Small Steps

Well, today I made the first steps towards finding childcare for the Pip for when I go back to work. Not big steps, to be honest, all I did was look up the list of local nurseries on the internet and write down the phone numbers of the ones that looked promising.

It's something I have been avoiding for a while and I can't really put it off any longer. It's tricky because I haven't decided whether a nursery or a childminder is the best option - at the moment I'm 80% leaning towards a nursery - but I haven't actually been round any nurseries yet. So it could change once I've had a look around a few.

The last few months have been so packed with changes that in one way, it seems like they rushed past in the blink of an eye. Is my son really 4 months old now? On the other hand, it seems soooo long ago when I was waiting to give birth. So much has happened since then and Mr KE and I will never be the same again.

Last weekend I left the Pip with Mr KE for the day while I went into "big town" for the first time since before Christmas. I have left him for a few hours before, but never for this long. So it was quite a big step for me (and for Mr KE too!) although I don't think I would have been happy leaving him with anyone else other than his father.

Still, for many reasons, I have to go back to work by the end of the year so I just have to get on with it. Yeah. Don't get me wrong, I do want to go back to work but like every other working mother, I do feel pangs of loss and guilt. It's tough but just one of those things that has to be done.

My Last Day at Work

Today was my last at work. I have a few days leave to use up so my maternity leave doesn't officially start till the New Year. It feels really surreal, because I've always had a mental picture that I would start seriously preparing for the pipsqueak once I had finished work. So now, that's it.

It was a very quiet day at work, with a lot of people on leave or at meetings etc. The overall feeling in the office is one of pessimism; everyone thinks that 2009 will be a very difficult year. In a way, this is a very good time to be on maternity leave as I will be away during the hard times.

I can't complain about my conditions; I can have up to one year's leave and go back to my current job, or my Employer has to provide me with an equivalent position. (This is Employment Law in the UK) I get 12 weeks maternity leave at 90% pay and statutory maternity pay (SMP) for 6 months after that, which is about £500 a month. The company will also continue to pay for my health insurance, mobile phone, pension and car allowance (hooray!) while I am on leave. In this situation though, the most valuable thing is that your job is essentially safeguarded for one year.

The UK minimum is 6 weeks at 90%, but it really depends on your Employer. A friend of mine had 6 months full pay, then her SMP kicked in. She was on maternity leave for a year, went back to work for a few weeks, then resigned. And you know what, her company actually owed her money because you still accrue annual leave when you are on maternity leave, so they had to pay her for the annual leave that she didn't take. Unfortunately, not all companies are that generous!

Chocolate Making

While my workplace seems to be all doom-and-gloom, Mr K-E and his colleagues have been defying the recession with lots of office outings. Two weeks ago they went ice-skating at Somerset House and on Thursday night, his team went on a chocolate-making evening.

I was really jealous, so I asked him to take lots of photos for me.

The set-up was a long table covered in greaseproof paper.

To start off with, the instructor explained the difference between "real chocolate" and "confectionary bars". It is all to do with amount of actual cacao in them. So Cadbury's Dairy Milk is a confectionery bar, not strictly speaking "chocolate".



I remember a few years ago there was uproar when the EU were going to impose a standard i.e. only a product with in excess of 50% cacao could be called chocolate. This would mean that most of the "chocolate" in the UK would not be allowed to be sold as chocolate....well, that idea was quickly shot down and manufacturers still call their low cocoa/high vegetable fat bars chocolate bars.

Anyway, back to the chocolate making.

Everyone has their own "stations". You start off with the fillings, a bar of soft dark chocolate (like a ganache) and a bar of semi-brittle nutty paste.

The funny looking fork is for dunking in chocolate. (More about that later)


You get mini cookie-cutters in different shapes. You can see the round one in this photo along with big bowls of dark, milk and white melted chocolate. On the table there are also saucers of dry toppings (cocoa powder, coconut etc) and caramel-covered almonds.

They used a special kind of chocolate which stays melted at room temperature.


In short, you cut a shape out of the "block" and then use your fork to completely cover it in chocolate. Shake off the excess and leave it on the table to dry. If you want to decorate it, you need to do it before it is completely set.

People were quite sceptical before but everyone really enjoyed it.

Look at the state of the table!



You also get two glasses of champagne to help with creativity :)


These were Mr KE's efforts. Some people were eating the chocolate all the way through, but Mr KE was concentrating so hard on making them look nice that he didn't eat any during the session.








He wrapped them up nicely and brought them home for me to eat.








They are lovely, really fresh - the nicest chocolates I've ever had. And I'm not just saying that because my husband made them!

Five things that have been keeping me busy.

Five things that I have been up to lately:

• Fending off agents (aka recruiters/headhunters/bloodsuckers) calling me about positions in the Middle East. As the economy in the UK seems to be heading into a long recession, a lot of companies are expanding their operations in the Middle East and there is a big push to recruit suitably skilled staff. It so happens that I work in one of these "niche" sectors and if I were in different phase of my life, I would be very, very tempted....but it's not the right time for me.

• Discovering a whole new world of shopping for things that I never knew existed! Who knew that there were so many different types of buggies, baby car seats, cot mattresses etc? One item that we chose fairly quickly was the buggy. There were three main requirements: I wanted the lightest one on the market, Mr K-E wanted one that he wouldn't mind pushing around and we both wanted one that could face either way. So the Bugaboo Bee it is!! (With all the accessories, of course....)

• Making long lists for all the stuff we will need in January. Our plan was to buy everything from Mothercare in one big hit and get it delivered all on the same day, thus missing the Christmas rush. Sounds pretty stress-free right? The only problem with on-line shopping is that someone has to be in the house when the stuff gets delivered. Suddenly our straightforward plan doesn't seem so straightforward afterall.

• Getting used to the idea that I won't be wearing high heels for a while :(

• Being excited / scared /happy /anxious all at the same time. So much to do; we still have to buy our new car, clear more junk out from the flat, buy Christmas presents and send Christmas cards etc. Mr KE and I are always busy at work in the run-up to Christmas (I'm actually moving office on 5th December) plus we have our NCT & NHS "parentcraft" classes to attend. And try to meet up with friends and family before Christmas. Happy times!

Stand By Your Phone

It's been another busy week (and weekend) for me and Mr KE. It was an eventful week at work for me, starting with another Monday morning announcement about the company's "resilience plan" for the expected downturn.

We were told that we were all at risk (including Directors) and that we had all been assessed and ranked according to performance. We were given a breakdown of numbers for people who were at risk - i.e. 3 Directors, 4 Grade XXX, 3 Grade YYY etc. There an explanation of the standard legal procedure i.e. that anyone at risk would be called in and HR would try to find them a position in another part of the company or another part of the world. If this was unsuccessful, then it would mean redundancy.

Everyone was asked to be available from 1pm onwards on Friday afternoon. So stand by your phone....for bad news.

I work in a satellite office, so we were away from the "hub" and tried to find some humour in the situation. We were even joking about calling people at 1 o'clock to scare each other. Anyway, while we were laughing about it - when suddenly my phone started ringing.....it was 1 o'clock....and I could see from the number that it was the Business Unit Director (i.e. the person who would be making the dreaded calls)........OMG!!!

Everyone in the office stopped laughing... and for a minute, I thought the worst!! But to cut a long story short - he was calling me to ask about a contract I was working on. Everyone around me was listening intently, so I had to shout out - it's OK folks, he's only calling about XXX! Not being big-headed, but I never really thought I would be at risk anyway.... but still....it took a while for my heartbeat to return to normal.

Ack! How insensitive, huh?? Anyway, the process was delayed and the calls only began at 2:30 because the HR representative was late coming back from another office. I thought that was pretty cruel, as everyone was basically waiting to hear if their jobs were safe.

Someone from our satellite office was made redundant - from the same Grade as me. In fact, there were 3 names from my Grade, and they were all in about the same age late forties / mid 50s (I think). It's not nice when anyone is told "you are weakest link, goodbye" but from an Asian perspective, I'm glad that the assessement was based on performance rather than age/experience, if you see what I mean.

I think in Asia, the idea that seniority is based on age is so ingrained that a person in their fifties would never be made redundant over someone in their early thirties. As someone said to me once, there's no point having twenty five years experience when it actually means one year's experience X 25.

So, *phew* and back to work.

Cuts

I'm sitting at the kitchen window watching Mr KE downstairs fiddling with the innards of our little car. He's so cute when he gets out all his spanners, pliers etc. He doesn't really know what he's doing, but with the help of the internet, anything is possible, right?

I'm still very busy at work although there is a overall feeling of pessimism as the country seems to be heading towards a long recession. On Monday, all the staff were all called to a meeting (actually it was more of an announcement) and told that the outlook was bad for the next 18 months. Yeah, no shit Sherlock.

The dreaded R word (redundancies) was not mentioned but it was highlighted that 80% of our costs are staff costs. The London and other SE offices are doing OK but the Northern offices are in dire straits. Unfortunately, the company can't just shut down the Glasgow office (for example) because of long leases on company premises and also because it wants to maintain a presence throughout the UK.

So the pain has to be spread throughout all the offices. Realistically, this means that every office will have redundancies, even London. I have heard off-the-record that a list has already been drawn up although staff will be told that everyone is at risk. The word is that the cuts will be at all levels - from top to bottom. The redundancies will also be made at the same time; so not 2 or 3 one month and then 2 or 3 next month etc which generally leads to widespread breakdown of morale. Short and swift is the aim. Let's wait and see.

Credit Crunch Lunch

Today I had lunch with a colleague at the Carluccios just round the corner from my office. It was nice lunch, but I was partially distracted by other things...i.e. thinking that the last time I had been in there a few months ago, it had also been with a group of colleagues. Unfortunately most of those colleagues have now left due to the slowdown at work.

Since the last time I blogged about hard times at work, things have gotten worse. We now have very, very few contract staff in London and the situation in our regional offices is still very bad. Last week two people from the Glasgow office started an 8 week stint in London, a last-ditch attempt to avoid redundancy.

Last week, Lehman Brothers . This week??

On the brightside, this time last year I was working crazy hours and it was very stressful. I guess you get to the stage where you think it's normal to work till 8 every night; and over weekends too. But really it's not.... So the good thing is that these days, at 5:30 I'm thinking about going home and not about how much more I can do before the vision blurs.

Good Food / Bad Food

On Thursday night I had dinner at Benihana on Sackville Street, in Piccadilly. It was a work do, with some colleagues from Sweden and their top Clients. It is a teppanyaki restaurant i.e. a Japanese hotplate with the chef cooking all the food fresh in front of you. Very tasty, fresh and healthy food; the chefs are entertaining and do lots of tricks with their knives, tossing things around etc...well you get the picture. The main drawback is that you end up smelling like fried food when you come out!

That was definitely good food. Unfortunately I was in work mode, so no pictures but I came home tired but happy.

Tonight (Friday) Mr K-E and I met in the West End after work and we had dinner in town before coming home. I actually wanted to try a Mexican place called Wahaca, but the queue was tooooo long. TGI Fridays is just across the road from Wahaca, so we went in there. My suggestion = big mistake.

The food was bad. We haven't been into TGiFridays (or any of the others i.e. Hard Rock, Panet Hollywood etc) for more than 12 years and now I realise why. I had chicken wings, fries and onion rings while Mr K-E had his usual steak fajita. Everything tasted of salt. Or sugar. The steak didn't taste like beef. The onion rings weren't onion-ey. *sigh*

The best thing about the meal was our shared starter (a chicken quesadilla). Even Mr K-E's beers weren't cold enough. Tasteless food and expensive too!! How annoying .......Ggrrrrr.

Tired on a Monday night

Sorry for the lack of updates; we have been busy lately and I have been too lazy to blog :)

Some things we have been up to:

• Mr K-E's work had their (late) summer party at the Royal Festival Hall. It was on the 5th Floor Terrace and the guests enjoyed a lovely sunset view of the Thames, drinks and canapes. There was jazz band in the early evening and then later, a covers band to get the party into full swing. I didn't stay long, just long enough to do the "supportive" wife act, hahaha.
• We have been trying to clear out our flat...not easy...where does all this stuff come from? Aaargghh, all my books and shoes.....
• I had the day off on Friday and spent the afternoon in town shopping (hmmm, see point above...this is where all the stuff comes from..) I discovered a Busaba Eathai behind Selfridges. A Thai version of Wagamamas, v v good.

I'm sure we have been up to more, but at the moment I am too exhausted to think. I'm just sitting on the sofa waiting for our pizza to be delivered. Yep, it's a lazy night.

I'll just leave you with this picture of a cute coffee van which was parked outside our flat a few weeks ago. Doesn't it look like a toy?

Tough Times

Things are tough in K-E workworld. XYZ Group are not happy with the way that our UK company is forecasting and wants us to sort it out or else! The problem isn't really with the London business unit but with business units in other parts of the country eg Glasgow, Birmingham and so on.

Just to explain, XYZ Group is a PLC and we answer to shareholders and the market. The number one thing that shareholders want is reliability i.e. no surprises. So if you are forecasting 5% profit, you must make 5% profit. If you are forecasting 2% loss, OK that's not good...but if you actually produce 5% loss, that's very bad news. On the other hand, if you forecast a 2% loss, then declare a 10% profit, that doesn't send good signals because either a) you have no understanding of the market that you are operating in; b) you are cooking the books or c) both.


Anyway, the forecasting has been flip-flopping all over the place in the UK business mainly because no-one really knows what will happen in the next 6 months. All we can say is that things are looking dire in some parts of the country. All temporary staff have been laid off in some offices.

In London, we are under a lot of pressure to let freelancers go and support the other offices around the UK. Frankly, we are hardly in a position ourselves to give work away.

On another note, the last time there was a recession in our industry was after 9/11 and it lasted for about 18 months, I think. At the time, I was a junior member of staff and most of the management stuff just went over my head. This time round, I sit in on the resourcing meetings and know who are people next in line to be laid off. It's very strange. I've realised that the more senior I get, the more careful I have to be about what I say to more junior staff.

Brian Wilson at Kenwood House

Last weekend we went to Kenwood House in Hampstead Heath (North London) to see Brian Wilson i.e. Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys.


It was actually Mr K-E's company summer outing and it was an all-day picnic with the concert at the end. I didn't think I could handle all day in the park (hayfever...sniff ...sniff) so we just turned up for the concert in the evening.

It was a lovely setting; just a shame that it's such a trek from our South London neighbourhood.








We had the usual "English" picnic food - sausage rolls, quiche, chicken drumsticks, sandwiches, lots of beer...all arranged by Mr K-E's work so I can't complain.












Apparently he's the one playing the keyboard.

There were people at the front in deckchairs, but it was more fun in the picnic area.

The Economy Bites Back

Ok, so it was inevitable that the credit crunch would affect my work sooner or later. Sigh.

Today one of our biggest clients pulled the plug on our biggest development. 13 people had been working flat out on it, so it has created a big hole in our workload. To be honest, it's not such a big deal because there's more than enough work to go around. We heard the news at 11:30 and by 3pm, two other team leaders had called my Boss to ask if they could have his available resource. Hahahaha, we aren't people in megacorp, we are "resource".

It's just a shame that it won't launch as we have done so much work on it. Market conditions, investors getting nervous, etc etc....

Operations (or What I had to think about today)

Sorry - I've just realised this is a very involved post about work! I'll be back to the dodgy photos tomorrow :)

I had an intense day today at our Bristol office with the other members of the Operations Strategy team. Immersion in operation management strategy all day = exhausted brain.

Just to give you some background:

I work for ABC which is a PLC i.e. with public shareholders. The management board of our parent group sets out the growth and profit targets for each operating company. All the employees are aware of this, but most of us just get on with it and leave the management to the Directors. However, last week I was asked to be part of the strategy team. Eeeek.

This year ABC Group has told ABC-UK-CakeShop (my operating company) that as part of the latest 5 year targets, we have to achieve 5% growth every year and 0.5% increase in profit every year.

That's not easy. 5% growth means that if you are a 1000-employee company, you need to hire 50 new staff a year to grow by 5%. You need to provide enough office space, IT support, HR support, training etc for those additional 50 people. Plus, if natural staff turnover is about 10% anyway, you actually need to recruit 150 a year. There are a lot of costs associated with recruitment - because you don't just want to recruit the next guy on the street. It is estimated that the recruitment costs for each new member of staff is equivalent to one year of his or her salary. HR time, management time, agency costs, handover costs, inefficiency while "learning the ropes", colleagues having to "show you the ropes"....adds up to tens of thousands of pounds in lost earnings.

And most important of all, if we hire 50 additional staff, we need to make sure that our sales income can support all of these guys.

Consider that we need to do this every year....

0.5% profit increase per year is even harder to achieve. This means, year on year, we need to become more and more efficient at generating profit. We can't just charge our Clients more money every year without any added value (they would just tell us to **** off). How can you make everyone in your company produce 0.5% more profit this year than last year?

This isn't just increase in profit but increase in percentage profit. For example, 2008, you have 100 staff. If overall costs are £20,000 per staff member; then £2,000,000 is break even. If you earn £2,080,000, that's £80,000 profit - 4%.

Now it's 2009, you have 105 staff which hits the 5% growth target. Break even is £2,100,000. You earn £2,185,000 i.e £85,000 profit. More money than last year, but still only 4% profit so you have actually failed. Vastly oversimplified, I know - but just an illustration.

One obvious way is to outsource our low-end or back-office work to other countries i.e. reduce the direct costs. Everyone knows about Indian call centres, right? We are already doing this i.e. we have ABC-Manila which handles work for the UK and Hong Kong. ABC-India is also up and running, so soon we will be under pressure to send work there too.

The thing is, that's not enough. We will also be competing with companies from countries with lower costs eg India or China. That's already happened with software and telecoms providers. Within the next few years, we predict that the big players from these countries will also try to penetrate the UK market in our industry.

There are other strategy teams looking at different aspects, but I am in the Operations team which is all about delivery. How we can improve our systems and processes company-wide, how we can produce more for less, while still improving quality.

The UK Ops Director is ultimately in charge of this and it is an immense reponsibility. Operations seems to be today's theme. Terminal Five at Heathrow opened today and the baggage system has gone haywire. BA's Director of Operations has been on the news apologising profusely. I bet he's having a bad day.

Colleagues or Friends?

On Thursday night I went for a few drinks after work with my colleagues to start off the long Easter weekend. Drinking with colleagues is interesting (can't find another word for it) because it's different to drinking with friends. Everyone is trying to avoid the guy with bad BO and you hope you don't get stuck in the corner with the office whiner.

Plus there is the usual slagging-off of people who don't buy their round. Those people are considered scum. OK, a bit of background is called for: in the UK, people generally buy drinks in rounds i.e. one person will buy drinks for the whole group, then another person will buy the next round etc. So over a night, people will take it in turns to buy drinks and if it doesn't even out on the night, that's OK because over time everyone will buy his/her fair share of drinks.

See, it all works well except for "round-dodgers" who are universally disliked. Even though it appears all casual, it is noted. Women can be the worst, I'm afraid to say. They are happy to have drinks bought for them all night; which stinks in this day and age. It might be OK, if you are with your friends, who are generally more forgiving, but let's face it..colleagues are not your friends.

Strategic Bluffing

A few weeks ago, my Director forwarded me an e-mail about high-level strategy teams that are being set up at work. There are four teams : People (i.e. human resources, I believe), Clients and Markets, Operations and Finance.

I was surprised and flattered to find myself on the list for the Operations team, especially as the other people on the team include MDs for the various operating companies. I will probably be the youngest person in the team of eight. Obviously, this will be good for my career and an opportunity to make an impression on the top guys.

The problem is, this is making really nervous. I am a tech-ie at heart and usually sneer at phrases like KPIs, Core Competencies, Operations Management etc etc. Hey, all us techies know that the real progress is made by the front-line troops...who needs all this management bullshit?

Well, deep in my little techie heart, I know that this is the way up in terms of career progression. It's great that I've been put forward and now I have to show that I can make a contribution to long term corporate strategy.

But aaarrrggggghhh, I don't know anything about strategic operations management. And there is an all day workshop in April with all these top guys and me...trying to sound intelligent. I can just imagine the scene.

UK MD: So, Katie-Ella what do you think about XXXX? Do you think it will make a difference to our overall product delivery?
Katie-Ella: Erm. Erm. Actually........Erm.....*pretend to faint*

Not good, huh?

Like a true bookworm, I believe that everything can be learnt from books, so I've been trawling Amazon trying to find a dummies guide to corporate finance, operations management etc. Any suggestions gratefully received!

Whose life is this anyway?

It's Thursday night and depressingly, I have nothing to blog about. No exciting foodie tales, no sunny-side-up snapshots, no sexy mama thrills this week. OK, I could blog about work, ye Gods, I can just imagine all my (2) loyal readers rolling their eyes now.

This week has been spent in a series of meetings in stuffy, over-heated rooms. To be fair, they haven't been boring. I usually have to pay careful attention in meetings anyway, in case I have to leap in and defend my corner.

Sometimes I do wonder...what the heck am I doing here? It's almost like I'm living someone else's life - going to work on the bus, eating sandwiches for lunch every day, being all "professional" at work and sending snotty e-mails to people who aren't doing their job, going home to a messy flat and eating McCain's oven chips for dinner. Who is this woman exactly? And how did she reach this point : sitting at big table trying to out-manouevre a load of overweight fifty-ish white guys in bad suits?

Not me, surely? I'm the girl from Kampung XXX ( a small neighbourhood in Brunei) who eats chicken rice for lunch and drives to Gadong to work every day. I'm the girl who has breakfast with her Dad and loves to eat deep fried fish with soy sauce and rice. I'm the girl who doesn't have any interest in domestic affairs; goes to HuaHo with her Mum after dinner and just pushes the trolley around. I don't even put the food away when we get home, I just slink off to watch TV in the air-conditioned living room with tiles on the floor. I'm the girl who likes to hang out in Booker International and buy magazines on Saturday afternoon.

My real life is starting to feel a little bit unreal.

Act in Haste, Repent at Leisure

Friday afternoon was the most exciting afternoon at work for a long time (possibly ever!) for all the wrong reasons.

At work, we are quite slack about lunchtime drinking. It's not encouraged but it's sociable on Friday to go for a quick pint or two with your colleagues, so the management turn a blind eye. Most people are responsible and know their limits. The accepted rule is that if that pint turns into four or five or even more, you suddenly realise it's three-thirty and you are smashed....don't come back to work. Just ring your colleagues or your Boss, explain the situation and go home...or sit in the pub all afternoon. As long as it's once in a blue moon and you haven't got a critical deadline, it's fine.

The main thing is - don't come back to the office drunk.

Anyway, on Friday we all trooped down to the pub for lunch and a few beers. After lunch we all drifted back to work, some later than others, but by 3:30 we were back at our desks. Except for Ollie, Steve and Bill who were still drinking. It was Ollie's last day (so he obviously didn't give a damn) but Steve had an important piece of work to complete that day.

When Steve doesn't show up by 4 o'clock, his line manager Anton rings his mobile to ask when he is coming back. It's obvious that Steve is drunk on the phone so he's told - look, you've had too many, don't come back to the office. OK. Just go home, or stay in the pub.

Steve suddenly takes it into his head that "nobody can talk to him like that" storms back into the office and starts to berate Anton. Our Boss tries to get it under control and lead the clearly drunk and slurring Steve into a meeting room, but Steve isn't having it.

He starts to rant and shout at Anton saying who do think you are? I'm not just a stupid XXX! I have an MBA, man (cringe*cringe*) I have a first class degree man! (cringe*cringe*) What have you got? HNC?

For the rest of us, it's painfully embarassing: watching a 40+ year old man self-destruct in front of your eyes. A few people try to lead him to the meeting room, but he keeps shouting and making a scene until finally the Boss has enough and says OK, that's it. Get your things. You're out.

By now Steve realises that he's really fucked up, he starts to cry and says stuff like I have three kids man. I love this place man. My life is in ruins man. I really liked working here....

Finally we had to call security to get him out. As he left, he asked the Boss - will I still get a reference? The Boss didn't answer.

It was horrible watching that happen. Like a car crash in slow motion. There is no way he can come back to work now. I bet he felt like an idiot on Saturday morning.

When things like this happen, the management take it very seriously. Steve could try to sue the company for unfair dismissal etc etc so I will probably have to sign a statement on Monday. *sigh*

Careers from A to Z

A few days ago I spent a morning at a school in South London, representing my profession at a careers fair. I set up my "stall" neatly, stacking up my brochures and freebies (mousemats, pens and postcards) in an inviting fashion on a rickety school desk.

I was placed in between the Army and the London Ambulance Service, which I found slightly disconcerting. Is just me, or is the idea of the Army distributing recruitment information to 14 year olds really disturbing?

Anyway, it was a good experience. It is an inner-city school so the kids were not your clean-cut, freshly-washed, smartly-dressed variety. The hairstyles alone are blog-worthy. In a way, I felt that these kids actually benefit more from this type of thing compared to, say, a 14 year-old in an expensive boarding school.

After chatting to a group of 3 very "street-smart" girls, I asked if they had given any thought to their futures. One of them replied, "Oh, I want to be a barrister".

"Really? That's great," I said, impressed.

"Yeah. Or a beauty therapist," she continued.

I can't help but be amused. Do you think she got past "B" in the A-Z guide to careers?

Job Titles - revisited

OK, I guess I should expand on my last post where I moaned about being referred to as a career woman. It's not the phrase "career woman" that bothers me. I guess I can explain better using real-life:

Real-life situation A:
Most of my colleagues are men. Some of them have kids; some don't. In general, most of us work long hours in a pressure-cooker environment. At work, people have mentioned (not in a bad way) that I am a "career woman".

Why? How about my colleagues? Are they "career men"? If they don't have kids, does that mean that they are selfish and over-ambitious? If they have kids, does that mean that they don't love their children because they work?


Real-life situation B:
Mr K-E and I work in similar fields. We both work hard and we have both progressed in our jobs. So how come if Mr K-E gets a promotion it's almost expected - but if I get a promotion, it's because I'm "driven" or "ambitious" or a "career woman".

So, are woman expected to be crap at their jobs? Or am I just being silly and over-sensitive?

Job Titles

I know I shouldn't be so sensitive, but it really irritates me when people refer to me as a "career woman".

Like what, I should be crap at my job?

And no one refers to Mr K-E as a "career man".

Gggggrrrrrr.