totally me. I think libraries are magical places and browsing through stacks of books is one of the things I miss living overseas. And the not wanting to work part? Nailed it.
But I have a lot of I blank spaces in my schedule book these days and was spending my free time being aggravated by the way that my helper/cleaning fairy was doing things around the house. Like washing dark and light towels together, turning my cream colored things a pale shade of off-green and then putting them away damp. No matter how many times I emphasize, “they need to be DRY” she doesn’t seem to get it. I don’t know if she’s trying to save time, energy, or just drive me crazy, but Josh thought I needed to stop playing Towel Police, get out of the house, and at least see what the job entailed (and I will try and ignore the sickly colored towels and hope that it doesn’t happen again).
So I took them up on their offer to shadow the person I’d be replacing and woman I’d be job-sharing with to see if I was interested. In the 60 minutes I was there I saw two of my boys and several of their friends come through the library on their way to classes and to meet up with friends. I got big smiles and “Hi Mom!” and I knew if I was going to work, this was the place I wanted to be.
The next step was to construct a resume which feels ridiculous when my work history doesn’t actually contain any work. But I dusted off my creative writing skills and wrote up an impressive list of my volunteer experience from the past 4 years: managing, scheduling, coordinating, public speaking, implementing and all those other action words that I actually have experience doing from my unpaid job as our Kid’s Church coordinator.
Once that was complete the next hurdle was the interview. But wait, I had no clothes. Literally NO clothes that were appropriate for a job interview. Not a single pair of shoes that wasn’t flip flops or running/CrossFit shoes. And my collection of harem pants and yoga tops that were fine for school pickup, weren’t going to make a good impression on the Head Librarian and the Director of Technology.
So Josh took me shopping. I could write an entire blog post about how I’m a terrible shopper and act like a 4 year old, only pulling out the ugliest clothes I can find in my attempt at humor or the most impractical fuzzy coat sweaters that I really want to buy because grownup clothes are no fun . . . I’ll just say Josh is a saint and he has style. Lucky me.
I joked that we were wasting money buying clothes for a job that I wasn’t even going to get. Or that we were spending more money than I would even make at my job, but he told me to hush and just try on the pieces that he picked out. I complained that the pants were too fitted and the shoes all looked like something “grandmas would wear,” but he persisted and I came home with some office appropriate clothing.
I dressed for success and surprise, they hired me. I think the tipping point was when they asked me what made me a better choice than the other people they were interviewing for the job I was able to say that working a front desk requires the ability to multi-task and prioritize effectively and with 4 kids at 4 different grade levels and all their different activities, I can multi-task and juggle multiple projects like nobody else.
Or maybe it was the shoes.
I started work this week and so far, so good. Yesterday I was on my way to drop something off at one of the classrooms and a 6 year old torpedo honed in on me, zoomed across the yard, and bear hugged my legs with a big, “Momeeeee!!” Yes, Camille is thrilled that I’m working at her school. And Calvin has “directed studies” every other day in the library so I got to see him today and he helped me figure something out on the school computer while he was there. The paycheck may not be huge, but the payoff has been big.