And now for the pre-flight safety instructions....

I am not normally a superstitious person. “Normally” being the operative word here.

We live in a world where reason either does or should prevail. Except of course, in politics where reason seems to be just about the only voice missing from the room. But that being said, I do have one superstition I’m going to cop to – I always pay attention during the pre-flight safety video or demonstration. I don’t mean I stop talking or put my book down, I mean I pay attention. I watch the video, I listen to the flight attendant, sometimes I even read the pamphlet.

Why, I am not exactly sure. It’s not like I think I’m going to actually prevent the plane from crashing if I’m a good little passenger and pay attention – like arriving safely is my treat for being well behaved and listening. And it’s not like I think I have much to do with whether or not the plane reaches its destination safely – I would say the mechanics and the pilots own this puppy, not a suburban lawyer traveling with two kids and a couple Nintendo DSs. But even though I know all this (along with all the statistics indicating that we’re more likely to die in a car accident on the way to airport than in actual plane), I’m still superstitious and I still make sure I watch every little thing. After countless flights, I know it by heart and yet still, I watch.

So, over the years, I’ve become a kind of connoisseur of the pre-flight safety message. Some airlines deliver it in a matter of fact tone, much like they’re telling you how to pot a plant, not save your life. Some are comedic about it, which is nice, if done well. But then there are some that come across like their trying to make you feel all warm and fuzzy about the fact that the plane has eight emergency exits (two in the front, two in the back, and four over the wings). You know the videos I’m talking about. They are the ones with the beautiful people, the soothing voices and professional editing. I wouldn’t doubt it for a second if someone told me they actually worked with a psychiatrist to determine the right tone of voice and volume to use in order to best soothe the nervous flyer.

It is this last version that I recently encountered on a flight from Southern California to the Northwest. While I like the fact that the flight attendants look friendly and competent (I’m sure their acting coaches would be proud), I’m not so sure about how the whole piece is scripted. They have flight attendants showing us how to do everything from the seatbelts to the exits to the vests. But when it comes to the mask - you know, the one that is supposed to drop down in the “unlikely event of a drop in cabin pressure” – they have people playing passengers who just look too perky. I mean, they’re smiling. Come on, who would be smiling at a time like that? I can understand not wanting the passenger actors to portray how they might really react since panic, screaming, chaos and uncontrollable sobbing isn’t really the message the airlines want to convey, but really, smiling?

It’s almost like they weren’t taking the whole this-could-save-your-life thing seriously.

Okay, that’s a little bit of an overstatement, I know they take these things seriously, but smiling?

The Trouble with Being a Workaholic

Wikipedia describes a workaholic as “a person who is addicted to work. This phrase does not always imply that the person actually enjoys their work, but rather simply feels compelled to do it.”

I love that second sentence.

So, here is the real problem with being a workaholic person, even if you want to stop, you can’t. You just become a workaholic about not being a workaholic. I know, because this is me. I have times at work that are extremely high paced and intense and times that lull. From a survival perspective, I know I’m supposed to take advantage of the lull and re-coup my energy for the next spurt of intensity. You know, drop my workaholic tendencies and just sit back, relax and ‘enjoy the quiet.’ There are two major problems with this. As a workaholic, we may be able to sit back and relax and enjoy some quiet time, but not at work. You may think I’m exaggerating here but I’m not. To a workaholic, the notion of relaxing at work is as incomprehensible as well…I can’t think of anything more incomprehensible to compare it to. Work is, after all, supposed to be work. The second problem with this theory is that a workaholic needs work to stay energized. Like any other addict needs their drug, we need work. How sick is that?

Sad and sick, but true. I know. The lulls just suck the energy and motivation right out of us and then we become like trolls - grumpy and willing to eat you if you dare walk over our bridge. You might even see us hunched over our computers, drooling and scowling.

So, here is the workaholic’s dilemma. When there is a lull, in order to not turn into a troll, do I move slower through the tasks on my to do list and try to make them last throughout the day or, do I get them all done in the first hour at the office and then twiddle my thumbs or just make stuff up for the rest of the day?

The problem with the first is that it is also against the grain of the workaholic to slow down – we’re ruthlessly efficient and deadline driven. We like nothing better than to check off the list and move on. We get a sick sense of accomplishment if we can look back at the end of the day and know we got through everything on our list. And the more on our list the better. You know what I’m talking about, workaholics out there. Even if you aren’t a workaholic you know who we are, you can spot us a mile away. We’re the ones smiling smugly, one might even say ‘smirking,’ as we leave the building at the end of the day. Don’t mind us, we’re just reveling in our own sense of self worth.

So, moving slow, though it might make sense from a recharging perspective, will just make us twitchy and, well, probably unrecognizable by the end day. (I know, some of you might think this would be a good thing and you’re probably right.)

On the other hand, if we get through our tasks in the first hour of the day and then have nothing to do but live inside our own heads, well, that might be even scarier. You never know what we’ll come up with if we have a lot of ‘free’ time. You think the scope of that project only includes reconciling billing practices in a subsidiary? WRONG! It is now a comprehensive plan to reduce our environmental foot print, bring about world peace AND reconcile the world’s major religious conflicts through our very own new and improved reconciliation tool!

And by the way, if you’re wondering if you’re a workaholic or not? If you read the previous paragraph and found yourself nodding – welcome to the club.

It’s a mighty dilemma and I know all of my fellow workaholics will commiserate with me on this one. Luckily however, being a workaholic, I can create a whole project, if only in my own mind, on how to resolve it. In fact, it might take me months to formulate. In the meantime, I think I’ll just keep posting to this blog.

Ah, Boys

The scene: In the third row seat of the car with my oldest son
The time: 7:00 PM
The destination: Dinner at a local Mexican restaurant with the whole family

“Mom?”
“Yes.”
“Can eyes just pop out?”
An interesting worry for a six year old. I think he’s been watching too much Tom and Jerry.
“Not generally, sweetie no.”
“But they can pop out, right?” he reemphasizes.
“Yes, they can. But it wouldn’t be good.”
“How?”
“How what?”
“How would they pop out? I mean what would happen to make them pop out?”
This is one of those moments when a parent debates just how age appropriate some information is.
“Usually if something bad happened, like a car accident or illness or injury,” I answer hoping this will end the conversation. But, it’s easier to beat around the bush with corporate colleagues than my kids.
“If one of my eyes popped out, would I still see with the other eye?” he asks blissfully unaware of the parental heart palpitations this image is causing. I know it’s not the worse thing in the world but hey, I don’t like to see my kids get slivers or hang nails let alone think of them with a glass eye.
“Yes, probably,” I manage to answer.
“Would my eye pop out if I got stabbed?”
I blink, where is the world does he get this stuff? To the best of my knowledge, we’ve never even used the word ‘stabbed’ in our household.
“Um, maybe. I guess it would depend on how deep you were stabbed or how serious the injury.”
He’s quiet for a few seconds and I think I might be off the hook. Wrong.
“So, if my eye popped out, would that string thing, you know the one that holds my eye in my head? Would that still be attached to both my eye and my head?”
Oh, god. The image of all those cartoon characters with their eyes popping out of their heads, hanging on by a string flash before me. Only it’s my son’s face. My son's eyes.
“Honey, this conversation is kind of gross and we’re on the way to dinner. Can we talk about something else?” My fingers are crossed.
“Oh, sorry. Sure,” he responds easily. He’s distractible, like most young kids, but he’s also one of the most empathetic kids I know for which I am extremely grateful at the moment.
Ten seconds pass in silence. And then…
“Mom, if I got shot in the eye, would I die?”

A few thoughts on work/life balance
Maybe if we just stopped talking about how to achieve work/life balance, we might have some time to spend actually doing it. As un-PC as this sounds, I am so tired of hearing complaints about work/life balance and I’m tired of seeing it as a topic of discussion at every conference I go to that’s attended by women. Most other conferences, professional conferences or even topical conferences on subjects that are relevant to both men and women rarely have this session. But attend any women’s conference and lo, hear the outcry if this isn’t addressed.

It’s not that I don’t get it. I do. Believe me, I do. I work at a big corporation that is dominated by men (then again most are), I have two young kids and a husband (which some might think, myself included, that this occasionally means I have three kids), and parents and in-laws (that live with us), a non-profit I chair, and friends all over the world and all the activities that go along with those wonderful things in my life. Trust me, I know about work/life issues.

But when it keeps coming up over and over again, I can’t help but feel like we’re looking at the issue as something we can’t figure out on our own (or don’t want to) so it is yet another thing we are going to make someone else’s responsibility. (You’ll probably figure out over the course of reading this blog that I am BIG on taking personal responsibility. I think the ability of Americans to consistently make everything someone else’s fault or responsibility is really rather shameful and probably a sign of our cultural decline). In other words, are we so afraid to make a decision, to take a stand on what we each think is important that we would rather hand the decision over to our respective work places and ask them to decide what our work/life balance should be? I don’t know about you but frankly, I think I’m a little more qualified than my company to decide how I want to spend, or divide, my time.

I can already hear the clamoring of voices protesting my simple suggestion. I’m hearing voices from around the country saying things like “but I have billable hours I have to meet,” or “You don’t know what it’s like at my company” (or the variation of that “you don’t know what it’s like working with the people I work with). As to the last two, unless we work at the same company, you’re right. I don’t know what it is like working where you work or working with the people you work with. But does that really matter? What I’m trying to say is that we do have a choice, we always have a choice. There’s a billable hours quota at nearly every law firm I have ever heard of. But, that doesn’t mean you actually have to meet that quota. Oh, it does if you want a chance at making partner, but hey, there it is, your choice. If you want to make partner, then you’re right, you do have to make your quota. But if that is what you want, stop complaining about the hours.

I can practically see some engineer sitting at some terminal somewhere in the world saying something like “I have to get this product coded on time, if I don’t I lose my job.” I’m sure you know that this comment can be modified to fit a variety of careers. But whatever way we look at it, it is still a choice – you chose the job. And chances are that when you take a high pressure job, well…the high pressure part really shouldn’t come as a surprise. If it does, it probably means you’re in the wrong job for whole different set of reasons.

I’m not naive, I know jobs have ups and downs and I know they can get stressful and awful at times (that's what friends and wine are for in my opinion). I also know that not everyone has the luxury of knowing that they are generally employable (this is distinctly different than people believing they are employable – the first has to do with market needs, the latter has to do with confidence and/or ability). So I guess what I’m saying is to just suck it up and if you don’t like your work/life balance, take some responsibility and change it. Maybe it means working more, maybe that means working less, maybe it means working differently. But man-up or woman-up and take responsibility for it either way.

It occurred to me, when I was picking the name for this blog, that someone might just think that it will contain my thoughts and feelings about going through a major life transition like addiction or divorce or death – you get the idea. I want to disabuse you of this idea because it quite simply isn’t what or why I am writing. I picked the name because I think life, in general, is always in transition. And I don’t mean this in some hippy-dippy sense. I mean practically speaking.

Think about it. How many times a day do you transition from spouse, to parent, to worker, to child, to sibling, to friend and then back again? We could make Wimbledon green with envy the way we bounce around between roles. Back and forth and back and forth for hours and hours and days on end. And each time we move into a new role, we transition.

Why do I find this interesting? Because, as a woman (and I’m sure the same goes for men, I just can’t speak to that) I know that I move between a lot of roles, both externally and internally. Not only am I a mother, daughter, sister, wife, daughter-in-law (blah blah blah) but there are other parts of me that only exist internally though they make their presence known every day. I know you know what I’m talking about - it’s those little parts of you that just are but you don’t acknowledge them all the time, not unless you want to be brought to the attention of HR or the local psychiatrist that is. Here is a little example of just what I mean: I can be in a meeting in which the intellectual attorney in me maintains control for hours as we work through some complex process. But then, when the meeting is over I find I’m done, too. Or, rather that ‘attorney’ part of me is done. And I find myself smiling, maybe even laughing, about something like…well, like my husband’s Beavis and Butthead impression. It’s like suddenly, my inner sixteen year-old pops up for a brief visit, just to remind me she’s still there, even as I walk the halls of corporate America.

So now you get my idea of transition but maybe you’re not sold on why I think it’s interesting. So, here goes another try at explaining why I made this my theme. I’m a “working mother” (which every mother knows is about as dumb a distinction as you can make since every mother is a working mother). That designation tells you exactly two things about me: 1) I work and 2) I’m a mother. But what about everything else in my life? What about everything else about me that makes me me – or you you for that matter? Life is more than black and white (did I mention I’m an attorney, already? gray is our favorite shade. We love it. Lots of it) and there is more to us than just what we do or the roles we play. There are things that feed who we are, things that make us smile, things that make us appreciate our time here and the people we get to share it with. Don’t get me wrong, I also know there are there are things that can suck the life out of us, that make us cry and maybe even make us hate our lives or even the people in it. But these things are still part of us, part of our lives and part of the transitions we go through. So this is the point of my blog: I want to celebrate those transitions (not deny them) and I want to share the things that make me laugh, the things that (for lack of a better term) feed my soul. I want to acknowledge, expose and exploit all the little pieces that make us who we are.

So here is what my blog will contain: Random thoughts usually sparked by some event, social commentary, probably recipes (I love to cook and eat and drink wine. Lots of it as long as it is red), definitely book recommendations (I’m a scarily voracious reader) and other random things that make life (or at least my life) fun and interesting. And there may be a sad entry or somber one somewhere along the way, it’s part of life, too. I hope you will enjoy it, find it interesting and fun and take it for what it’s worth.