Comeback Moms Part 7

Lucinda taught the cla.s.s and brushed up her knowledge of the ADA. When she went back to work she was able to put a couple more lines on her resume.

Marley used to be a journalist. For several years when she was a reporter, she lectured once a semester for an investigative journalism cla.s.s at the local university. When she decided to quit to raise her children, she looked into the possibility of teaching a cla.s.s at the university. They didn't have a slot available, but they asked her if she'd be interested in advising the student newspaper. She agreed and spent fifteen hours a week at the newspaper office. She advised students on interview techniques and edited stories. She perfected her teaching techniques and became a student favorite. Even people who didn't work at the paper sought out her advice. She worked there for two years before the school offered her a job teaching a cla.s.s. She parlayed one cla.s.s into instructing three. Now she's a full-fledged professor.

One thing both these stories show is that you can use volunteering to worm your way into teaching after you've forged a relations.h.i.+p with the university. If you're patient and offer your time and expertise on other projects, you will be rewarded for your efforts.

Here are some tips from Marley and Lucinda:

* Contact the division of your local university that could benefit from your skills, for example, student newspaper if you're a journalist.* Arrange a meeting with a professor or student coordinator.* Tell them what your skill set is, your experience, and what times you are available. Ask if they need anyone to help out on a volunteer basis with any of the student organizations.* Once you're volunteering, make it your mission to know the dean and the professors in the department.* Make sure to do what you say you're going to and more. People recognize good work and dependability.* After a few months have pa.s.sed and you've developed a track record, tell them you'd be interested in a paid position when one becomes available.

POLITICS.

We've talked to several women who parlayed their pa.s.sion for politics into careers. Karen Hughes and Ann Richards are obvious examples.

We've also talked to women who have used their love of politics as a way to boost their careers. Monica is an example.

Monica got involved in politics to develop business for her law firm. The firm encouraged its attorneys to become active in the community in order to meet new clients. Volunteering for organizations evenings and weekends after working an eighty-hour week wasn't her idea of relaxing, but she did it. She began when she was single and then continued after she married and had a child. As she became more involved in her various commitments while working, she unfortunately found less and less time to spend with her son.

In the beginning, Monica signed up for the board of the Dallas Bar a.s.sociation Environmental Law Section and volunteered for 500 Inc., a group of young professionals supporting the arts.

One night a friend of hers convinced her to attend a Young Republicans meeting. Monica was hesitant. She was tired. She wanted to go home and sleep. She had put in her volunteer duty that week.

It was 1991. George W. Bush, the son of the then president, spoke at the meeting. As he spoke, Monica became more excited about politics. She had always had an interest. Since high school, she volunteered on campaigns and interned in two congressional offices, but as a practicing attorney she hadn't found much time for political pursuits.

At the meeting, Monica recognized the state chairman of the Young Republicans. He was a former high school cla.s.smate. Back then, he was the cla.s.s clown type of guy. He never struck her as the type to do something as serious as running a political organization, but he was doing just that. He invited her to become general counsel for the state organization. Not bad for an evening's work.

She agreed, and within the next few years became in ascending order the president of the downtown Dallas chapter, state chairperson, national general counsel, co-chairperson, and finally national chairperson.

In each of the positions, Monica's networking base expanded exponentially. Soon she knew young opinion leaders from coast to coast. Those contacts helped land her an offer to work on the Bush presidential campaign. Even though she decided not to work with the administration after the election, she still gets job offers.

To keep herself in her friends' minds, Monica makes three trips to Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., a year and schedules lunches with friends working at the White House or elsewhere in the administration. Although she is not free to travel with a political campaign for months on end like she used to, she volunteers in some capacity. Now that her youngest child, Chase, is starting preschool, Monica plans to ratchet up her political activities by volunteering in the next gubernatorial election.

This brings up an important consideration. How much time you'll have to actively stay involved in politics or other pursuits will depend on the age of your child. When she's an infant or toddler, you may find it difficult to find time to pursue networking opportunities or volunteer. You'll need to carefully plan and work out special child-care arrangements that accommodate your goals. Once your child enters preschool, however, the hours he is in school provide you the time you'll need to accomplish some of your volunteering and networking goals. As your child progresses in school, your opportunities to expand activities targeted toward your ultimate career goals also increase, at the very least, during the hours he's in school.

Our friend Shari is a stay-at-home mom but she's keeping her hand in the job market by serving on the Texas Pension Review Board. The board oversees all the Texas public pension plans, over $150 billion in a.s.sets. The group meets six times a year and allows Shari to network with members of the legislature, money managers, leaders of the community, and city employees.

Ann Richards, governor of Texas in the early nineties, was the ultimate stay-at-home mom who used her network to get a good job. Ann stayed home to raise her four children for more than a decade. The one interest she followed with zeal was politics. She volunteered for political campaigns; she stuffed envelopes and canva.s.sed door to door for candidates. After years of licking stamps, she gained enough experience and a solid reputation to run a campaign for Sarah Weddington, the woman who argued Roe v. Wade Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court, for the state legislature. Weddington won. in the Supreme Court, for the state legislature. Weddington won.

Soon after that Ann's friends convinced her to run for county commissioner. She won. She continued to win larger elections. Eventually she ran for governor of Texas and won.

As she spent more time in politics, she spent less time at home. She says she thinks her younger child suffered some because she couldn't devote the same amount of attention she used to at home.

"But I don't regret it," Ann says. "You can't fall into the trap of thinking you have to do it all or can do it all. You have to take advantage of opportunities when they're offered."

SPORTS.

This category surprised us until the athletic among us explained it. Lucy is a pa.s.sionate tennis player. She got more into it during the three years she stayed home. She joined a league at a nearby country club and started playing matches a couple times a week. She met lots of people in a wide cross section of professions and she had a ready-made subject to talk to them about (sports). She had opportunities for continued contact through the matches, so the relations.h.i.+ps developed naturally over time. When she thought she wanted to go back to work, she mentioned she was thinking about it to her tennis friends. They were able to direct her to a few different options in her field, financial services. Their names helped get her through the door and into the interviews. Her resume impressed potential employers, as did her tennis skills. She said bosses, especially in finance, like to see an interest in sports because it shows drive and dedication.

Our friend who became a golf diva to keep close to her husband tapped the friends she had made on the golf course when she wanted to go back to work. Our yoga girlfriends did the same thing. You may not think of the people you meet doing exercise as a network because you are comfortable talking to them, but guess what, you're networking.

ATHLETIC RESOURCES* Luna tours offers beginning bicycle tours just for women, www.lunatours.com.* American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance gives a national overview on what's going on in female sports as well as links for Web sites in every state that list athletic opportunities for women, www.aahperd.org.* American Running a.s.sociation provides information about running groups and how to plan a race, www.americanrunning.org.* Contact a local gym or community center to ask about local swim, tennis, soccer, and softball groups.

FREELANCE OR HOLIDAY WORK.

KimMarie kept her contacts up with G.o.diva chocolates by doing contract work. KimMarie was a regional manager of G.o.diva stores when she quit. She was a mover in the company.

When she left to stay home with the kids, she made it clear that she wanted to work for G.o.diva during Christmas and Valentine's Day. What big executive thing was she doing? Stocking store shelves. That's right, she was unloading boxes of chocolates right along with her former employees.

A lot of women refuse to do work that's beneath the level they used to be at. This is a huge mistake. You have to be in front of people or on their minds to get offers and opportunities. Sitting alone in your house thinking about all the things you won't do isn't going to get you anything but more time alone.

You have to get out there.

Megan is a freelance writer and public relations person by trade. She has a philosophy: Say yes to everything, be fun, and follow up. Fortunately, her mother lives nearby and loves looking after the kids.

Whenever someone asks Megan for help with a job, she agrees, even if the job doesn't pay or isn't something she'd choose over a root ca.n.a.l. She says yes because often unpaid jobs turn into paid offers or referrals to other more lucrative opportunities. Same thing with doing a job you don't want to do. It can lead to other things.

Megan agreed to help a friend who needed someone to write a press release the next day for a university oceanography program. It wasn't the kind of writing Megan usually did but in keeping with her philosophy she said yes. She did it and her friend was so grateful she offered her more work, which s...o...b..lled into a full-time job. The job includes an annual trip to Paris for a scientific conference.

WHERE DO THE KIDS GO?.

There are several child-care options from which to choose.

Nannies Not all nannies work full time. Some have part-time arrangements. Others will do a share arrangement if you can promise them full-time hours working for two or three other moms.

If you are fortunate enough to afford a nanny, a reputable placement service can help match you with the right person to fit your needs. Even if the service you use is regarded as the best in town, be sure to ask lots of questions.

* Is the caregiver CPR certified?* Does she have a good driving record should you need her to run errands or take the kids to sports practice?* Does she have a criminal record? Doing time in the big house is probably not the kind of experience you want for working in your house.* Be sure to personally check all her references. Keep in mind that a placement service will charge a fee, but it may be well worth the cost.

Years ago, Monica began her quest for a nanny by running an ad in the local newspaper. For the most part, very nice women who happened to be in the United States illegally responded to the ad. Since one of Monica's legal specialties is immigration law, she felt it would be particularly bad form to hire one of these women. Just as she began losing hope, she found the perfect candidate. The woman was in her early twenties, appeared to love children, and seemed very eager to work. During the interview, the woman spoke pa.s.sionately about her church activities. Monica thought she'd finally found her nanny. As a last little formality, her husband did a background check on the woman. Turns out she was on probation for shoplifting, a fact she conveniently failed to mention in the interview. Needless to say, she didn't get the job and Monica went the placement service route.

Certainly, you don't need to hire a nanny or put your child in a day-care center. You quit work to avoid that scenario. But you can take advantage of other child-care options to meet your needs.

Mom's Day Out Churches, synagogues, and community centers offer Mom's Day Out programs, which allow you to drop the kids off for a few hours on a set day and time each week. The programs are usually free, open to the community at large, and only run one day a week. Contact your community churches and synagogues to find out more information or ask friends with children to make recommendations.

Babysitting Co-op You might also organize a babysitting co-op with other moms you know. Mothers take turns watching one another's children on designated days.

Family Connections Your mother, mother-in-law, sister, or a close friend might also be willing to help care for your child once or twice a week while you take a cla.s.s or do volunteer work. Your husband may also agree to pitch in and help some evenings or on weekends.

When Andrea moved from Delaware to Iowa, she needed to take a few evening courses to obtain her Iowa medical license. Her husband agreed to watch their one-year-old son, Sam, the evenings she was in cla.s.s. She says when she approached her husband about making this commitment, he agreed because he knew that it would help her should she decide to return to work.

"My husband loves spending time one-on-one with Sam," Andrea told us. "He actually feels like he misses out on a lot of fun activities and milestones of Sam's because of his work schedule."

Nursery and Elementary School It's true as your children grow older they don't need you every second of the day. When your child enrolls in nursery school you can plan to volunteer or do something out of the house while he's in school.

7.

Part Time It Ain't Perfect, but It's Doable It's the nirvana we all are looking for. It's the holy grail. Every woman we talked to, every girlfriend of ours with children or thinking about them says what would be great is to have a part-time job they could work at while their children are in school and be back home in time to pick them up. And then, without fail, every one of them says there's nothing like that out there.

Not quite true.

What doesn't exist is the stress-free, prance in and flit out when you want job. Also imaginary is the job that will give you the same pay and advancement opportunities as those working full time, though this is starting to change in some industries. For instance, in some law firms it's now possible to work part time and still be on the partners.h.i.+p track.

Any job you have will involve stress and compromise. Some days working part time will be inconvenient. Occasionally you won't be able to pick your children up from school. Once in a while you'll feel like pulling the covers over your face and calling in sick. That's life. As Karen Hughes said to us, if your employer is willing to be flexible for you then you owe it to them to be flexible back.

Also, keep in mind that temporary jobs often turn into permanent positions. When employers like you, they'll find a way to hire you.

If you love what you do, part time is a way to continue doing it. Warts and all, it's a good way to keep your skills up, your foot in the door, and to make some money.

While things in the world of part-time employment have improved dramatically in the past few years, there still aren't as many part-time options out there as we'd like. Among full-time wage and salary employees, 18 percent would prefer to work part time; of those, 44 percent say their employers wouldn't let them, according to a 2002 study of 2,810 workers by the Families and Work Inst.i.tute, a nonprofit group based in New York. The good news is that the employment experts we talked to say part-time options are increasing.

To retain more part-time workers, some law firms are using a test in the same vein as the quizzes in teen magazines to find out what they need to change to make jobs more enticing. The rate-your-job test measures how many hours part-time employees are actually working, what kind of a.s.signments they get, how much they get promoted, and what their attrition rate is compared to full-time workers. Many of the law firms that used the test changed polices because of the results. Instead of having part-time employees work on a case-by-case basis with their choice of a.s.signments from a selection of those that no one else wanted, the firms are now paying part-time workers more per hour and putting them on the partners.h.i.+p track like their full-time counterparts.

Accounting firms including PricewaterhouseCoopers a.s.signed coordinators to track the progress of part-time workers. The coordinator ensures that the workers who are being paid part time aren't working full time and that they are getting their share of choice a.s.signments. All this means it's getting easier, more acceptable, and more common to work part time or to cycle back to work after an absence-good news for us.

Aquent Marketing Staffing, Inc., a Chicago-based company, specializes in placing stay-at-home moms with marketing experience in full-or part-time temporary positions for project management, data a.n.a.lysis, research, and marketing communications across the country. They fill gaps due to surges in business and maternity, medical, or family leave. The company helps women brush up their resumes and brings them up to speed on industry and technology trends.

Willow CSN is a Florida call center company that allows its employees to work from home as they take rental car reservations, respond to complaints on consumer appliances, or answer the phone on behalf of the more than twenty companies that have contracted with Willow. There are many other call center companies, which now provide the option to work at home, including Alpine Access in Colorado, Working Solutions in Texas, and West Corp. in Nebraska. Companies like JetBlue, all of whose eight hundred reservation agents work from home, are jumping on this trend.

Network, LLC, is a group that helps women update their resumes and interview skills. It also posts part-time, full-time, and interim job openings for members at www.womenatworknetwork.com.

Deloitte & Touche launched Personal Pursuits, a program that provides training, mentoring, career coaching, and networking events to moms who quit working for the company but hope to come back on a full-time or part-time basis.

RETURN TO THE SAME JOB.

You've been home for a couple years or a few months and you're interested in doing something outside home-nothing all-encompa.s.sing. Is your old employer an option?

It depends on lots of factors.

Say you worked there for years, you have a specialized skill set, business is booming, and you have a great relations.h.i.+p with your former supervisor. Okay, if you have a combination of two of the above criteria you're doing pretty well. It also helps if another woman in the company has tried what you want to do and has been a raging success at it. On the other hand, it hurts your case if she was a flaming failure.

All that said, do your homework. Talk to the human resources person about the hypotheticals of part time. How hard would it be to be part time at your old company? Has anyone done it before?

Some signs that part time isn't a good deal at the company include: if fewer than 3 percent of employees work part time, if most of the part-timers are women, and if part-timers quit at higher rates than full-time workers. All these signs indicate that part-timers aren't taken seriously, valued, or treated well, because if they were more people would be working part time, men would jump on board, and employees would stay at the jobs if they were happy.

Put together a written proposal. Write everything down to help you organize your thoughts for your talk with your future employer. Consider giving a version of the proposal to the employer if it seems like it will help your case (see the box on p. 130). Also, read Creating a Flexible Workplace Creating a Flexible Workplace by Barney Olmstead and Suzanne Smith. This book offers excellent suggestions on now to approach scheduling and work load issues. by Barney Olmstead and Suzanne Smith. This book offers excellent suggestions on now to approach scheduling and work load issues.

PROPOSAL TO WORK PART TIME* Describe in detail how the work will be accomplished and how your responsibilities will be handled.* Mention your future goals at the company. Would you like to go full time eventually?* Be willing to negotiate on your schedule. If they prefer you to work three full days as opposed to four half days, if at all possible, agree. Make it clear in your proposal that you're flexible. You can always renegotiate terms later if they like your work.* If you can work from home, describe how you think you can accomplish that, for example, do you have a home office? A dedicated phone line?* Identify your own strengths. What skills do you have that few others do?* Keep your emotions out of the negotiations.* Propose a trial period of six to eight weeks.* The most common complaint you'll get from employers is "If I let you do it, then everyone will want to." The answer is that most people can't afford to work part time and they're afraid of what will happen to their careers if they do. Plus, experts say a rush to part time doesn't happen when one person is allowed to do it.* If you're close to former coworkers, you may want to feel them out about the part-time possibilities in the office before you talk to your boss.

Once you have your proposal in order, e-mail your former supervisor and ask her to lunch. You pay. At lunch, informally tell her what you want to do. Remember, this isn't an interview. You shouldn't expect her to give you a conclusive decision at the end of the lunch. It's enough that she'll think about your proposal. It's very likely that she'll have to bounce it off of other people in the office before she forms a definitive opinion. Relax and think of the lunch as a market research opportunity. You're testing your idea with an employer. You'll be able to figure out what's good in your approach and what needs work.

Give your former supervisor a couple weeks to call or e-mail you back. If you don't hear from her in that time period, don't a.s.sume that she hates the idea and you. As stay-at-home moms, our time horizon is dramatically different than it used to be. We want answers in a couple days, and we don't understand how it could take someone longer than that to figure out the future of our employment. Take a deep breath and think back to when you were at work. Remember how you'd have the best intentions to follow up on something, you'd make a mental note and a Post-it note and put it on your computer, and then days would go by before you even thought of it again. That's what your former supervisor is going through. Your request doesn't contribute to the bottom line or her boss's evaluation of her performance so it isn't on the top of her priority list.

After a couple weeks go by, e-mail her. Make sure the e-mail doesn't sound snippy, demanding, or whiny. Reread it several times, have your husband read it, and then sit on it a day before you send it. Wait another week for a response. If you don't get one, call her and ask what she thinks about your proposal.

Don't feel discouraged. J.C. has a friend who spent a year discussing a part-time position with her former boss. They went to lunch several times and discussed the myriad of possibilities. She could work half days every day; she could come in two full days and one half; she could telecommute for a portion of it. They went round and round. Her boss needed to think about it; she had to talk to her higher up. J.C.'s friend didn't end up working there. It was frustrating, especially since she'd been telling people for months that she'd be going back to work any day. The discussions did teach her what to ask for and to be patient.

A few months after negotiations with her old employer fell apart, she found another part-time possibility through a friend. This time negotiations only took a couple weeks. A year later and she's still there.

Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings worked part time on two occasions when her daughters were young-once for a few months, and then for a year.

She said she pitched her bosses about taking over projects that were short-term and therefore didn't provide a lot of stability. She knew that for her coworkers who were primary breadwinners, the projects weren't desirable because when they were done in six months or a year, there was no guarantee there'd be another opportunity. That'd leave the question of where the mortgage payment was coming from up in the air.

"I chose flexibility over stability," Margaret said.

She also found ways to shave off portions of work into discrete projects that could be done on her time schedule and at home.

"You have to make the case that you have a project you can do and that needs to be done," she said.

Amy, an a.n.a.lyst for a Fortune 500 company, can vouch for the frustrations of trying to negotiate part time with your old employer. In 1991, she proposed a part-time arrangement after the birth of her second child. The company agreed. The only hitch was that the office she worked in never had a part-time employee at her level before.

"Once they agreed, they couldn't figure out what do to with me," she said.

Things got off to a rocky start the first day. After an hour of condescending instruction on how to fill out new employee forms because she was now cla.s.sified as a temporary worker, she picked up her things and headed to work.

"I told them that I would go ahead and fill out the forms myself and if I did anything wrong they could just let me know," she said.

In the first few weeks her supervisor kept a.s.signing her work, taking it away, and s.h.i.+fting her from one project to another.

"He was trying to figure out how much I could accomplish in twenty hours. I felt like I was playing musical a.s.signments," Amy said.

A few months into it things were finally going well, or so she thought. Her subordinates weren't quite as happy. Amy's workers could only contact her when she was in the office, not on a daily basis like other bosses. Some of them felt that her part-time status hurt their own chances for advancement. It was a tough issue to smooth out with them. She could rea.s.sure them their advancement wasn't being hindered, but only time could prove her right.

A year later, Amy left the company's employee payroll and became an independent management consultant for the firm. The company had changed its policy on part-time work and insisted Amy either come back full time or quit. She suggested they keep her on as a consultant and since she was no longer an employee they wouldn't have to pay her benefits. She was able to make this pitch because her husband already had health insurance to cover the family. She did lose other benefits the company offered, and because she was self-employed she had to file quarterly tax returns at a higher rate. She also recognized that by becoming a consultant, she lost job security. Despite the company's initial agreement to take her on to do consulting work, there was always the possibility that it would be easier for them to find her services no longer needed than it would be if she was a paid member of the staff.