Employment, or the lack of it
Feb. 8th, 2007 09:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
doireI’m not going to be a records manager. Correction, I’m not going to be that records manger. The research I did and the discussion about the job at interview suggests that it’s a job I would quite enjoy.
On the other hand, I put in an application for a post of project manager, pretty similar to about half of my ex-job, and find myself worried that I might be short listed. I suspect that’s telling me something.
I have to finish the supporting letter for payroll, guess why I’m posting, and request another in digital rather than dead tree form. It would be so much easier if I’d spent the last 20 years doing just one thing at a time. Doesn’t anyone want to employ a mistress of all trades?
Just to add to the fun, I’m enrolled on a women returners in SET course. 10 weeks of thinking and planning how to get over a career break, followed by up to 2 years mentoring. I went to the first tutorial on Saturday and it was brilliant. Not so much the formal part, but being in a room with 20 other women who didn’t find the idea of creating spreadsheets for fun extraordinary.
I was part of the original project many years ago when the problem of women abandoning SET was originally considered. (My strongest memory is of a group of women free of their babies for the first time and back in a student ethos at Loughborough in the snow at -23°C) As it happened I slid out of SET without realising where I was going and ended up in education.
It’s good to be taking part now in the continuation of that work. The contrast is striking. Then, the meetings were facilitated by men, worries about families were dealt with in terms of getting back to work and earning more to pay for the childcare; it was about how to overcome family and compete on equal terms. Now, it was all women, the work life balance was important, and explicitly, we rejected the path of taking on male behaviours to succeed in a male arena.
I’m sad that the world hasn’t changed as much as it should. I was told that I wasn’t employable because “the men won’t trust you”. You can’t say that out loud now, but the effects are still felt. Stopping now before I depress myself. I need to be positive for the final draft of this ^*$(^$ letter.
On the other hand, I put in an application for a post of project manager, pretty similar to about half of my ex-job, and find myself worried that I might be short listed. I suspect that’s telling me something.
I have to finish the supporting letter for payroll, guess why I’m posting, and request another in digital rather than dead tree form. It would be so much easier if I’d spent the last 20 years doing just one thing at a time. Doesn’t anyone want to employ a mistress of all trades?
Just to add to the fun, I’m enrolled on a women returners in SET course. 10 weeks of thinking and planning how to get over a career break, followed by up to 2 years mentoring. I went to the first tutorial on Saturday and it was brilliant. Not so much the formal part, but being in a room with 20 other women who didn’t find the idea of creating spreadsheets for fun extraordinary.
I was part of the original project many years ago when the problem of women abandoning SET was originally considered. (My strongest memory is of a group of women free of their babies for the first time and back in a student ethos at Loughborough in the snow at -23°C) As it happened I slid out of SET without realising where I was going and ended up in education.
It’s good to be taking part now in the continuation of that work. The contrast is striking. Then, the meetings were facilitated by men, worries about families were dealt with in terms of getting back to work and earning more to pay for the childcare; it was about how to overcome family and compete on equal terms. Now, it was all women, the work life balance was important, and explicitly, we rejected the path of taking on male behaviours to succeed in a male arena.
I’m sad that the world hasn’t changed as much as it should. I was told that I wasn’t employable because “the men won’t trust you”. You can’t say that out loud now, but the effects are still felt. Stopping now before I depress myself. I need to be positive for the final draft of this ^*$(^$ letter.
