belgianwaffle

Work

I Wouldn’t Say the Battle is Won but it isn’t Lost Either


Posted in: Reading etc., Work

This article by Anne-Marie Slaughter has been doing the rounds on the internet and I’m sure you’ve already seen it somewhere else.

It’s an interesting article. The author is clearly surprised that she wasn’t able to juggle teenage children and working at a very demanding job in another city. This was because she had always been able to manage children and a demanding job before. Personally, I think it was really the commute and time away that killed her. She’s clearly very clever and ambitious. I think her thesis is, if it can’t work for me, then it can’t work for anyone. But, ironically, it is working for her. She has an important, influential job as an academic. Yes, she gave up an even better and more influential job and she is annoyed that she couldn’t make it work. I think it is true that she would have been less likely to give up, if she were a man but I still think that feminism has brought us a long, long way. So, I wouldn’t exactly call it a good news story but it isn’t quite the disaster for feminism that that she’s painting.

While my own work-life balance isn’t perfect, I can see it is far better than my mother’s was. I enjoyed paid maternity leave after my babies were born. I don’t work in a world where children only get sick on weekends or one where only their mothers can take them to the surgery. I have a job that is interesting and that I enjoy. I am also going to take July and August off work in a combination of unpaid parental leave and holidays so that I will be with my children for a very long summer break. Also, today my boss of bosses summoned me to his office and said, “You do a great job. We don’t say that enough here. You deserve your break. Enjoy yourself.” Hurrah for work. Hurrah for feminism. Hurrah for my summer holidays also.

Obsession


Posted in: Work

A colleague of mine likes to cycle. This is a much more expensive hobby than the uninitiated might expect. 600 quid for a set of bicycle wheels. And that’s a bargain. He would come in from lunch with a bicycle saddle under his arm having done a deal with someone on the internet. Anyhow, he made his bike. He brought it into the office one day. Literally, as he felt it wasn’t safe in the garage. I lifted up his super-light, titanium, immensely expensive, fairy-dust sprinkled bike. “It’s not that light,” said I. “Ah,” he said, “you need to take off the water bottle.”

Busy but, yet, Disappointing


Posted in: Princess, Work

Mr. Waffle was out yesterday evening and I decided I would achieve much in his absence and he would be suitably impressed on his return.

I made brioche. It took forever. I was up until all hours. It tasted like bread and looked like the hunchback of Notre Dame (assuming that he was singed on one side). I didn’t spend seven hours proving for this:
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The Princess and I bought white t-shirts. And then I spent hours yesterday evening trying to transfer Monster High images on to them using transfer sheets purchased while we still lived in Belgium with the deeply unsatisfying results you see below (do you think transfers go off?):

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On the plus side, we did make some progress both in party bag packing (did I mention that the Princess’s ninth birthday party is on Saturday?):

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and in roller blading:
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Then, as I sat down after a very long evening of domestic duties to print out a document from work, I realised that the printer was out of ink after the strain of printing Monster High transfers. Alas.

Office Christmas Party


Posted in: Work

We went to a Karaoke booth after dinner. A new experience for me. I ended up singing a duet with a colleague. Until you have sung “I’ve got you babe” with a bald colleague, you will never fully appreciate the power of this line: So let them say your hair’s too long /’Cause I don’t care, with you I can’t go wrong.

Quite.

Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept


Posted in: Reading etc., Work

Tom Fishburne had a great cartoon on mission statements which my loving husband pointed out to me.

This led him to a link with (sadly) real mission statements.

He points out that this one (for Albertsons, a supermarket) would fit any organisation in the world:

Mission Statement
Guided by relentless focus on our five imperatives, we will constantly strive to implement the critical initiatives required to achieve our vision. In doing this, we will deliver operational excellence in every corner of the Company and meet or exceed our commitments to the many constituencies we serve. All of our long-term strategies and short-term actions will be molded by a set of core values that are shared by each and every associate.

Dragging the Devil by the Tail or A Sad Litany of Failure


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland, Mr. Waffle, Work

OK, this happened months ago but the pain is still fresh. I appreciate the post is stale.

12.00 – Go to meeting.
17.00 – Meeting ends. Return to office to find all kinds of urgent messages. Urgent, urgent, urgent matter must be attended to. Ring husband to say I will be late home. Find text message from him that he is in a meeting and can I be home to relieve the babysitter. Tackle urgent matter at great speed.
18.00 – Urgent matter dispatched in record time while eating lunch. Go multi-tasking [faintly Bridget Jonesish] me.
18.05 – Hop on Dublin bike.
18.20 – 18.45 Cycle around looking for a rack to park my bike. Fail to find one.
18.50 – Arrive home. Stash bicycle in the back garden. Husband is there before me, face like thunder.
19.00 – Announce I will cancel dinner out. Am told not to. Slink out in disgrace.
23.00 – Decide not to drive around city looking for place to stash Dublin bike.
9.00 – Regret previous evening’s decision on discovering that charges for keeping the bike overnight are astronomical. Alas.