Gainful Employment -- Hooray!

Sandy Leonard Hutchinson,

grossly underemployed if employed at all

for 3 years and 2 months,
humbly announces she has a job,
starting Thursday, July 30, 2009.

A real full-time job with a decent salary, health and dental insurance, a 401(k) with employer match, paid time-off, and free parking. It is with a progressive, stable Internet business, so what I learn will increase my marketability going forward. That was pretty much my entire list of requirements for the next job.

The transition from Greensboro to Charleston has not been easy, and this employment piece has been the hardest nut to crack. I would like to think that we can all live with flexibility and mobility and take time out to help family, travel, pursue dreams that may not immediately produce income, but I'm not sure I could, in good conscious, tell another woman approaching age 50 to go for it. I am so lucky that Duncan has been able to keep us afloat and insured. These are tough times and many people have no cushion at all.

I sent out a celebratory e-mail to almost everyone I knew and while I got back congratulations and good wishes, I also got back notes telling me how hard work is right now. One friend wants to retire and can't. Another is not ready to retire but is being forced out. Someone else has had to lay people off. And more than one tells me that because of laptops, cell phones and blackberries, the boundaries between being at work and not being at work have all but disappeared and the result is stress, doctors, medication, and therapy. Aye Yi Yi. What am I jumping back into?

I just know I've been missing the things everyone else complains about -- having to get up on Monday morning, going to the office, a department- a "team", meetings, a mission statement and a strategic plan with deadlines. I'm looking forward to being involved with someone else's projects again!