Looking for a part time job can be soul destroying, especially if you don't fit into easy category regarding experience or education. I've spent most of the year dreaming about starting my business, taking slow, tentative steps, and at the same time delaying any real action. My last trip into the self-employed/living the dream world had made me a little bit unsure. Sure, I was good at what I did, but I saw my limits - mainly being very bad at marketing, self-promotion, keeping in touch, networking, small talk etc. Add a couple of year of housewifing, which doesn't help with any of these skills, unless you are lucky and really manage to meet friends for life in ante natal classes and future business partners in a playground.
Many things have changed for us this month. Husband is out of job, hopefully not for long, but it doesn't make me feel very confident. Instead of taking it slow, I feel that I need to be the one to step up, make a change, turn things around. Considering that he is now very available for the school run, it even feels tempting being out of the house more. But...
After careful attempts to spruce up my CV and applying for part time jobs, I may have no other option than to dip my toes in the self-employment pool again. My history is chaotic and sketchy, there are gaps, and most of all, the last years are filled with only one job title: homemaker. Or housewife, if you wish. And that puts people off, I think. Why are mothers discarded so easily? I see that most jobs are looking for flexibility, but at least ask me how I plan to organize my childcare and school run. Otherwise, why can't we elaborate on those 'lost years' at home? It isn't about sitting on the sofa watching daytime telly. Motherhood makes us dedicated and loyal (even to a very unreasonable little person prone to tantrums). We know how to compromise, find solutions, think and react quickly, negotiate, improvise, and health and safety is basically our second nature. We are punctual and keep our word. We are great communicators. We can work super quickly, see mess behind a corner, are quick learners, and hard workers. We schedule, budget, plan, keep paperwork and bills in order. We like to get things done and are very no nonsense kind of people.
So, yes, we have commitments and sometimes will need time off because ear infection can come out of nowhere, but when we are at work, we are at work and that is that. And we plan ahead. So, why can't we just get a chance, why are we dismissed before even an interview? Considering the advancing pension age and the way we live now, women in their forties surely aren't considered old?
Previously, I worked in a restaurant, and I would take a part time mother over a student or a fresh graduate any time, because there would be less of a chance that they wouldn't show off on an early morning because they were sleeping off a gig they went to last night. A parent would drag herself out of bed and go to the shift no matter how badly the night went. Because we did it since day one with a new baby. And there is much smaller risk of a sudden urge to backpack through Asia for a year, starting a new degree in a different city, getting pregnant and not able to work due to morning sickness, or non stop whatsapping our latest crash.
It is ironic that finding random employment in my twenties was much easier, when I was drifting around the world, fancying to stay somewhere, and starting work on a handshake. It was easier to work without proper paperwork and permanent address, in a foreign place, then it is now, when I am an established part of society with all required documents. Because now I am supposed to present endless enthusiasm for shelf filling in a supermarket, I suppose. And the outlook is different. Years ago, I was invincible, confident, and knew that things will work out. Now, I think about my child, about bills, about all our commitments, and have become accustomed to random 2 a.m. thoughts. I could be wherever with last hundred dollars in my back pocket twenty years ago, and I would still enjoy an undisturbed sleep in the night. Nowadays, I overthink stuff way too much and doubt myself.
Self-employment is calling, I can hear it in the distance. I wanted to find a job, get going, have a task, not having to worry about anything else. It may not be for me, in the end. Most likely, I don't fit the idea of a model employee on paper. I hoped that I could start making money straight away, because our circumstances are changing and I am worried. After many years of being always here, manning the house front, it looked good to have a chance to go out and do something else than school run, shopping, cleaning, laundry. I would still have to find time to do these, plus the things I love, but I would have to fit it around everything else. It seems that I will have to make it on my own. That may be better - no CV to update, no shifts to figure out. It may take much more time and energy, bring more sleepless nights, but why not? I just have to be brave. And figure out some path that requires minimal self-promotion and marketing... Fingers crossed.
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