Work life balance, what's that?

My daughter is the calmest spirit. When she is around, little Harper is so chill. She runs everyone ragged at other times, she's very high energy, especially when my son is around, as his energy just about matches hers. Everyone is running everywhere, and, granted, squealing with delight, when Harper and Uncle Raddy get going. She adores her Uncle Raddy as much as she adores her Titi Kai, but it is with my daughter that she calms right down, and becomes downright serene. My daughter has that effect on me, too. Her husband is a lucky man, and a smart one, because I think he knows who he married, and is grateful to live in the lovely light my daughter emits day to day. 

That doesn't mean she doesn't have storms like the rest of us. But she is able to meet them head on, and to be unflinchingly self-aware. She is not pleased about a work situation right now, for example. There was a big corporate shakeup and she landed on a team that feels to her like two steps backward, in that it is a regional rather than a national strategic position, and customer based rather than sales based, and sales teams are the demigods of the company as they bring in the numbers with many zeros. She and a couple of other so called "corporate stars" inexplicably got moved from that bigger pond to the regional team. "My ego took a hit," she told me. "Maybe I'm not as good as I think I am, or maybe the people high up didn't ask the right people about what I do so they don't know what I've done. Either way," she admitted with a rueful laugh, "I'm a little bitter."

I saw the corporate vision right away. They needed some strong anchors on the regional team, people who could help them shore up the business there, who could iron out problems with corporate partners, as she has proven she is able to do. It's not really a step back, she's still a manger, still at her same level within the corporate structure, she's just playing in a different pool now, and it could be she might end up preferring it. She won't have to work anymore with a couple of monster clients who always made her life miserable, and that's a silver lining. Her quality of life may actually improve, because right now, girlfriend works hard. But she can't see that yet, because keeping those monster clients tamed got her promoted twice, got her noticed, but at what cost to her personal peace? 

I said to my husband on the night she learned the results of the corporate reorg, "Our girl isn't happy with where she landed, but she's decided she's going to accept the new position." "Makes sense," he said. "She's not happy, but she's not stupid either. She'll accept it, see what it is, and decide her next move from there."

At work yesterday, she talked to one of her mentors, who put the move in the same terms as I had, and also shared that even though she will be working with even more corporate partners than before, each one is smaller in scope than the big national chains, and she will find them a lot more grateful for what she will do for them. Does that mean no more monster clients? Let us all hope. In any case, when she came over last night for some more Harper time, she confessed to feeling less bitter than she had the day before. "Hour by hour, I feel more philosophical," she said. "I guess I’ll just have to see."

She starts her new role May 1. Maybe I won't get any more tearful workday calls from her about some shit thing happening with one of her more difficult accounts. I get these calls occasionally, less often now than when she first started this job. She calls me so she can blow out the emotional storm before calling the client, or one of her bosses, and be perfectly professional as she pitches possible solutions. She is at this very moment over there in Brooklyn wrangling one of those monsters, though this problem did not rise to the level of frustrated tears needing a sympathetic ear. When I get these calls, I ask, "Am I to just listen or do you want suggestions?" and she'll let me know if she needs me to just let her vent and process out loud or if she wants me to strategize with her. I should say that these calls do not alarm me, because I know my girl is just clearing her air space. Besides, we usually end these conversation laughing. Perhaps I'll be able to gauge how well the new position is going by whether I still get such calls, which, to be fair, only came twice in the past year. Because really, she is as good as she thinks she is.