Making the world the way I think it should be

It’s a snowy day here in Massachusetts and it’s given me a reason to reflect. When I decided to expand my business from a successful one person home based venture to an office based design firm with an employee I thought a lot about what was important to me. Good design, personal integrity and business ethics, of course. But as a mother with two children under 6 (at the time) it was equally as important to me that I be able to accommodate their schedules and spend as much time with them as I can.

All women who have children compromise in some way. They may stay home with their kids full-time and sacrifice income and, perhaps, a career. Or they might work outside the home and miss time with their kids. There are many variations, and I believe that every parent tries to find the balance that works. I would never judge someone for the choices she makes.

I couldn’t afford to stop working. Even if I could have, I had worked long and hard to establish my business and I didn’t want to give it up. Not to mention that I get a great deal of enjoyment and satisfaction from the work that I do. At the same time, though, I have an acute sense of time passing, of the fact that my children will only be young once, and that I don’t want to miss it. My daughter and son are the center of my life and the source of my greatest joy. How could I reconcile my need to continue to run my business with my desire to be with my kids?

In addition, the woman I hired as my production manager has three young kids. She is fabulous, the most wonderful employee I could ever ask for, and she was struggling with the same work/parenting issues that I was. It was essential to me that I make a workplace that was family friendly for both of us. There are so many smart, dedicated, and trained women who are not able to work, or not able to find the kind of work that they want, because there are so few jobs out there that are flexible enough to be both an employee and a dedicated parent.

We made it work. Here’s how:

• We both use laptop computers. When we work from our respective homes, we have everything we need at our fingertips. When we come into the office we bring our computers in with us.
• Sarah has a work printer at her house as a part of her full workstation there.
• We cc and bcc each other on emails so that we can both track the progress of our projects.
• We use Basecamp as our project management system. This keeps us on the same page, even when we’re not physically in the same space.
• When we need to make conference calls, we use freeconference.com
• Our office space has toys and art supplies for the times when the kids need to come into the office with us. It used to have a portable crib too, which the kids have now grown out of.
• I trust Sarah completely. This would never work if I couldn’t.

Of course, nothing is perfect. Here are the pitfalls we work hard to avoid:

• Sometimes out of sight is out of mind. I need to remember to delegate to Sarah, especially since I was on my own for so many years.
• After 16+ years in the design business, I have a lot of knowledge. It’s important that we meet so that I can share it.
• Occasionally a client will schedule a meeting with one of us and then want to meet the other person working on the project. We try to both be in the office if it seems like this might happen, but sometimes it doesn’t work out.

On this snow day, when school is closed and parents everywhere are scrambling for childcare or missing work, I feel very fortunate that I’ve been able to create and share this business.

Two Notes:

Sorry for the long absence. I’m back to blogging again, and I’ll have an exciting blog related announcement coming soon!

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