A friend of mine once told me that he couldn’t believe how I managed to leave jobs without burning bridges, even the ones for whom bridges would probably be better burned.  I’m a firm believer that nothing good comes from leaving any relationship, business or otherwise, bitterly, or angrily, or with hurt feelings.   Obviously, there are situations where work relationships are unsalvageable; however, in the event that you’re planning on leaving employment with a company voluntarily, here’s my advice on how to do it with grace, dignity, and perhaps even a few contacts and references in hand.

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Last week Friday, the second day after my last day at work, I did something that I’d been dying to do, but hadn’t been able to find the time:  I visited the exhibit entitled The Black List Project at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts.  The exhibit features large format portraits of 24 prominent African-African Americans, and the accompanying documentary included their views of what it means to them to be African-American in 21st century America.

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Last week, right about the same time the first commenter was leaving her comment on my previous post , I walked into the office of my boss, and turned in my written resignation.

The truth is, he knew it was coming.  I’d warned him it was coming about 5 weeks ago — I told him that I intended to leave the company, and while I wouldn’t leave him before September 30th (because my role becomes crucial to closing deals at the end of the quarter), my intent was for my last day to be October 15th. For this reason, last week’s conversation was merely a formality.

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Let’s face it:  here in the United States, the last few Presidential elections have had their share of drama; however, this year, this campaign seems to have taken the cake.  It appears everyone has an opinion on one party or another, one candidate or another, one candidate’s running mate, or another.  I don’t think I’ve had one conversation in the past few months when the subject hasn’t turned to the upcoming election within 5 minutes.  Even my four-year-old daughter can identify John McCain or Barack Obama any time one of them appears on our television screen.

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Last Thursday morning, my husband and I woke up and immediately turned on the local news. “Mandatory evacuations have been called for Galveston, and southern portions of Harris County.” We looked at each other.  Even though our Houston neighbourhood wasn’t in the south of Harris County, we knew that Hurricane Ike was forecast to be a doozy.  “We should leave now,” I said.  “Because if they decided to evacuate any more areas than those, I seriously don’t want to be stuck on the freeway for hours trying to get out of town.”
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Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of traveling.  A LOT of traveling.  While my most recent trip away was a 3-day getaway with some girlfriends, most of my travel has been work- or career-related.

Luckily, I’m married to a man who is a really engaged father.  While I’m away, I have no worries that Alex is going to get all the attention and care she would if I were home.  Marcus is a wonderful dad, and she’s in great hands.

Thing is?  Since coming home, I’ve noticed that things are different.  It’s subtle, of course:  Alex and I continue to have a very close relationship.  But I’ve noticed that unlike six months ago, Marcus is now as effective as I am in calming tears.  She’s as likely to come running to him as she is to me.  She’s not as stuck-to-my-side as she used to be.

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Years ago, when I was young, single and childfree, I was a big fan of the Friday Happy Hour.  Oh, how I loved the Happy Hour!  On Friday evenings, almost without fail, after 5 pm my friends and I would head out to one of The Places To Be in town, relax with our favourite beverages, have a great dinner, and often dance the nights away.  It wasn’t the alcohol that I found so intoxicating, either — at the time, I actually didn’t drink.  For me, the Friday Happy Hour was about forgetting the week’s stresses, spending time with other like-minded professionals, and enjoying each other’s company in celebration of the week’s end.

Fast-forward several years, and now I’m now married, with a young child.  Friday Happy Hours are now, for the most part, a distant memory: they’ve been replaced by Friday Movie Night, consisting of piling on the couch with my husband and daughter, a large bowl of popcorn and the latest fare from Pixar .  And while I wouldn’t trade my current life for anything in the world, I have to admit:  sometimes?  I miss the camaraderie and fun of Friday Happy Hour.  But spontaneous meetings with friends after work is often impossible, since Friday night babysitters are often hard to come by — often, they’re busy with their own Friday Happy Hours.

Enter the Weekend Brunch:  this past weekend, I made plans with several girlfriends, all moms with corporate jobs, to catch up over brunch at one of the really great restaurants near downtown Houston.  And I have to admit, it was damned near perfect:  here I was, forgetting the week’s stresses, spending time with other like-minded women, and enjoying the company of my friends.  Since it was late morning, my husband readily watched our daughter for the couple of hours that I was gone (and I returned the favour later that afternoon as he went trailbiking with his friends).  And even though the sun was blazing outside (unlike the cool moons of Friday Happy Hours gone by), there was still the carefree air of freedom:  freedom from daily stress, freedom from corporate responsibilities.

Now, obviously I won’t be doing the Weekend Brunch with the sort of frequency that I used to meet my friends on Friday evenings fifteen years go.  But the truth is that I kind of felt like Christopher Columbus discovering the New World:  here I was, on the shores of a brand new way to connect with other like-minded friends to decompress, should the need ever arise.  And even if I only meet my friends for Weekend Brunch once each quarter, I think the opportunity to continue to cultivate my friendships and get away from it all — even if it’s only for a couple of hours — will be priceless.

How about you?  What’s your secret to caring for and tending your relationships with your friends, independent of playdates?

I have a confession.

I’m not one of those supermoms who kicks ass in corporate pumps all day, just to come home and construct a perfect princess castle for my adoring four-year-old with nothing but glitter and love in the evening. I’m not that friend who brings home the bacon, fries it up in a pan, and neverevereverever lets you forget you’re a man. Seriously, I’m not.  The truth is, I totally cheat.

Oh, I don’t mean to insinuate that I’m doing anything dishonest.  I’m just suggesting that for me, “doing it all” means getting help.  In my case, the cheating comes in the form of a housekeeper.  Once a week, I have someone who comes to clean my modest home, and I admit to a thrill of coming home to almond-scented floors and sparkling sinks.  I know that tradition and society says that I should be the person who cleans my own house (and for most of the week, I do keep the house in order and tidy), but after working 9-hour-days, and coming home to take care of my daughter and husband in the evenings, the thought of spending my weekends cleaning the house sort of galls me.  So … I cheat.

What about you — do you cheat?  How?  Do you get pre-made meals?  Frozen dinners?  A laundry service?

Come on, you can share.  I won’t tell.

Work has been exceedingly stressful for me lately: my boss recently quit his job, leaving the law department at the company where I work woefully understaffed.  It is therefore with no small amount of excitement that I begin a quick holiday today.  My family and I are flying out to San Francisco tomorrow, to connect with my sister and her family, as well as reunite with many, many friends.  I can’t wait.

Thing is?  While my days will be chock-full on my holiday, I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out how connected I plan on being while on my time off.

On one hand, I’m leaving my coworker (the only other attorney at my company), alone for the next three days — which necessarily means that when a lawyer is needed and employees can’t find me, they’ll hound her for attention.  And since we’re short-staffed, it seems unfair to leave her twisting in the wind.

On the other hand, dammit, I’m entitled to this holiday.  It’s part of my compensation, for heaven’s sake!  How fair is it to commit to spend time with my family and friends, all the while running to log on and see what I’m missing back at the office?  And besides, why should I work on my vacation, when the entire point of a vacation is to rest, relax, and return to work restored?

Ultimately, I’ve decided to leave my laptop behind, but keep my blackberry close — it seems like a fair compromise.  Sort of.  Admittedly, I’m still a bit bitter.

How about you?  How connected do you stay when you go on holiday?

In preparation for writing this post, I decided to google “tips for balancing family work” — a pretty precise search string if I do say so, myself. Unfortunately, I wasn’t nearly as impressed with the results: while “let go of guilt” is certainly a goal to which one should aspire, I would hardly call that a “tip.” I was looking for concrete examples of how to make a frenetic work schedule move seamlessly with a chaotic home life like a tango on the Recoleta, but instead, I got bupkis.

So, instead, I thought we could just share with each other the best home/work balance tips that we employ to make our lives run more smoothly. I figure if we do this right, we can actually come up page of practical tips that anyone who is just starting out with managing their career with kids can come to for advice. We’ll consider it our public service to working moms everywhere.

Ready? I’ll go first:

I’m pretty much a Nazi when it comes to schedules — my daughter has a strict bedtime of 7 p.m., from which we rarely stray. Our evenings usually go like this:

5 p.m. I hang out with my daughter, while my husband makes dinner.

6 p.m. We sit together an eat as a family. In general, we eat the same meal (more or less — I don’t eat meat, but my husband and daughter do), but even if, for some reason, one of us isn’t hungry, we all sit together and keep each other company.

6:30 p.m. Bathtime. My daughter goes off to get ready for her bath, my husband fills the tub and keeps her company. While he’s doing that, I clear the dishes and clean the kitchen.

6:45 p.m. Bathtime’s over. I take over from my husband, dress my daughter, get her into bed, and read a bedtime story.

7:00 p.m. Lights out. My husband comes in to give our daughter a kiss, and the evening is free for us to do whatever errands need doing — get things ready for the morning, run to the grocery store if necessary (easier to do without the four-year-old) or just chill.

For me, life just works better with a schedule (and admittedly, a husband who’s willing to shoulder the parenting responsibility 50/50) — and because Alex knows what to expect, we rarely have any issues with her not wanting to go to bed, or not taking her bath, or whatever. This is the schedule we’ve stuck to since she was born, so there’s no reason for her to change it.

How about you? What tips or tricks do you follow to make your work/family life easier?