One hour challenge - help me think of appropriate questions

[Balderdasha]

I am on my way to a very professional London environment where a good friend has set me up with three working mums for coffee so I can network and find out more about getting back into work after having children. I need to think of appropriate questions to ask, but I have had very little sleep and it was all I could do to find my handbag and heels this morning, which I have only used for weddings or funerals in the last six years.

What should I ask? What would be helpful for me to know?

Thanks in advance for any sensible suggestions.

[Patrick Thistle]

How do they cope with childcare crises? (Kid unexpectedly ill etc)

What's been the most significant changes in their industries in the past 6 years? And what do they think the next big change will be?

What's the most important skill or knowledge area you could hone while looking for employment?

What questions do they ask in interviews when they're asked "So, do you have any questions for us?"

Also if any of them regularly interview people, ask them what puts them off interviewees. You'll hear some stories I'm sure. Ditto, what red flags do they see on CVs and job applications.

[Balderdasha]

Those are all really helpful, thank you.

[Jah Womble]

As a further to PT's second point, it might be worth asking them whether there's any low-level re-training you should consider that might've become necessary in the time since your last position?

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Definitely the latter and it's not a dumb question. I returned to a post where I was expected to post stuff on our internal intranet and in just 18 months since I'd last done that they'd moved to an entirely new platform. The new system was like having to learn a new language.

[delicatemoth]

Maybe ask them if there are ways to identify organisations that would specifically value the skills you have from mothering and the extra dimension they bring to your professional skills, and likewise to identify places you might want to avoid due to them being clueless in this respect?

[George C.]

Transferable skills, it's always about those.

[Balderdasha]

Thank you all. Had a very enjoyable and interesting day and, if nothing else, it gave me an excuse for proper grooming on Saturday. Managed a hair cut, getting my nails painted, eyebrows threaded, legs waxed, and buying appropriate teeny tiny socks to fit inside my heels, all within the 2.5 hour window I had available. It's amazing how much more efficient parenting encourages you to be.

[Tactical Genius]

Thank you all. Had a very enjoyable and interesting day and, if nothing else, it gave me an excuse for proper grooming on Saturday. Managed a hair cut, getting my nails painted, eyebrows threaded, legs waxed, and buying appropriate teeny tiny socks to fit inside my heels, all within the 2.5 hour window I had available. It's amazing how much more efficient parenting encourages you to be.

London, I thought you were living in Rome?

Is this a regular meeting get together? If so, it might be a good idea to start slow, get to know them and start to ramp up the questions in subsequent meetings.
Good point about transferable skills. Have a list of your qualifications skills/experience and run it by them to see what might be open to you in the current market and how to go about securing a position. Also they may be able to help advise how to juggle how to manage work/bringing up kids (I am not sure how old and how many you have).

[Etienne]

I think you're confusing Balderdasha with Spangly Princess, TG, although the latter isn't in Rome at the moment, either.

[Tactical Genius]

I think you're confusing Balderdasha with Spangly Princess, TG, although the latter isn't in Rome at the moment, either.

Oh, you are right. Apologies. I was about to ask how the Liquidator is doing.
Balderdasha, you were in China back in the day right, I am struggling to remember posters?

[Balderdasha]

Yes, I'm not in Rome. Only been there once, for a holiday for my 21st birthday and got arrested for climbing in the Fontana di Trevi to take a photo. I know there are loads of signs saying not to, but we honestly didn't see them and when the police officer kept asking if we'd do that in our own country, all we could say was "yes, we've climbed in the Trafalgar Square fountains before and no-one arrested us".

Yes, I was in China back in the day. I lived there for about two years back in 2005-2007. First visited in 2004, last went in 2008. Last used my Mandarin about six weeks ago to help a woman who was stranded at the checkout of the local supermarket because she didn't understand the cashier who was merely asking her if she wanted a receipt, and thought she needed to pay again (they were having a classic misunderstanding stand-off, I only intervened when she rang someone for help and it became clear that she spoke Mandarin).

[Balderdasha]

Oh, and it's not a regular meeting, it was a one-off one-hit wonder. I got to meet each woman for 45 minutes, and saw my friend for lunch inbetween. Incredibly kind of them to give up their time for someone they don't know. Very interesting conversations, but quite a full-on day, so it was actually a bit of an insight into what it would be like if I got an actual job.

Up early, shower, dress much more smartly than usual while children express disbelief that I'm not in jeans and t-shirt or that I'm actually going to work in London, drop children at school / nursery. Run to train station. Eat porridge on train. Catch tube. Swap trainers for heels. Through security in not-to-be-named highly professional London environment. Meet friend, get set up in internal café for meetings. Back to back one on one face-to-face meetings for 4 hours, briefly running out to pharmacy (period started) and sandwich shop with friend at lunchtime. Finish at 1:45pm. Back out through security. Swap heels for trainers. Catch tube, run up all the escalators, run round king's cross like a headless chicken, ignoring the unhelpful signboards that claim there's no train home for another 20 minutes. Manage to catch a train to an intermediate stop with 30 seconds to spare. Buy more food at changeover station and eat on train home. Run home. Drop heels and some books. Grab swimming kit and 'stuff in packets' for an emergency packed dinner. Collect daughter and son from school / nursery. Walk to swimming pool while they talk non-stop and eat quorn scotch eggs and gingerbread men. Daughter has swimming lesson, son plays cbeebies storytime on my phone. Mortal enemy glowers at me (first time I met her, she asked if anyone was using the chair next to me, I said my son was, he just wasn't sitting on it at the time, she asked if she could have it so I went to ask my son if he minded me giving up his chair, she found it outrageous that I asked a 3-year-old's opinion and exploded shouting 'so I guess I should breastfeed my twins standing up?' I was dumbstruck. I didn't know she had twins, much less that she wanted to breastfeed them. In the ten seconds while my brain was trying to process this outburst and formulate a response she stormed off and got another chair. Now she glares at me every swimming lesson. I have another friend there though, so it's all good). Get daughter changed again after swimming. Feed them more banana, satsuma, lemon drizzle cake, apple juice. Kids still hungry. Buy cheese sandwich in café and let them loose in playground. Walk 1.5 miles home. Read school books with daughter. Husband takes over for bath and bedtime. Spend remainder of evening trying to secretly write letter from tooth fairy while shouting at non-sleeping son to stay out of our bedroom so he doesn't see and spoil it for his sister (who actually knows I'm the tooth fairy anyway, but that's not the point!)

According to my psychiatrist I am in 'full remission'. Does that mean I'm ready to repeat the above every day a week for four or five days? I'm really not convinced.

[Uncle Ethan]

Only you know. Do what you feel comfortable doing and take your time. You have nothing to prove to anyone.

[hobbes]

What UE said. Also, not every day will be a swimming lesson day.
And you end up moving things like that to the weekend so you never get any proper downtime, but by the same token you never have terrifying days (unless the trains are busted.) It just becomes a routine. Takes a while to get there though. I had 11 months off last year and going back to work was a struggle at first.
Soon passes though.

[Patrick Thistle]

Or, you know, would the kids really miss swimming once they've learned the basics? Swimming lessons seem like an absolute ballache* for every parent putting their kids through them.

*especially for the mums

[Patrick Thistle]

Also your mortal enemy sounds very much like my foster sister and the kind of thing she would shout.

[Balderdasha]

What UE said. Also, not every day will be a swimming lesson day.
And you end up moving things like that to the weekend so you never get any proper downtime, but by the same token you never have terrifying days (unless the trains are busted.) It just becomes a routine. Takes a while to get there though. I had 11 months off last year and going back to work was a struggle at first.
Soon passes though.

I realise that a lot of this is of my own making and could be changed, but this is our current schedule of extra-curricular activities.

Monday: daughter's swimming lesson. Son does gymnastics at nursery.
Tuesday: son's playgroup, daughter's rainbow group
Wednesday: daughter's art club, lunchtime at school but I have to factor in she may produce something large and unwieldy that I have to carry home. Daughter's after-school gymnastics club.
Thursday: son's swimming lesson. Daughter used to do yoga after school but has canned it in favour of playing in the park.
Friday: daughter's football club.
Saturday: son and daughter's piano lessons (they used to do separate music clubs, I've managed to condense it into one).

The ones I consider most important are the swimming lessons. It's the life skill I've found most valuable as an adult, and could potentially stop them drowning one day. Other activities can be rejigged dependent on time availability.

Hobbes, I've been out of formal paid work for around 7 years, during which time I've had a psychotic breakdown and spent 4 months in a mental hospital. I'm not sure how easy it would be for me to readjust to a regular job.

[hobbes]

Oh I know Balders. I apologise if it sounded like I was being flippant, it wasn't my intention.

[Balderdasha]

No need to apologise. I wasn't sure how much you knew or remembered about my situation. It's not quite the same as going back after a year's maternity / paternity leave. But Monday was encouraging. One of the women was talking about a returner's scheme she did where she had one of the smallest gaps in her CV (four years due to kids). One guy had a 12 year hiatus due to caring for an elderly relative.

[Uncle Ethan]

It never stops with kids. It's great that they are doing so many activities and that you are there for them when you can be. Hopefully work attitudes are slowly changing to accommodate people's needs and you can find the balance you prefer. Apologies if I'm doing the bloke thing and offering advice when all you need is somewhere to vent, but is a voluntary role initially a way in where you can then back away if it's too much? That also releases the pressure of it being a "job".

[Balderdasha]

I started a voluntary role about six months after I came out of hospital. I'm a youth group volunteer and on the board of trustees for a young carer's charity. At the youth group, I work one evening a fortnight and organise activities like Easter egg hunts, sock puppet workshops, making banana bread, etc, for kids age 8-18. As a trustee, we meet once a month. I helped the organisation achieve charitable status last year and I do funding applications and write reports for our funders.

Last year I also got a one-day a week voluntary role in an indoor play centre which I could bring my son along to. I worked on the reception, in the cafe, tidying up, Jack of all trades, sometimes making up party bags or laminating teaching materials or smashing up old bookcases for the dump. It was great. My mum used to sometimes come along to help play with my son so he didn't pester me too much while I worked. Long story short, my mum got me sacked from my volunteer job by repeatedly sending back the free food they gave her until it was costing them too much to have us there! It's a shame, but my son was due to start nursery that day anyway, and it had run its course.

Also, throughout this whole period, I've still worked for the businesses me and my husband run together. We set the first one up when my first child was three months old. I used to come on home leave from the mother and baby unit and do the accounts and invoices. At the moment, I'm doing more of the social media presence / website maintenance / blog writing which is more interesting.

Oh, I forgot. I'm also a volunteer reader at my daughter's school for 1.5 hours a week. I was really pleased about getting this because they have to do an enhanced DBS check and I wasn't sure whether being taken away from my house by police and involuntarily sectioned is something that shows up on that (a woman I know who was in the mother and baby unit with me is barred from working with children because of things she said during a psychotic episode). Turns out my DBS is completely clean which is great news for future employment.

So, I think I am ready to do a job. I'm just not sure what and how intense.

When, writing all the above, it sounds like I do a lot. The thing is, this is how I cope. I'm quite an intense person and I would not feel at all like myself if all I was doing was childcare and housework.

[Balderdasha]

Also, worth mentioning that the reason I can do stuff in the evenings like volunteering or going to the gym is that I have total confidence leaving the kids with my husband. He is both willing and supremely competent to do dinner, bath and bed with the kids, as well as or often better than I would. My mum used to baulk the first few times I got her to drive me to the gym as she was leaving our house to go to choir (she visits once a week and I take the opportunity to not walk the mile to the gym) as she would never have left me and my sister in my dad's sole care. Looking back, I wonder whether he'd have been better at childcare if she'd given him more of a chance. But then, he's a high-functioning alcoholic in denial who I wouldn't leave in charge of my own children, so she may have had a point.

Anyway, it is great being able to leave the kids and not worry about anything. They'll have their teeth brushed and their hair combed. My husband will be endlessly kind to them and answer all their questions. He'll read their school books and fill in their reading journals. He'll sing them a bed time story and tuck them in. He'll respond patiently to their endless ploys for getting out of bed "I need a drink", "I need the toilet", "I need a snack", "My brother hit me". He'll probably only shout at them when they've been doing this repeatedly for at least 1.5 hours which is longer than I last.

[Uncle Ethan]

I reckon I'd take on a full-time job to get a rest if I was doing all that.

[Balderdasha]

Some of the women I met on Monday are a whole extra level of intense. One of them did a PhD and wrote a book in the 18 months she took 'off' to raise her twin boys. She described it as 'I did a few exams and a little bit of writing to keep my brain occupied'.