Let me add my echo to the pile: This economy is just horrific. Every day, the newspaper seems to get more and more depressing, and friends in previously "safe" jobs have horror stories about stealth lay-offs and other office bloodbaths.
While I was nursing for the nineteenth time yesterday (this by 10 a.m.), I started coming up with my marketable skills. Luckily I still have my job, but it's good to know how to sell yourself these days, no? Plus, I have developed so many new strengths and abilities since the last time I had to write a resume. If anybody is reading this who has an interest in a real go-getter with an ability to nurse while typing, please feel free to email me. Here are some of my other highly sought-after talents:
-I have the ability to make a zombie look presentable with the right mix of concealer and industrial strength silicone. Just ask my husband (aka the only person who is allowed to see me without this potent combo). Hollywood: Give me a call, I bet I can even cheat those new high-def cameras.
-I have a severe and nearly obsessive skill in coveting and craving clothing, shoes and handbags that are completely impractical for my lifestyle. Take these boots. I can imagine the life that goes with them. It doesn't involve nursing on demand or tricking certain children into eating kale by calling it "rocket ship fuel." I like to call this skill my ability to be aspirational and see nine steps ahead. I'm not saying I'm a "visionary" or anything. Okay, actually, maybe I am.-I can turn theme songs from 80s shows into lullabies. "You take a good you take a bad you take em both and there you have the shhhhh shhhh shhhh...the shhhh shhhh shhhh". This, potential employers, is what those in "the biz" (what biz you ask? I have no idea...) call creativity.
-I can read a magazine through page 104..before realizing I've already read it. This exemplifies my ability to see things afresh.
-Have you ever nursed while giving a 3 year old a bath? I have. This must be useful in some capacity?
-I am the queen of turning DIY projects into $1000 expenses including an army of support staff, carpenters, engineers, and the like. I call this my economic stimulus plan. And I hear Geithner's got nobody.
-I can put children to sleep in multivarious devices. The pack-n-play, the crib, the bouncer, sure. But also the drawer, the laundry basket, the little space in between the bed and the chair in a cheap-o hotel. This, my friends, is "thinking outside the box."
Seriously? I am just so qualified for so many things these days, I don't even know how to market myself. So please "circle back" interested parties..."touch base" with me...we can create some "synergy"...really "knock one out of the park"...!
Deepa is a wife, mother, writer and she sometimes masquerades as a lawyer as well. She revels in friendship, humor, champagne, and laughing at herself--often. She never ever reads US Magazine, thinks Rushdie is a genius, wishes she could write one sentence as funny as "Arrested Development," and lives in the Bay Area with her motley crew. She can be reached at deviswithbabies@gmail.com
This had me laughing out loud. And those boots? "I die I die"!
You know in all seriousness, lots of moms do themselves a disservice by not marketing the new skills they develop. Negotiating, juggling various priorities etc.
I need to learn how to "think outside the box". My almost-one-year-old still sleeps in bed with us! Any tips? We aren't into CIO.
oh lord, i've done that (read a magazine without realizing i had already read it!) glad i'm not alone. the sleep deprivation WILL end right???
haha, funny article!
i'll hire you. can you watch my kids??! haha.
I am going to have "Facts of Life" in my head all day now...
i wouldn't mind some instruction on the concealer and silicone application. i look always tired these days! Which brands and what do you do with silicone?
those boots are amazing...
Haha. Add "write funny blog posts" to the list.