Working Motherhood

Being a working mother of a young baby necessitates a pretty strict schedule. Those lucky suckers get to eat like five or six times a day. If you're the sole source of nourishment, you kinda hafta work around the baby. If my schedule deviates from the norm it requires intense re-strategizing so that I can take care of the things I need to take care of (you catch my drift?). When plans change I feel like a sergeant who has just been handed intelligence that her squad is under threat of attack--time to seriously re-think the strategy. For me to change plans requires intense data collection and then plugging that data into a complex algorithm to determine the time, location, and resources which will allow me to take care of business.

Today was my first full day away from home. Not only that but I spent the entire day in an off-site meeting--a big change over the last eight weeks. At one point during the day I found myself sitting in a locked room in total darkness.

It started out just fine. The people at the meeting location were very friendly, understanding, and accommodating. They found an unoccupied conference room which I could visit throughout the day (I mean really, what mother wants to resort to a public restroom?). The challenge was that even though the room was equipped with a lock, it also had a sidelight window. Can you imagine the horror of some unsuspecting employee out perusing the hallways, looking for an excuse not to have to go back to their desk, who just happened by the room and thought "hey, I'll just peak in and see what my colleagues are doing in here . . . "

To meet this challenge the friendly staff helped me cover the window with foam-core signs that were sitting around the room, left over from some old project. So now the room is locked, the window is pretty well covered, and a power supply is located. I position myself in a chair at the far end of the conference-room-turned-mother's-lounge with my back to the door. I feel relatively safe and things are going smoothly. This isn't so hard! Then all of the sudden the lights shut off. My first thought is that I failed to lock the door and someone all hopped up on thoughts of saving the world by ending wasteful energy consumption saw the empty chairs through the crack in my make-shift curtain. I immediately turn (just my head of course) only to see the door is still closed. Whew! Did I cause a electrical short in the building? No, I still hear the '"wheer. wheer." of the motor of my good friend sitting on the table.

Then I realize what's happened. This building has been recently renovated. It's got the latest and greatest in snappy office furniture. It's also got the latest and greatest in "smart" technology. I think back to my visit to their bathroom and the motion-detecting faucets. I deduce that the foam-core we so ingeniously re-purposed as a curtain is covering the light switch--the switch that must also be controlled by motion. It must have been programmed to shut off after a certain amount of time of not sensing movement--the invention of yet another person who dreams of saving the planet one kilowatt at a time. It is apparent the designer didn't test all the possible use cases. Nursing mother looking for privacy should have been at the top of the list.

My heart stops racing and my eyes eventually adjust to my surroundings. I fumble to finish and pack up, making sure things are back in place (been there, done that, turned red, as I've alluded to before). I sheepishly poke my head out the door, hoping I don't run into the staff so as to avoid the "how did it go" question.

So I guess my strategy was about 90 percent successful. Not bad for my first day back.