On the job thing

Imagine that you need to buy a shirt.  You know you want it to be blue (for the ease of the analogy.)  Now imagine that your only options are a puke yellow, doodoo brown, or pea-soup green (assuming that you don't have a thing for any of those colors.  Gah, this analogy was easier in my head.)  My point is you know what you want, you can't have it and you don't want to make do with the other crappy choices.


That's how I feel about the job thing.


My degree is in Markets and Cultures and Foreign Languages.  When people ask what that means, I tell them that we studied corporate cultures - how IBM is different from Disney, and how IBM Latin America is different from IBM China.  We studied emerging markets and their projected impact on the global stage.  Our required reading was The Economist which I devoured every week, all of Malcolm Gladwell's books (if I ever met him I would probably die), and Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat which was a freakin masterpiece and I loved every second of my college experience.  I don't have a true double major like Biology and Accounting - it's more of a dual major.  I could take languages as my elective and with one extra semester I could have the second major so I went ahead with it.


I wanted to be a diplomat, a Foreign Service Officer for the State Department, an ambassador, work for an ambassador, or just be near an ambassador, diplomat or Foreign Service Officer.  I wanted to work for the UN, a foreign policy non-profit or even a multi-national corporation dedicating to improving international relations in emerging markets.  I dreamed of working in Morocco or Tunisia, where their language of business is French.  I wanted to live in Argentina, helping people by day, becoming a tango master by night.  I wanted to have an apartment in Paris and spend my summers there.


That's one of the reasons why Julia is my hero.  She lives in Madrid (die), she speaks Italian, French, a little Spanish (die), she's worked for the UN, (die!) and she teaches little kids (die!!)  I'm like, you're the me I want to be!  Follow!


In a somewhat related vein, I also wanted to be a spy/trained assasin.  I wanted to sell everything I owned and move to Paris when I saw The Bourne Identity.  Mr. and Mrs. Smith made my girl-crush on Angelina Jolie that much deeper - even though the movie was kind of lame.  I also love her for all humanitarian work.  And her tattoos.  I have all the seasons of Burn Notice on AppleTV.  I was thisclose to joining the military as an officer but I chickened out at the last minute.


In addition to that, there's another side of me that loves all things medical.  I love real and fake medical tv shows:  House, Scrubs, Trauma: Life in the ER and anything on Discovery Health. 
*Update:  I realize that sounded kind of lame and I should put some meat on that.  My mom is a nurse and my dad has been in medical sales for as long as I can remember.  Our garage is lined with medical textbooks covering every specialty under the sun.  When I was younger I would go with him to his meetings and conventions and rub elbows with doctors and surgeons at the ripe age of 13.  I've always been fascinated and would sprawl on the living room floor, trying to read the textbooks and only understanding every 20th word.  It was usually 'the.'

So, it's not just the tv shows is what I'm trying to say. 


Did you notice that nowhere in there did I say I wanted to be a receptionist or secretary?  Yeah, me too - however that's all I've got on my resume.  Go figure.  


Yesterday I had an interview with a wealth management company that my staffing agency coordinated for me.  As as admin.  I don't want it but I have other things to think about and plan for so beggars can't really be choosers.  What was most interesting to me was the conversation that Drew and I had after the interview.


Him: I thought you didn't want to be an admin.
Me:  I don't but I have to bring in an income.
Him:  I just don't understand why you don't do what you really want to do.
Me:  ::going through what I'd really want to do with my life for the fiftieth time and explaining, for the fiftieth time why that's no longer possible::
Him:  But those are your goals, your dreams!  You shouldn't have to give up on your dreams!  It makes me angry to think that you won't get to do what you want.
Me:  Look, I can't be attending a symposium on war crimes in Geneva, Switzerland while you're running a course in Hong Kong.  Who picks up the kid from school when they have a fever?  Who reads to them at night?  I'm not interested in other people raising my children, therefore somebody has to be home more often than not.  We can't both be off traipsing around the world. I mean, we could but that lifestyle is not conducive to creating and raising a family, and besides it's sort of already been decided, wouldn't you say?
Him:  Well...


When we got off the phone, I was shocked.  Does he not realize what it means to have a kid?  To raise a family?  That having a child means making permanent sacrifices?  That there are things that you will never ever get to do again when you decide to create a family?  That at this stage in the game I will probably never get to be a diplomat or trained assasin/spy and I'm okay with that?  That if he continues to be gone Monday through Friday that my job options will be severely limited because we have no family near us to help?  Does he not get that?

See, the challenge is that Dallas isn't necessarily a multi-cultural world-player city like a New York, San Francisco, DC, LA or even Chicago to a degree.  No, Dallas is a good-ol-boy city second only to Houston with their oil and gas barons.  Yeah, Frito-Lay, JCPenney and Texas Instruments are here but none of those really get me excited about life, you know?  Additionally, just about any job in the healthcare field will require extra education which Drew is adamantly against, saying that I already have a degree and we're trying to pay off debt not make more.  I'm presently trying to figure out a way to show him that getting a nursing degree or sonographer certification will pay off in much bigger dividends, such that the additional debt incurred will be worth it.  I'll keep you posted, and if y'all have any tips I sure would appreciate it.  Drew is as stubborn as a bull when he doesn't agree with something and it will take a lot of logical persuasion for him to even hear me out.

I still don't know when/if we're moving, but so far his boss is okay with the present situation.  If things continue this way, we may get to stay in Dallas and Drew will simply travel during the week and be home on the weekends, working from our house on the rare days that he's here during the work week.  So far I don't mind it, although it will be super great when he can get a better handle on the work/life balance thing.  Right now, work has a bigger share of his life than I would prefer and I'm trying hard to be understanding and patient.  It is no easy feat because I require a lot of attention and I know that.  I'm trying to keep my temper tantrums in check.

So let me ask you:  Did you have professional dreams that you let go of in favor of a husband, a child, family or friends?  How do you feel about that now? How were you successful in getting your husband to come around to your way of thinking - dirty tricks are accepted and encouraged!