In the comments to this post about career ambition (and my near-complete lack thereof), WIM reader Elaine asked this question:

How do you measure success at home? Other than seeing the kids and spending time with them, where is the satisfaction?

GREAT question. TOUGH answers.
Read the rest of this entry

It’s a touchy subject, but I’m going to try to write about it in a non-judgey, not-telling-you-what-to-do, just-thinking-aloud type of way.

Say you’re unemployed. Say you’ve been unemployed for not days or weeks but months, and maybe even more than a year. You’re diligent about applying for positions, you follow up, you wear your shiniest shoes to interviews but still can’t find work. It sucks. It sucks HARD. It’s a hit on your self-esteem, it insults all the effort you put into school and at previous jobs, and it’s especially terrifying if you have a family to support and don’t know where you’re going to get the money to pay for groceries.

It’s a down economy, times are tough, unemployment is rampant, and yet…at what point do you stop blaming the market and accept that the problem might actually be…you? I’m not talking about not being worthy of a job or not a competent and quality employee. I’m talking about the ways in which you might be limiting yourself, say by narrowing the definition of What You’re Good At and/or What You Can Do.
Read the rest of this entry

There are so many things that make working from home better for me than working in a remote office, but during this pregnancy I’ve found myself missing some things I enjoyed while I was an in-house employee during my first pregnancy:

• singing to the baby during my solo car commute
• wearing my cutest maternity clothes instead of my loungiest, schlubbiest ones
• fielding questions from curious coworkers
• getting at least a little exercise every day, even if it’s just going up and down the stairs between my desk and the copier
• not having constant access to an entire pantry of bad-for-me food
• office drama!

Stuff I don’t miss? The list is strikingly similar:

• the excruciating drive home during the third trimester, when my ribs felt ready to crack open
• the hassle of finding a cute maternity outfit every. single. day.
• fielding awkward/invasive questions from curious coworkers
• not having constant access to an entire pantry full of yummy food
• missing out on the cocktail part of after-hours cocktail receptions
• the privacy of my own bathroom, and never having to wait in line
• office drama! (OMG)

Did you work in an office while you were pregnant? What did you love about it? What did you hate?

Move up the ranks. Earn more money. Get a better job title. Bask in your success.

That’s what I’m supposed to be doing, I suppose, but as an editor and writer, I’m happy to keep doing just that: editing and writing. I don’t want to become an editorial director and spend my days delegating tasks and parsing budgets instead of wrangling semicolons and enlightening a new generation of authors on the function of the en dash. As an online writer, I don’t want to oversee a team of underling writers, scheduling their posts and sprucing up their headlines, I want to WRITE. (Besides, I’m terrible at budgets AND headlines.)

This doesn’t mean I don’t want “better” jobs (I use quotation marks because “better” can mean a variety of things here), and I certainly wouldn’t balk at getting paid more, or even being recognized for what I do well with a plaque at a fancy-dress dinner. And yet…I’m also mostly okay with how things are going (and have been going for years). The status quo is a.o.k. by me.

So then why do I feel like my lack of ambition is a bad thing? Why do I think there must be something wrong with my wiring that I don’t want to move up the career ladder and take on more responsibilities and seek greater rewards and recognition? Am I selling myself short? Am I just scared?

The answers here are Yes and Yes, but there are other factors at work too. I DO have ambition–it’s just more for homelife instead of worklife. And in order to reach those personal goals, I’m perfectly happy to let my professional goals slide. Being a success at work is lovely, but what makes me happy is being a success at home, as a wife and mother and friend. But I have goals, I do! They’re just more often things like Sew Pillows for the Couch instead of Win a Pulitzer for excellence in journalism.

Are you ambitious? Where does it show up more–at work or at home?