As I sit here afraid to breathe on my laptop because it is within kilobytes of crashing, it occurs to me the leaders of today’s consumer products companies need a little slap in the head…er…feedback. “Attention companies, what will it take to get products that work, consistently, at what they were made for, for more than a couple of years?”

I’ll start with my laptop. Purchased 3 years ago for a whopping $2500, my IBM Thinkpad is not working properly. In fact, it has not worked properly for most of the last year. Somehow the hard drive is full, yet when I look at how much space my programs and files take up, it comes to about 10% of my 15 GB hard drive. I’m guessing it is the thousands of Microsoft and McAfee updates that occur daily and/or the basic system files (most of which I really don’t use) which also slow my boot-up process to a whopping 8 minutes. (I should send IBM an invoice for my cumulative invested time, I think, so I can retire.) There is also some kind of corrupted area of my hard drive, which prevents me from using that area and also from deleting files located there. I call it my own personal black hole. So, to remedy this, I am told I must backup all of my files somewhere, reformat my hard drive, and re-install everything. Assuming I could pull this off without any data loss, (Outlook files are NOT automatically stored in one’s documents area, for example, but are hidden elsewhere in the ether and are, in fact, “hidden files”, which you must unhide before you can even see them.) I’m guessing this process is going to cost me some time and cash or just a lot of cash.

Then, there is my dishwasher. 5 years ago for about $1000 we purchased a high-end Maytag. It was claimed to be very quiet and able to “sanitize” dishes because it adds extra heat to the water. Sounds good, right? At 3 years we had a new pump installed and lately we have found unidentified rubber parts on the floor outside of the dishwasher. Nothing on the top shelf comes out clean anymore and running the beast is louder than having a conversation in the kitchen, which is strangely what I like to do in my kitchen after dinner. The prospect of buying a new dishwasher is aggravating to me because ASSUMING we find one to fit the exact space again, I will have to spend time buying the product, arranging installation, and supervising the installation.

I recently traded in a Honda Odyssey after a 4 year lease. In less than 4 years I replaced a battery (after several calls to AAA to jump start my car) and tires, as well as responded to a recall notice to replace something with the transmission. One of the automatic side doors was temperamental, working only on even days, I think. The air conditioning was also sporadic and seemed to work opposite to what was needed. Again, in addition to money, resolving these issues cost me TIME.

In every case I made purchases of high-end, high-priced products from industry-leading brands. I did not load up on gizmos and gadgets to do anything special – I just wanted a laptop to run basic office applications, a dishwasher to clean my dishes, and a reliable bus to transport my family. What I though I paid extra for was quality, reliability, and service. While what I got was probably better than what non-industry-leading brands provide, I personally think this is just not good enough.

My parents had the same washing machine for 25 years. (My 7 year old washer and dryer have both had new motors this year.) They drove the same car for at least 10. The toys we played with were stored, gifted to my children, and are now stored again. While I can appreciate technological advances have reduced the purchase cost of these items today and increased the features, assortment, and availability, I cannot help but ask, “What will it take to use technology to create BETTER quality products than those our parents had?” Because you know what, my TIME has a cost as well.

So, to any of you market researchers visiting this website to tap into the trends, feelings, views, and preferences of professional moms, “Listen up! We want functional products that work. Period. We DON’T want refrigerators with TVs that can’t keep the milk cold, cars with IPOD connections that can’t tote kids around town, computers that can zap the latest viruses but can’t get an internet connection, coffee pots that can sense the room’s ambient temperature but can’t make any coffee, or bicycles that make motorcycle noises even after the non-replaceable plastic pedals have broken off.

And guess what, WE ARE WILLING TO PAY MORE FOR THEM!!!”

I know you have all been there. You are trucking along, executing the plan, with everything organized in a routine. You fly from meeting to meeting with ease. Everything is prepped in advance. You can put your finger on the data, just as someone asks for it. People are in awe at how together you are. You swoop into an open parking spot in front of the preschool and retrieve your kids in plenty of time. Teacher appreciation week – no sweat – you have bought gifts in advance and you get the kids to make sweet cards as a pre-dinner activity. Even a sick child doesn’t derail you – you have planned for this and your backup care system kicks in. You even have crayons in your purse when there is a meltdown at the supermarket. Your energy level is high and endless. You are in the groove, together, polished (like your finger nails, which you have somehow managed to keep manicured.) Other moms hate you because you secretly wear the superwoman cape.

That was me three weeks ago – in the groove, working it. Then someone must have handed me the mommy kryptonite.

For the past two weeks I have been without my Mother’s Assistant due to an unexpected personal emergency. At first reliable, my backup daycare plan has now crumbled as well. My kids’ schools are in the annual wind-down, which you probably know means countless end-of-year parties, trips, and boondoggles – all of which require far too much parental involvement. Additionally, work has gone crazy, mostly due to the endless energy I put into it three weeks ago.

Me, I’m a wreck. I showed up at a meeting today mismatched, with a black purse, brown shoes, and no agenda or notes. I had to hide my chipped fingernails under the conference table while I scrambled to recall the salient points of my presentation. Usually calm, positive, and friendly, I barked at the attendance monitor when she called to inform me my child was tardy this morning. (“I KNOW that, I’m the one who made him tardy!) Yesterday I drove around the block four times waiting for a parking spot in front of the preschool, then had the dubious honor of being the last parent to pick up. “Where have you been, Mommy? And what’s for dinner?” Oh crap, I forgot about dinner.

Where did it all go wrong? What part of my utility belt is broken?

Applying business principles for a moment, let’s start with the plan. Was it realistic? Did I do enough competitive research? Maybe I need to expand my scenario planning model? Or, is it the execution? Do I have the right people, in the right place, at the right time?

I think one of my biggest faults is the tendency to over-commit, especially when things are going well. I forget that life, like the market, has cycles and I am not always going to be at the top. Three weeks ago when I was scaling tall buildings in a single bound, it was probably a bad idea to schedule five days in a row of back to back meetings. Moreover, when my son’s school asked for help for the end-of-year picnic, I should have resisted the temptation to volunteer my time to pick up ice cream. Now, in addition to being a wreck, I feel GUILTY because I don’t want to let everyone else down.

A good friend advised me today to decline every new request, both work and personal, from now until my assistant returns next week. I need to lean on others and ask them for help; my husband, my friends, my coworkers. This is generally hard for me to do. She also reminded me to live fully in the moment with each action I take between now and then, so that instead of a worried, distracted, and stressed mother/leader/friend, I am the person everyone needs me to be. It is sound advice and I know it will take everything I have to muster the discipline to follow it.

Ahhhh. Maybe I should invest in a new invisible airplane, just in case.

I have been asked to write about my experiences as a former executive mom turned entrepreneur and to share some of the case studies I see every day of executives who job-share senior management roles.  My company, Career Partners, plays matchmaker for companies trying to retain great talent – professional moms who need more balance or retiring baby boomers who want more of a life.  As niche executive recruiters, we go beyond keywords and pedigree: We employ personality technology to build ideal work teams and we train companies to leverage job-sharing for executive roles.  We also support the job-share teams throughout the process with certified executive coaches.  We launched last August and are already seeing lots of demand for our services from both candidates and employers.

Here is a bit of my background: I started my professional career in sales for a technology reseller in Toronto, Canada. When my husband and I moved to Los Angeles, (after backpacking through Europe where we eloped) I took another sales role for a technology distributor. I moved from sales to product management and eventually to marketing, where I really found my niche. Ultimately, I served as a marketing vice-president for an international telecom company. While my career trajectory was going according to plan, my life with two (and eventually three) children was unexpectedly challenging. For awhile I did the travel and the 70+ hour workweeks; then one day, exhausted, I left my full time career to get better “balance”. I consulted part time, was an at-home mother, served the local community, and completed an MBA. No less tired, but certainly more fulfilled, I shunned the idea of returning to the “corporate rat-race”. An executive coach helped guide me to my current venture, which I hope to grow into a $100 million business within 15 years. For now, all of the members of my executive team telecommute and work flexible hours.

My dream is for every one of us to job-share, eventually.I believe job-sharing is our best chance at long-term work flexibility because it can be done in any position, at any level, and it provides benefits to both the employer and the employees. Employers get the ideal collaboration of two people’s background and experience, built-in backup, full-time coverage for the role, refreshed executives, lower absenteeism, loyalty, and a succession-planning tool, while employees get the opportunity to continue doing mainstream, meaningful work, with half the travel, in fewer hours per week. Executives have successfully shared senior roles in the past: My job now is to make this more widespread.

When I was working full time, I thought asking for the flexibility I needed or participating in work-life balance programs would be career-limiting. I know now that if the business proposition is right, getting what we need can be a benefit to employers and have a positive bottom line impact. By writing this column, sharing experiences and eliciting your comments, I hope to remove some of the isolation we executive moms feel and spread around, with confidence, the message “We truly CAN have it all”.