HI Stefanie, long-time lurker, first-time poster. Or maybe second - I've read your blog almost since I began reading blogs...so that's about nine months now. It coincides with the time I came back to work and cursed my miserable existence each day while pumping in my closet-like office, only to endure the grandest humilation when our CEO walked in my office without knocking.
So - dear blogosphere friend, you were lucky you didn't continue breastfeeding.
I'm responding to your post about the crazy person who used Amazon.com as her personal soapbox. What amazes me is that women continue to lash out at each other like this sad reviewer. How incredible that she has the time and focus to write and edit a review. Just out of curiousity, what was her brilliant 43-month-old doing while she wrote that? Or if she posted the review late at night, why didn't she go to bed so she could wake up a little cheerier in the morning? Truly, I believe the reason reality TV is so popular is because we can enjoy schadenfreude...watching the pain of others...and that lust for a little pain to help ourselves feel better. It's getting out of hand - and I agree with an earlier comment that knocking each other down is not helping post-partum depression in this country.
Unlike what's-her-name, I'm not going to assume all webspace is my personal pulpit. The Bottom Line: we're all doing the best we can, and I admire you immensely for: 1) writing a book about something so personal; 2) having the poise and presence of mind to go on the Today Show -twice- and making us all laugh; 3) being as open as you are about the realities of life as a mom; 4) just being a super-cool person in general.
I'm so sorry she wrote those things...big, big hug from over here in Chicago...she's just jealous of your fame and good looks.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Friday, March 02, 2007
Last Days
The last days of a job are always odd. You're leaving, your projects are transitioned, and yet you are still an indispensable part of the team.
Indispensable is a strong word - used only when describing frantic calls from team members at the Tampa Convention Center at 8:30 PM in the evening. While you're at home, relaxing on the couch, sitting down for the first time since arriving home two hours earlier. And yet, out of the seven people at the Convention Center from our company, no one but me can figure out this problem. Which is why I'm leaving. I'm indispensable and yet don't rank high enough in the agency pissing match to go to the damn convention. Which I didn't really want to go to anyway - but it's the principle.
Many frantic communications from BlackBerries this morning from team members onsite. Me, calming them, reassuring it will go fine. Last night's impossible request to be completed by 2pm this afternoon in time for Very Important Awards Program at 3pm.
YOU'RE WELCOME. I'm Glad I'm Quitting. I'm Excited About My New Job. Buh-Bye.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Thinking about self-medicating
I really think Dooce (Heather B. Armstrong) nailed it last week when she blogged about Britney’s recent troubles and how her own postpartum depression gave her insight to Britney.
It’s becoming clear in Britney’s erratic behavior that she was self-medicating for something…perhaps postpartum depression, perhaps her career or the end of a marriage.
Craig Ferguson also monologued about this - his comments are very sweet, and very funny:
I’ve had my own flirtations with depression, and it’s not pretty. When I was first out of college, I was *lucky* enough to land a high-paying job with a big consulting firm. Typical weeknight activities for most of our project team included drinking, eating and drinking more. We’d go out every night and drink, and drink some more. We had a lot of laughs, but it wasn’t pretty. Most of us were single, making more money than we could spend, and half the team was from out of town, living on expenses.
Occasionally, my girlfriends and I’d go back to my college town and hang out with a friend that still lived there, post-college. Of course, we’d drink - and a few times I got so drunk I wouldn’t remember my behavior the next morning. Such as getting into a shouting match with a stranger - or stealing something from the bar we’d partied at (pint glasses, at minimum).
I didn’t know it at the time, but I was self medicating. Because I was depressed, hated my job, hated programming, hated most of my co-workers who were even more ass-kissy than me, hated being a computer programmer in a nasty loading doc-cum-project headquarters. All of us hated it, though some stayed on. I saw older friends (at that point, older meant 28!) who had jobs they hated and mortgages that kept them from quitting. It sucked, big time. I rolled off the project at the first opportunity, and sat on the bench for a while - working on CBTs until I would be called up again. I called a favorite advertising professor and told her I didn’t really like doing what I was doing. She knew that, she said - she knew I wouldn’t like that but knew I had to find that out on my own. She offered to connect me with a few advertising agencies in St. Louis. And a couple weeks later, I was laid off from my shiny programming job. Happily, less than a week later, I signed with an ad agency on Sept. 10. It was the first offer I got - at more than 40% pay cut. But I took it, because it was an opportunity and I had a mortgage. And the next day the World Trade Center came down.
More on this later.
It’s becoming clear in Britney’s erratic behavior that she was self-medicating for something…perhaps postpartum depression, perhaps her career or the end of a marriage.
Craig Ferguson also monologued about this - his comments are very sweet, and very funny:
I’ve had my own flirtations with depression, and it’s not pretty. When I was first out of college, I was *lucky* enough to land a high-paying job with a big consulting firm. Typical weeknight activities for most of our project team included drinking, eating and drinking more. We’d go out every night and drink, and drink some more. We had a lot of laughs, but it wasn’t pretty. Most of us were single, making more money than we could spend, and half the team was from out of town, living on expenses.
Occasionally, my girlfriends and I’d go back to my college town and hang out with a friend that still lived there, post-college. Of course, we’d drink - and a few times I got so drunk I wouldn’t remember my behavior the next morning. Such as getting into a shouting match with a stranger - or stealing something from the bar we’d partied at (pint glasses, at minimum).
I didn’t know it at the time, but I was self medicating. Because I was depressed, hated my job, hated programming, hated most of my co-workers who were even more ass-kissy than me, hated being a computer programmer in a nasty loading doc-cum-project headquarters. All of us hated it, though some stayed on. I saw older friends (at that point, older meant 28!) who had jobs they hated and mortgages that kept them from quitting. It sucked, big time. I rolled off the project at the first opportunity, and sat on the bench for a while - working on CBTs until I would be called up again. I called a favorite advertising professor and told her I didn’t really like doing what I was doing. She knew that, she said - she knew I wouldn’t like that but knew I had to find that out on my own. She offered to connect me with a few advertising agencies in St. Louis. And a couple weeks later, I was laid off from my shiny programming job. Happily, less than a week later, I signed with an ad agency on Sept. 10. It was the first offer I got - at more than 40% pay cut. But I took it, because it was an opportunity and I had a mortgage. And the next day the World Trade Center came down.
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