I'm linking up today with Julia for Working Mommy Wednesday.
I have always been a working mommy. I work at a place large enough to get FLMA and took 12 weeks off after the birth of Connor and one week before and 11 weeks after the birth of the twins.
I work at a community college. It started as a part-time job as a secretary while I finished my Masters in History. I always wanted to work at a college, but I thought that meant I had to teach. I realized that it doesn't mean that at all. I finished with my M.A. in 2003, but I'm still here. Working behind the scenes at a college. Now I evaluate transcripts, assist with the creation of articulation agreements with four-year schools, and a plethora of other things that fall under "and other duties as assigned" category on the job description.
One of the things that has happened in the past couple of weeks is that we are almost to the completion of a HUGE project 2 other people and myself took on. It allows for our students to do unofficial degree completion scenarios on themselves. The project has fallen mostly to me to finish. We had a lot of bumps in the road, namely - our consultant did not help us in the way we needed, so we blindly built this system ourselves. There was a lot of programming, planning, and even guesswork involved. I am in charge of updating the system - 100+ degrees and certificates needed to be built, then modified to reflect changes in 5 catalogs. And I am almost done! At other schools, this can be a full-time position in and of itself. Here, it was just something added on to my already crammed schedule. (Lucky for me, it gave my Type A personality a time to shine!)
I don't always like being a working mommy, but it's something that I have to do to provide for my family. I don't always like my job - mainly because it gets monotonous - and that job at a local four-year private school looks very appealing and would pay a heck of a lot more...........
but I'm happy here. I love my co-workers, and more so I love the environment I get to work in. I get to help students with their future. And what's better than that?
Comments
In England we get up to a year off maternity leave, which was wonderful when I had my little boy but I hadn't realised how much I missed the social aspect of work until I went back. It's also a real treat now I'm at work to get 5 minutes each morning in the office to enjoy a quiet cup of coffee before opening my emails!! Thanks for sharing your story - and good luck with finishing off the project, L xox