The Beginning

I'm not sure where I changed my mind, but somewhere apparently, I did. You see, when I was a kid I wanted to be two things: a Dallas Cowboy's Cheerleader or the President of the United States. Lucrative goals I realize, but oddly neither came to fruition. On the other hand, I had one job I knew I never wanted: housewife. No offense to my mother, but I saw the job as a selfless, thankless deed that no one in her right mind would do. Spending the day running to the grocery store, making sure everyone has their homework done, cooking dinner and cleaning who knows what... no thank you.

And yet, here I sit, 36 (seriously when did that happen?) and on the verge of quitting my job to do the one job I never wanted that I now find myself in complete need and desire to do... be a housewife, a home maker, a stay-at-home mom, one of the unpaid workforce, and my family's CEO, COO, CFO and Sr. VP of HR. Not that I don't do these things now, but they will have more focus and more attention than they've received before.

There is only one problem. When you spend your entire existence avoiding a job, you really don't have the first clue about how it's done. I know how to manage a 40-hour-a-week desk job in a lovely gray cubicle with one child. I know how to manage the same job working from home 3 days, then 4 and now 5 days a week often with two children, both often home at the same time. I also know that doing this is unfair to the company and the kids and I care about that unfairness is the exact opposite of that order.

While corporate America continues to grow, continues to believe that only those important enough to have their photograph on the website in the org chart are important, what they've shown me is that in their minds the other 99% of us are completely unimportant to their opinion of the bottom line. My job has shown me that companies do not care if an employee has been with a company for 50 years and is one day from retirement. Loyalty means nothing if you don't rank a photograph. My best example is that because of a computer glitch that happened when I started working from home, my "personal" company email now addresses me with my employee number. Something like this... Dear 1234567. Fantastic.

With my new job, I not only rank a photo on the org chart, there are photos of all of our employees everywhere. Of course, there are only 4 of us and 1 dog, but there will be no Dear 1234567 letters in my inbox.

Now, back to that problem. I really don't know how to do this job. I am a little nervous. I'm guessing my skills at Candyland will be superb and my hide and seek skills are already legendary, but it's the other things. Can I really keep a house clean regardless of kids running through it like tornados? I know I can cook some things, but can I really cook enough to have a meal on the table every night without issue? I have no idea. But, I'm about to find out.