Picture taken from Bali on our way up to see a waterfall
A strange place to have a picture like this; my daughter saw it and took the picture on our walk up to see a waterfall in Bali of all places! I don’t believe that all the steps are for everyone (and not just for girls!) - Although it’s the steps I followed and I didn’t skip any either…society telling us what to do and in what order. And what happens after marriage? Are there not any more steps? The main thing is to always learn/educate and have the freedom to add/remove the steps YOU want, be HAPPY (we don’t all want the same things) and create the life you want!
Fresh out of an institution
“This is the single most powerful investment we can ever make in life: investment in ourselves. It is the only instrument we have with which to deal with life and to contribute.” — Stephen R. Covey
So, I finish University, I’m energetic and raring to go out to the big wide world and make an impact, chasing a career, money or whatever takes my fancy. At some point, I find a job, after very little effort. I was lucky…I met some great guys (men) whilst doing my year out at university (work placement), which was one of the best things I did — getting real experience and meeting some amazing people. This leads me to think that the experience I gained was worth a lot more than my degree. Anyway, I managed to get my first job very quickly because I knew the “guys” and we all got on. I very quickly worked my way up to management. I had super amounts of drive and determination and I wanted to be a manager and do a whole lot of other things like travel the world — (which I wish I had done before I got a job), start a charity, buy a house, buy my dream car at the time, find marriage material, have kids and continue to climb the career ladder or should I call it a pole –after kids it became quite hard to climb, there weren’t any steps and it was quite slippery at times!
To Plan or Not to Plan…
“In love, one and one are one.” — Jean-Paul Sartre
I find the man of my dreams, we travel (taking annual leave) and start to build a life together at aged 27. A baby certainly wasn’t on our mind until one came along unexpectedly when I was 29! I was in a state of shock and not amused. I was a Project Manager — everything should be in a plan, but this task/event ahead of me was not and I hadn’t mitigated for it either. Something changed…my pregnancy meant that I could not travel far for work to some of the places that I was offered to go to. I was turning down opportunities at work. So, I just did the jobs that I didn’t really enjoy, as I couldn’t find anything else…I could see my career flat-lining.
I gave birth to a baby girl. All of a sudden, I didn’t know what I was doing. I gave myself 6 months to get back to work and back on track with my career, but I didn’t — she was so small how could I leave her…I felt guilty. Trying to get to grips with sleepless nights, first baby syndrome i.e. has no clue so we are either at A&E or profusely looking at all the books people recommended e.g. Gina Ford or What To Do When You’re Expecting. Social media wasn’t a “thing” back then, we read books and went straight to the doctors rather than post something on a group to ask other communities. Was it because we were young…30 and having our first child or is it the same for parents having children into their late 30’s and 40’s?
I wanted to see her grow up so I stuck it out to nine months, which is when I put her in a nursery for a few days with help from our mums on the other days. I did ask (not formally) and was not offered flexible work; it would have been difficult to find a role like that (so I was told) …that’s a different story!
OH MY GOD! That’s all I can say. I wasn’t ready for this…Sleepless nights and trying to stay sane at work all at the same time. Get to the nursery at 8 am, get on the tube to work for 9 am and leave by 4 pm (and feeling guilty for leaving early, so I log back in after work and sometimes in-between time with my daughter, just so that I can catch up). Trying to get to grips with the lack of sleep, vomiting in the car seat after nursery — she was constantly catching something now that she was in the nursery. So, I have to make that dreading phone call… “Sorry, I can’t come to work today my child is unwell”. And then… “Sorry I can’t come into work today because I’ve caught what my child had”. Catch 22!
You may be thinking, where was the man of my dreams? Believe me, he was there helping and supporting a lot. But at the same time, he earned more than me, hence why he was at work at set times and couldn’t leave early. A man asking for flexibility back then was even worse…that’s another blog and so is the gender pay gap!
Anyway, I wanted to try to do it all/have it all. Work and spend time with my baby, that’s the choice I made. My career did suffer, maybe I didn’t know the right people, maybe I let it, or maybe there weren’t enough flexible roles and support. I wasn’t seen as productive as the rest who worked the long hours in an office and I didn’t cut it when it came to the annual reviews, hence I didn’t get any more pay rises. In hindsight maybe I should have moved to another company!
Baby number two is planned. We didn’t want a huge age gap and we figured it might be good to have a baby in the summer so that we had one less year of nursery fees. I even managed to do my Prince 2 exams before she arrived and got my results the day, she was born…Let’s start this s**t all over again — out she popped (wish it was really like that) a week early and just a week after we moved into our new home. Tired was an understatement. I was ill with a bad cough a day after she was born which went on for a month. Coughing so much that I thought my pelvis/bladder was going to pop out, not to mention weeing myself every time I coughed. Who has time to do pelvic floor exercises amongst all the other work that needs to get done! By the way, I’d recommend the NHS Squeezy App (a recent discovery) as a good starting point along with seeing your GP of course!
OMG
Fast-forward twelve months and nursery begins for the second child and I go back to work full-time. Juggling is an understatement. Get up at 6 am, get ready, prepare dinner, get kids ready, drop them at the nursery, get back and jump on the tube to get to work at 8 am. Luckily my husband had a bit of flexibility and could sometimes drop them to nursery so that I could get back at 5 pm to pick them up and start their evening routine. That’s what I chose to do, but my career went down the pan. I could no longer maintain climbing up the ladder and being there for my kids, plus the sleepless nights. My youngest would wake three to four times in the night, so we were both trying to survive on four hours of sleep every night.
Do I need a full-time nanny so that I can become “something” at work, work longer hours and then carry on working when I get home? That’s the reality of what a lot of people do. Some people don’t admit it, companies certainly don’t or just can’t “see” what’s going on with their stressed out, unhappy and unhealthy workforce. Some people do choose to do that, are happy and thrive on it — I guess it’s a personal choice people make.
I also occasionally logged in after work when the kids were asleep, even though I had done the eight hours that I was contracted to do. Some schools (probably all) recommend that you read to your child/ren every night or they read to you. How/when can this happen if you get home at six, seven or eight in the evening and aim to get your child/ren to bed at a reasonable time so that they aren’t tired and unable to learn the next day. Unless you can afford a nanny that can do this for you — Some don’t.
Onwards & Upwards
“Success follows doing what you want to do. There is no other way to be successful.” — Malcolm Forbes
Every year I would have a number assigned to me based on my performance. I had to get my high number otherwise I knew I would be in trouble, and it started heading that way. I could no longer maintain everything and be flexible with work and at home. It was one or the other. I spoke about redundancy and tried to move roles where there was flexibility/part-time hours but nothing was available on the list. Eventually, I was offered redundancy and I jumped at the chance.
I was fed up, tired and needed to clear my head and I had little motivation to work for a company that didn’t align with my values and the feeling was probably mutual. I left when my daughters were six and four. There was still thought of “oh — should I give up working for this company that everyone thinks is amazing because of its ‘name’ ”. Even my mum wondered what I was doing leaving them after so many years. Anyway, I did. So what do I do next? I relaxed for a bit, cleared my mind, cooked, cleaned, did laundry, went to the supermarket, picked the kids up, took them to their activities blah blah blah, I worked one job instead of two. Then I got bored and I needed to do something. I knew I didn’t want to go back to work, I wanted to start a business (that dream I had when I finished University, except I thought I could climb the career ladder for someone else as well as have my own business). So, I got thinking and my husband and I thought of a few ideas. Is this what generally happens to some privileged people who can’t find flexible work and who are typically supported by their partner's income, their redundancy payout, and/or savings, or do they just decide to focus on children? Are there any people out there that don’t have this opportunity or lifestyle that does the same…I haven’t met any yet and heard their story — but if you are one, then get in touch, I’d love to interview you!
Business is great…mmm
“It took me twenty years to become an overnight success.” — Eddie Cantor
And the journey began in 2013 when I launched a tech start-up. It was that or a flexible working job board. Again, we were privileged enough to invest my redundancy pay in creating a SAAS (software as a service) customer service platform and app. I immersed myself into that and probably worked longer hours, but without the guilt and I had mental freedom with my life. If I needed to take an hour off to take my daughter for an appointment I could, without feeling like crap. If I needed to take a nap (I didn’t because I had FOMO) because I only had 4 hours sleep the night before then I could or even go to the gym. But I would catch up on the work that needed to get done. That was the main thing. I got things done on my terms, what’s wrong with companies adopting this culture? As long as the work gets done, your employees are happy and healthy, oh — and meeting the NHS guidelines for diet and exercise, which I bet not many people do these days.
I soon discovered how hard it was for a female in the tech world to get investment and for people to take me seriously…I went to an app exhibition with buggy and child and got stopped at the entrance — they were not sure they could let me in case they were not covered by insurance! I told them that that was discrimination and they soon let me pass. As soon as I was in there I wasn’t taken seriously by the exhibitors, when they took one look at me, especially with child and buggy, five-foot, looking like I’m aged twenty (so people said) didn’t help. At some point, my husband arrived and of course, he gets more attention and people took him seriously even though I was standing next to him with child and buggy!
I soon realised that this was going to be one of my challenges and the fact that all the tech start-up events and hubs were in East London. I found myself travelling from West to East most days during 9–2 pm so that I could still do the school run and my husband supported me if I had to stay longer for events. I found myself coming home at 10/11 pm some nights. I joined networking groups some free and some paid. Some were for women only, some of them didn’t help and some were a complete waste of money. I couldn’t find a supportive tech community/group in West London. But all being said — that’s not why the business did not work. There were lots of reasons and a lot of lessons learned!
Eventually, in 2015 I wrapped up the business even after finally finding an investors/accelerator that wanted to help grow my business. My husband and I decided it was time to stop…FaceBook and Whatsapp were and perhaps still are taking over and I was pregnant with baby number three due to arrive in November. Just as I wrapped up the business, I gave birth to a baby boy.
Fulfilment
“Living well and beautifully and justly are all one thing.” — Socrates
I got used to going back to baby mode after such a long gap (this one was planned). We finally decided to go for number three, when I gave my husband the green light, he literally jumped at the chance. When he arrived, I was in a better place, a lot more resilient, less stressed and raring to go (FYI — that’s not a green light for you to have more kids). Although, I was in the thick of doing my mums extension, so baby in tow to a building site most days!
I was itching to start a new business. It was either that or work, but I did decide to work for a short time when he was six months old, I managed to find a super flexible role at a great start-up as a PM. I was lucky that my mum was there to provide support and look after him whilst I worked five days 9–2.30 pm. I was working from home for four days so I got to see him most of the time or at least hear him through the kitchen door. It was still a juggle - working, doing baby tasks — sterilising, making food batches for the week, pumping, laundry, driving older kids to their activities almost every day (back to two jobs)… I didn’t do any activities when I was young, we were fairly poor and my mum worked a lot…that’s another story — activities and academics.
After nine months of working, I decided to leave. I could have stayed longer but my mum was going on holiday for two months, so I had to get back to looking after my son and paying for the nursery or getting a nanny was pointless as that’s what most if not all of my income would have gone on. I decided to research other business options, one of them was jewellery — ethical and fair-trade jewellery. I soon realised that this was a tough market and I didn’t have the capital needed to purchase all the jewellery in bulk to then sell on and the lead times were months as the jewellery would be coming from remote villages/communities.
Then I thought about starting a flexible working job board, the idea that I had back in 2013. I researched and found that there was much more competition than there was in 2013; the subject was much more talked about with the Gender Pay Gap, Mother Pukka’s and Pregnant than Screwed campaigns etc. So much more than before, or at least people are a lot more vocal now. And so, DiveIn Jobs was soft-launched in March 2019 — A flexible working job board for parents and carers in London, which became a job board for ALL. The company values were about diversity, inclusion and social impact. I also launched a community called DiveIn Network in 2019. But when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, I was left challenged by having all three children at home and I found myself going mad, so I pivoted and kept DiveIn Network going — a community for the under-represented and represented to come together to listen, learn, create opportunities and collaborate. Whilst advocating for diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
So here I am now with DiveIn Network and other exciting projects and a book I am working on, a fourteen, eleven and five-year-old, husband, mum, mother-in-law (my support network) and 1 hamster. This is me — helping people, organisations and the greater community with a drive to start lots of new projects. Most of us have to work, so why not work with the life that works for us, some do not have this opportunity, some make opportunities, it depends on everyone's circumstances. We are not all privileged to work with a life that works for us, but we can make a plan and find support to get there and help others along the way. The ultimate goal and I am sure for most is being happy in all that I do, most if not all of the time - that’s my goal!
Whatever you do, life is a constant juggle whether you are single or have a partner. It’s how you organise it…and finding a support network that works for you helps amongst a lot of other things in the mix. Ultimately, we're all in this juggle together - let's support and help each other out!