My husband calls me his Home Manager. I like that better than Housewife or Homemaker, or certainly Stay-at-Home Mom. One of my friends prefers Family Engineer. But that sounds too technical. I’ll stick with William’s term.

Maybe it sounds right to me because my last paid job was Office Manager. When I started working, I was a Secretary and happy to be at a desk rather than out on the floor. The title wasn’t important. Then the term became Administrative Assistant, and I was OK with that too.

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After I returned from my first maternity leave, I rose to Office Manager by taking on more responsibility, including training the new girls. I shouldn’t call them “girls,” but that’s what they were. We didn’t have one guy. And those new kids started young, usually fresh out of high school or maybe college. One of those girls I trained is probably the Office Manager now.

After I had the second baby, I gave my resignation. The cost of two kids in decent daycare was almost as much as my salary. Then of course William was rising in his own firm, and it looked like he’d make plenty to support us. He had great benefits, too, better than mine.

So despite what many of my friends were doing, I chose to stay home. And become the Home Manager.

That was years ago. Now with both girls in school, I have some flexibility. Sure, I do lots of grocery shopping and laundry. The year we built the new house I was busier — checking on the contractors, picking out tile, getting the grand piano installed and tuned… Plus there’s more to clean, and I don’t hire help unless we’re throwing a major party.

I will say, I orchestrate epic celebrations. My girls will have plenty of great holiday memories to look back on.

But anyway, most days, the mid-days are my time. Once the errands and chores are done, I do what I want: read or visit the gym or play the piano or amuse myself on the computer. I’ve kept up my skills with the latest version of Microsoft Office, you know? Just in case.

Then when school’s out, or it’s the weekend, my life is all about the kids and their time management. They’re both involved in sports; they both take dance lessons and play instruments; Kiki’s stayed active with the Girl Scouts although Bess has dropped out … the list goes on and on. And William travels so much for business, I’m often the only parent around.

I know he couldn’t be such a successful executive without my handling everything at home. Once the girls go to college — or sooner, when the second gets her driver’s license — I’ll consider going back to work. Or picking up more volunteer activities. Or getting a degree and trying something else entirely.

I haven’t decided. And I don’t need to yet. So for now, yeah, I’m the Home Manager.

Thank you for reading the latest character’s monologue in my “Career Girls” series. If you’d like to go back to the beginning, start here:

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Now that you’ve met Ma’Ree, who loves teaching poetry, and Mimi, who’s toiling unhappily at a new job, it seems like a good time to post some lyrics Mimi could have written during her year of unemployment. Trigger warning: these verses are not upbeat.

MY LIFE’S ON HOLD
or LAID-OFF LAMENT

Laid off last week
	For no good reason
This is the start
	Of a dismal season
They just can’t see
The value I bring
And what I can be

My life’s on hold
My life’s on hold

Laid off last month
	And no one’s calling
Can’t get a job
	My income’s fallen
They just don’t know
What all I can do
How high I could go

My life’s on hold
My life’s on hold
My prospects are cold

Is this why I got a college degree?
I know shit happens, but why to me?

Laid off last year
	My savings dwindled
I’ve lost my home
	And I feel swindled
Nobody cares
My hope is all gone
I drown in despair

My life’s on hold
My life’s on hold
Since I got laid off
Since I got laid off

I gave this lament to my brother the rock guitarist to noodle with, and he wrote some banging music for it (and probably altered the lyrics; I can’t recall now). But I think you can also imagine it strummed and moaned by a world-weary bluesman. Maybe in a beat-up fedora and jeans that earned their worn spots the honest way.

Speaking of blues, here’s something I wrote at my very first full-time job (not listed on LinkedIn — don’t try to figure out where). I’d been there a couple of months before I discovered they’d misled me about my role, their financial situation was dicey, and the owner had filed for bankruptcy at least once in the past. I got out of there a few months later. But before I left, I penned this:

CHAPTER ‘LEVEN BLUES

We hear there’s no more buyin’
Our vendors are all cryin’
Yes it’s just a little while until
	Bankruptcy closes in.

Well our employer’s smilin’
We guess he’ll soon be filin’
Yes it’s just a little while until
	Bankruptcy closes in.

We should have
The Chapter ‘Leven Blues
But ‘round here
The trouble’s hardly news.

We figured it would happen
So it’s hard to claim we’ve got
The Chapter ‘Leven Blues.

Go ahead, listen to me sing it a cappella.

Finally, I amused my fellow copywriters at a different job when I furiously pounded out a poem in response to unwelcome feedback. The client was a financial company and my account director was concerned the brochure I wrote would require a higher level of reading comprehension than our audience could manage. Even though the piece required me to include phrases like “balanced investment portfolio” and explain complicated legal requirements.

This one’s never been set to music. But if you’re so inspired, have at it. And then share!

SHORT BOB

This is Bob.
He likes short things.
He reads copy.
Watch him freak!

“What big words!
“What long sentences!
“We must cut them!”
He exclaimed.

So long, style.
Farewell, adjectives.
Nouns and verbs.
That is all.

And on that note, I’ll wrap up this long, lyrical post. Hope you’ve enjoyed the break from my usual, fictional characters’ monologues.

Oh, and if you haven’t already subscribed but are open to reading more drama:

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Over the years I’ve tried to be adaptable. Flexible. But I’m coming close to snapping.

When I took the job I have now, they seemed eager to get me. I was introduced as a “strategic hire in a newly created role” and given the budget to build a department. But we’re not appreciated after all. It’s like they wanted a “Quality Team” just to check off a box of what modern companies should have.

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I didn’t begin as a Master Black Belt, oh no. I started on the phones in customer service. After becoming a supe and learning how to coach people, I grew into training and development. Once we got into Six Sigma and LEAN, I was totally on board. I really believed in operational discipline and continually improving processes.

When we acquired other businesses, I traveled to their facilities and led workshops to bring their folks into the fold. When we were acquired in our turn, I did my best to stay positive. And when they asked me to relocate to their corporate headquarters in another state, I conferred with my husband and quickly agreed.

Truth be told, I accepted because I was nervous. I’d survived a slew of reorganizations, and I was afraid to say No and lose my job. I had too many years invested in that business, in my career path, in being a quality leader. How could I decline?

So I said OK and uprooted my family. Thank God my husband works for a national company that let him transfer offices.

But a couple of years later, my nightmares came true: I was booted to the curb. They decided they no longer needed certain departments, including mine. We were ALL booted to the curb.

Was I bitter? You bet. Granted, I got some severance — but not nearly enough to cover the whole time I was unemployed. I couldn’t drive by those headquarters without … hissing at it. Childish, I know. But that’s what I did.

After a year of networking, submitting applications and smiling through hopeless interviews, I got this offer. The money was almost what I made before, it was a better title, and it meant moving back here, where my husband could return to his original office.

It looked like a win all around. So I took it.

And I regret it. It’s a family-owned business, and the founder’s heir is … clueless. There, I said it. He doesn’t understand how manufacturing and marketing is evolving, and no one has the guts to tell him when he’s wrong. He hired me and created this department just to pay lip service to his top customers, but it’s clear he has no intention of letting us do our jobs right.

Now I’m afraid he’ll change his mind any minute and eliminate my team, despite talking it up to his customers. I’m always frustrated, and I’ve started avoiding that guy whenever I can. I’ve developed health issues I don’t even want to discuss.

Last week, I talked to an old friend who found herself in a job she hated so she chucked it all for something different. She bought a pizzeria and is busy expanding its menu. She sounds happier than she has in years. But I couldn’t do that. I’m just not that bold. I can’t flex that far.

And I can’t stand the thought of job hunting again, admitting to the world I should never have taken this position.

So I’m stuck. Stuck, scared and close to snapping.

Thank you for reading the latest character’s monologue in my “Career Girls” series. If you’d like to go back to the beginning, start here:

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My career choice was nothing like I’d daydreamed as a kid. But now, I can’t imagine doing anything else, it’s so deeply entwined in the fiber of my being! Here, I’ve written a little poetic pastiche to express it:

I went to school to win at basketball.
I even got a scholarship to pay
for everything. I only planned to stay
until I got a big-league agent’s call.

Isn’t it funny how plans can completely change?
During my sophomore year I had to find something
I could pass easily to keep my average up.
Poetry gave me humanity credits and
fit in my schedule — so why not? I registered.

Oh my gosh, I couldn’t believe how much I love it!
Yes, I even quit the team to get more of it.
Basketball could “make me famous”? I said shove it!

And that’s how I found
my calling. Not as a jock —
an English teacher.

Now, just a quick dissection for you. That first stanza, of course, is your basic ABBA enclosed rhyme pattern in an iambic pentameter quatrain. You’d find that in any Petrarchan sonnet; it’s a classic.

The second stanza has no rhyme, just meter, with five lines written in dactyls — and you’ll notice the word “poetry” is itself a dactyl; you know, DUM da da. I love this one! It sounds fairly natural, but if you let it build up momentum it just dances. Except, of course, if you’re the Beatles and you really slow it down: “Picture yourself in a boat on a river, with tangerine tree-ees and marmalade ski-ii-ies …”

Sorry, moving on: my third stanza was going to be good old “terza rima,” best used by Dante in The Divine Comedy, but then I got caught up in my “love it/of it/shove it” rhyme scheme and just made it a triplet in trochaic hexameter.

And the last stanza is actually a haiku, with the usual lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables. Of course since I recited it instead of letting you read it on a page, you couldn’t see that. Ha! It’s like my own private joke.

But back to the point: I could have been a basketball star. All through my childhood, that’s what I envisioned — and I played hoops every chance I got. But then I went to college, randomly took a poetry course, and became a total word nerd. Go figure.

Thank you for reading the latest character’s monologue in my “Career Girls” series. If you’d like to go back to the beginning, start here:

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My own personal mama was a nurse, and her mama was a nurse too. Nana spent her whole career in a private office, just her and the doctor — where she was also the receptionist, accountant, whatever support function he needed. She knew everyone in that little town and what diseases they might develop, which made her seem clairvoyant. Really, though, the place was just a “stagnant gene pool,” to quote my biology teacher. Nana was simply smart enough to keep track of who suffered from what.

My own personal mama worked at the city hospital, where she was in her element. She loved constantly meeting and helping new people, training new staff, facing new challenges. She got me a summer job as an aide when I was a teen, so I saw how she thrived there. But it wasn’t right for me.

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I didn’t have the temperament to deal with patients all day, the way Nana and my own personal mama did. The idea of improving health was appealing, though — so I went into medical research. Maybe my discoveries could help eradicate a disease, without me needing to sponge-bathe the bed-ridden. Maybe a drug I developed could save lives, without me needing to vaccinate squirming kids myself.

That’s how I chose a life of lab work. Nana taught me ladies don’t boast, but I must say: I was a smart student and a meticulous scientist. I had no trouble getting into good schools, getting good grades, getting my degrees. Everything was going smoothly until after my PhD, when I was doing my second post-doc.

There’s this attitude in academia: if you don’t devote your whole life to your lab, you’re not dedicated enough — not a real scientist. I almost accepted that, until I was up for a fellowship working on bioterrorism. It could have been so cool! But I balked when the man interviewing me admitted, “I never see my 4-year old son when he’s awake.” By then I had two children, and I couldn’t commit to a job where everyone expected their kids to be strangers. No matter how willing my husband was to take on more parenting. No matter how noble the research seemed to be.

You understand, I’d been referred by the guy I worked with at the time. Most science jobs are secured through networking, and when I passed on the first gig he recommended me for, he was done helping me. Then when I didn’t win the grant I’d applied for, to fund my next experiments, I took it as a sign it was time to move on. Not just from his lab. From any lab.

There were other factors in my decision to course correct. How often is there a simple, single reason behind anyone’s choices? Maybe it’s your kids’ welfare. Maybe it’s a reluctance to move across country. Maybe you get breast cancer and need to nurture yourself for a while.

Maybe it’s all of the above.

I haven’t totally abandoned science — that’s what I write about. It wasn’t hard to use the papers I’d published to get a staff position with a big pharma company. It’s going well; I’ve already gotten a promotion. And I get home for dinner most nights.

Things might be better for women entering science now, but back in the day, it sure was tough. One of my classmates left her job inventing synthetic fats at a food conglomerate to teach high school chemistry. Another switched from molecular genetics to patent law, something with intellectual property and the National Institutes of Health. She still logs insane hours, but she’s gained respect and clout. She says pivoting was worth it.

Do I miss getting my hands dirty in the lab? Some days, sure. But am I happier on a day-to-day basis? Oh, yes! Maybe as happy as my own personal mama was, all those years ago. She just loved that hospital.

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Hello friends, especially my new subscribers! I’m so glad you’ve joined us.

Thank you for all your positive reactions to the first eight characters in my “Career Girls” series. In addition to some very encouraging comments, I’ve also gotten a question on my most recent post:

“Will there be more added to Molly’s story?”

Well! I hadn’t planned to expand any of these characters’ scenarios in future. But now that you ask, hm …

There are almost twenty more monologues written or in development. I have pondered a bit about what to do when those are all completed and posted.

Should I write more, set in the same time period as the originals? Or maybe instead of continuing “Tales from the Great Recession,” it might be time to start a new series, something like “The Next Generation.” I’m sure folks entering the work force these days have a different perspective.

Or, now that it’s been suggested, I could even revisit some of my original characters. Give them the space to talk about their lives now, about 15 years after their debut.

These are all possible options, any of which could be interesting to explore. Hm …

If you have a completely different suggestion, please leave a comment! And if you’re not already a subscriber, here’s your chance:

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As a kid, I had this sequence of things I was going to be when I grew up.

The first one I remember was ballet dancer. I had a darling little pink tutu. Then I wanted to be more of a pioneer: an astronaut or arctic explorer. The year I was the tallest in my class, I dreamed of being a model. At one point I planned to find some prince to marry. Then when my dad chided me for mooning over European royalty, I returned my allegiance to the United States and declared I’d become the first female President.

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Sometime in high school, though, it dawned on me how much fun I’d been having drawing myself in all these possible professions, and how I really needed to go into a career that involved drawing.

That’s how I got on the graphic design path.

And I never got off. I’m still a designer, but I don’t draw much anymore. Jeez, I’ve seen a lot of change in the industry. I got my first job at one of those big catalog companies, when doing a page layout meant drawing figures, cropping photos, “specking” type, using a stat camera, pasting on boards … talk about hands-on and labor-intensive.

Fortunately, I was curious and started playing around with computers. At first I was self-taught, then when everyone needed to learn the new design tools I got to take classes and really hone my skills. I became known as a “power user,” and got wooed away by a big ad agency.

These days I work for myself. After a sequence of getting laid off, getting rehired, getting laid off, getting a job with a different agency, getting laid off … you get the idea. Designing was in my soul. But holding a job for more than two or three years, apparently, was not in my destiny.

I’d freelanced during those stretches of unemployment. Pretty much everyone I’d worked with called for help, because they knew how good I was. Plus I was fast so I met their deadlines as well as their budgets. Eventually I had enough recurring clients I could make it on my own, so I stopped applying to staff or agency positions.

That’s how I went solo.

It was scary at first, sure. But the good years are pretty dang good. And the bad years, well, at least no one tells me my position is terminated. I just need to be more frugal and hustle harder to win new business. I can handle that.

And the truth is, I love being the pioneering president of my own place.

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No little girl dreams of being a middle manager when she’s growing up. Even if half the adults you know are middle management, it’s not like you understand it. It’s not like you aspire to it. It just happens.

I got there the usual way, I guess. Took an entry-level position soon after graduating. Made a lateral move, got a promotion, found myself in management. I might have been good at it; my reviews said I was. But who knows for sure?

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Here’s what I do know: I was loyal to that company for almost a decade. I liked their corporate culture, my staff, my fellow managers. Maybe I would have stayed forever if it hadn’t been for the recession. You remember when it seemed every company was cutting jobs? Well, one of those was mine. My whole department got cut.

It took several months before I found a new gig, similar to the old one. Some of my colleagues were less fortunate. And one woman who’d been a mentor to me back in the day, Claire, just couldn’t land anything. Maybe she failed to show her skills were transferable? Maybe she suffered age discrimination?

Maybe she just had bad luck.

A mutual friend told me Claire was going adrift, selling off her antiques and library through eBay. She had a home full of mid-century furniture, inherited tchotchkes, and first-edition books, and she found there was a market for them. Her severance was long gone and she was sacrificing anything of value to stay afloat. Our friend confessed she’d bought a few items herself, just to help, and suggested I do the same.

I’d heard of eBay but never used it. So I went online and bought a couple cute things from Claire. Then from someone else. Then thought of nice but unnecessary stuff I had that other people might appreciate more than I did, so I listed a few of my own belongings. I’d been a pack rat for ages, maybe I could make it pay off? Which it did!

Then I talked to Claire, who’d been doing OK but didn’t have much excess left to offer. I suggested we pool our resources, working together to collect and list decent items from other people who were desperate to raise funds or downsize or just de-clutter. Now it’s become a pretty decent business for the two of us, managing online resales and riding that E-commerce wave. Basically, we’re “middlemen” instead of middle managers.

You’ve heard that old phrase, “doing well by doing good.” Well, I’ve had the great good fortune to create a new career for us — all because I was trying to help out a friend.

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Education was the foundation of my family. My dad was a university professor, mom taught in a private school, half of my aunts and uncles were teachers. There was no question we kids would get advanced degrees.

Even with dad’s faculty discount, I didn’t want to attend the U down the street. My first real rebellion, in late adolescence. Instead, I went to a state college a few hours away and settled on my field: special needs education.

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You know, it’s easy to be an idealist when you’re young. I had teaching in my blood. I’d studied all the latest instructional techniques. And I thought I had an inexhaustible supply of patience and compassion.

Wrong! After eight years, I was exhausted. Some students were so needy, and some never seemed to progress. For every triumph in one area, there’d be a setback in another. Seeing children flounder day after day … after day … totally broke my heart. Once in a while, I made a genuine difference for someone. But there was no way I could do this for the rest of my life. By then, I had two kids of my own to raise. And I was burnt out.

Time for another rebellion: I couldn’t stand to be a teacher any longer. But I had no idea what to be instead.

That’s what it comes down to, you know. Not what to do, but what to be. Being a teacher was how everyone knew me; that’s how I knew myself.

Well. There was no getting around it. I changed my name when I got married. Now I would have to change my whole being, too.

Have I mentioned my husband before? Of course, Theo’s a professor like my dad. He had just gotten tenure, so we could rely on his income while I figured out what to do with my life — who I should be.

Figured out. Perfect expression in my case.

With less income now, I became super-focused on our budget. How to maximize what Theo brought in, how to minimize what we spent, how much to save for our kids’ education, where to invest for our retirement …

Turned out I was good with sums and securities. I was earning us enough, I started advising my parents. Who suggested I might be good enough to get paid for it.

And that’s how I found my new field: financial planning. Of course I had to study up and get relevant training. And I had to get used to dealing with adults instead of young students. That was a switch.

Here’s the thing, though: advising people how they should handle their money is just another kind of education. The skill of explaining things you know, to someone who doesn’t know yet, can apply to a lot of things.

So gosh, I’ve been doing that for almost a decade. Yes, it’s frustrating when you tell clients to pay down their credit cards, but they ignore you … or you recommend a portfolio of funds whose manager turns out to be a crook … or here’s a good one: there’s a world-wide recession and nobody has liquid assets to invest anymore, and your own business takes a hit.

But at least I’m not burnt out anymore. I deal as much with reliable numbers as I deal with capricious personalities. And even though we’ve all suffered setbacks, most of my clients are better off now — financially, anyway — than before they started meeting with me. Year to year, I can see I’ve made a real difference in their lives.

I know exactly who I am now: I’m a trusted advisor. And yes, I’m helping a lot of people save up for their own kids’ higher education!

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I was all about building and organizing space. When I played with dominoes, I laid out floor plans and fretted over how wide to make the doorways. I did things with Legos that made aunts and uncles marvel. When I climbed up lighthouses or tall historic buildings, I counted the number of steps to see how they compared to our house — which was a total of 14 steps between stories, nine to the landing and five up from there.

But it didn’t occur to me to prepare for a profession. I certainly didn’t imagine studying any kind of engineering! That was a boy thing. I was going to college for a liberal arts degree and then, well … I wasn’t sure. Wasn’t I just going to work in a store or a school or someplace ‘til I got married?

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I didn’t even wait to finish college. I met Buck at a party my sophomore year. He was cute, strong and a real sweetie. And he was already working in his family’s construction business, so he had more spending money than most guys I met. He didn’t care much about college, and I agreed with him by the time I got pregnant. It just seemed natural to drop out, get married, and set up house.

Our wedding gift from Buck’s folks was help with a cute bungalow. Some financial help with the down payment, sure, but mostly building and finishing work — at no cost — kind of help.

I was thrilled ‘cause I got a lot of input. And I must have made good suggestions, ‘cause when our bungalow was done they’d bring potential customers over to show it off. I had to keep it clean and neat every minute, as if we were going to sell it.

That was a real challenge ‘cause I was busy raising kids, and did they make a mess. We had three of ‘em over four years, boom-boom-boom.

Finally they were all in school and I started helping with Buck’s business a little. He and his dad figured, since I’d been a “college gal,” I could do the bookkeeping.

Well, pretty soon I was involved in almost every aspect of the business: greeting customers, getting permits, ordering and accepting materials, hiring subcontractors … and somewhere along the line, I started making more of my little suggestions.

A few of the guys got annoyed. Buck’s older brother in particular. But mostly, my ideas were tolerated — and sometimes welcomed. And I thought, hm, I’m getting plenty of on-the-spot experience, maybe I should take some classes so I can back up my suggestions with more confidence.

Let me tell you, it’s weird to sit at the kitchen table with your teenagers in the evening, all doing your homework together.

Thank goodness, Buck was supportive. He could see what I was learning would apply to his business. He was even interested in some of my assignments, although not enough to take classes himself. As he said, somebody ‘round here needed to keep working to pay for all that education!

It took me awhile, but by the time my last kid started college, I had my degree and my license. Meanwhile the business had grown enough, Buck’s dad named me full-time “staff architect.” So now I have the title — as well as a decent salary of my own — and Buck’s elder brother has even come ‘round to accepting my more educated suggestions. Most of ‘em, anyways.

Subscribe to read “May” next week!

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My friends, thank you for subscribing to read my “Career Girls” monologues.

I’m still learning about this platform, and I appreciate you coming along with me as I — hopefully — become more adept.

One fun thing I’ve discovered: it’s easy to include polls in these posts to get your feedback. And I would LOVE to hear what you think about the cadence of emails you’re receiving with my serialized play.

Many of my characters are waiting in the wings. Impatiently.

Mitzi is all ready for her cue; I just need to hit “post.” May can take the spotlight as soon as we decide which image to share with you: The one that suggests the field she started in? Or the one she’s loving now? And while I had time to write over the weekend, Myra came to life. For now she’s scripted for later in the show, but gee, she’s eager to meet you.

It’s so tempting to just flood your inbox with all of them. I’m trying to show restraint.

Weekly still feels right. Right? Now you can let me know if you agree or not.

You can also leave a comment if none of these options work well for you. Or if you simply want to say hello to me or the group. Or anything you care to express, really. It’s wide open!

And if somehow this poll got forwarded to you and you haven’t subscribed yet, here’s the button:

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When I started, they said I was fresh off the boat. I didn’t know what they meant. My mother and the rest of us, we come to Chicago by plane. My father and elder brother were already here, working, sending money to bring us over.

I got my job through a family friend. He ran his business above my uncle’s shop. This shop, it ships things back to Poland. Sometimes, my uncle says, strangers come in thinking he must ship everywhere, like UPS. He doesn’t. But he has a good business, serving the whole neighborhood, shipping packages back home.

Of course U.S. is home for me now. I have a good business, too. I have four, sometimes five, girls working for me. We clean a lot of houses.

And because I work hard, and my girls work hard, people want us to keep cleaning for them. These women, these Americans, they think they don’t need to get their hands dirty. They’re happy to pay us to do the dirty work. I don’t mind. It’s just dirt. Usually.

Early on I worked out most efficient system, I got a lot done – but I never, what’s the word, cut corners. Soon the customers ask just for me, and my boss make me teach the other girls my ways so when I was too busy he could say, “You try Tereza – Manka taught her, she’s just as good!”

That’s when I decided to quit and start my own business. If I teach them all my ways, I want to make the money – not some boss. Now I’m the boss.

I was smart. I figure out how to get good business, working with real estate agents. They always need houses cleaned to look nice to sell, cleaned when people move out, cleaned when people move in.

It’s good work, honest work. You can see when you do it right. I like that.

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Well, I’m retired now. Technically.

I spent a long time in Human Resources, primarily as a recruiter. Handled some benefits management too. I spent a few decades with a huge firm, global in fact, then went out on my own as a headhunter for hire. It was rewarding, matching the right people to the right opportunity.

But that’s ancient history. Now I’m giving back, as they say, which is much more rewarding.

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All along, I’ve volunteered one way or another. Mostly through church. I was involved with the local women’s club and my college alumnae, too. For one reunion I was class fund agent, which meant writing a lot of notes asking for money. Never did that again. But I joined in church-sponsored activities constantly, from working the food pantry to donating kids’ gifts every Christmas.

Once I quit the rat race, it seemed natural to pitch in more. Plus I wanted to get out of the house. And not just into my yard. One summer I watched an older neighbor go nuts with her gardening and landscaping. To the point of sifting through her decorative gravel to clean out little sticks, foreign stones and other impurities. She spent a full week on it. I figured I could find better things to do.

And I did. As more members of my congregation found themselves out of work, I found my niche. I started leading a couple of classes on things like resume writing. Fielding tough interview questions. Looking professional and controlling body language.

Before I knew it, I was serving the whole community, not just my church. And managing a few other volunteers so we could cover multiple topics on the same evening. I wouldn’t say I spend 40 hours a week on this, oh no. But I surely don’t have time to get bored. Or clean my gravel.

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Are they considered too bland? That must mean I’m too bland.

It’s true I have no fascinating cultural heritage. I didn’t grow up in some exotic locale before moving to the heartland. I wasn’t raised by eccentric aunts – filthy rich or filthier poor – whose charming ideas about child rearing provide a string of entertaining stories.

I had the usual two parents. Dad worked in insurance; Mom ran the house. I have an older sister and two younger brothers, none of whom died young or was kidnapped or lost on a mountainside during a Scout campout or bitten by a rabid dog. I must have fought with them sometimes, but I honestly don’t remember.

What I do remember is playing cards and board games and watching TV and thinking how exciting it would be to go on a three-hour tour, even without a shipwreck.

I can still sing that whole theme song. Can you? I’ve got a bunch of TV songs stuck up in my head, and little bits and phrases pop out now and then: “… the youngest one in curls.” “… she was a V-A-M-Pee-ee-ee, VAMP!” “… you’re going to make it after all!”

Looking back, I guess she was the kind of woman I always wanted to be. Smart, surrounded by funny people in a job she loved, pursuing her dreams.

My dreams were pretty simple. Finish school. Find a nice man to marry. Raise my couple of kids. Finally travel.

When I did graduate with my degree in history, I wasn’t sure what to do next so I started working for my dad. At first it was just front desk stuff, but then I got kind of interested in the insurance business. And he was happy to teach me. I really liked the idea of helping people protect the things they cared about, their homes and their cars and their families. And it turned out I was pretty good at selling insurance.

There’s one positive thing about being bland: people trust you. They trust you to see things their way, to give them good advice. They figure you don’t have the imagination or guts to lie or cheat. They trust you with their money. They trust you with their security.

So with me working with Dad, the business grew. Then one day at the bank I met my nice man. He’d come to town as the new branch manager, and of course he wanted to get to know all the local businessmen like my dad … and that also meant getting to know me. He was really nice.

After we’d been married a couple of years and I had Bobby, Dad said it was time to decide whether I’d stay home with the baby or stay with the business. I didn’t think it was a hard choice because Mom offered to help babysit, and I could set my own hours. By the time Dad was ready to cut back on his hours, the kids were in school, and we’d hired a few more people to help out – so it wasn’t just me anyway.

And then Dad retired completely and turned the business over to me. Me, I own the business.

So that’s the kind of stories I’d like to read and see on the silver screen. Women who thought they were going to grow up and be just like their moms but somehow wound up owning a business more like their dads … and are doing pretty well. Women whose families have the usual ups and downs but no major upsets. Women who form the backbone of their community, doing all kinds of service work like volunteering at the library.

And who sell insurance.

That doesn’t have to be bland, does it? Or even if it is bland, wouldn’t it be nice to see there are other people just like us, working and loving and living and doing OK?

They’ve got a name for that period now: The Great Recession. Makes it sound grandiose, doesn’t it?

At the time, though, it was just life. Maybe you realized people you knew were struggling. Or they were anxious. Or maybe it was you, or your spouse, looking for a new job and getting nothing. It wasn’t until years later you read some of the statistics: 8.7 million jobs were lost between December of 2007 and early 2010.

These weren’t just statistics to me. Oh, I had a job that wasn’t going away: working at an outplacement firm, helping people prepare for live interviews by recording them. And we sure had an uptick in our business.

Here’s what I did: I’d position these people in front of a computer with a camera. They’d respond to a set of questions based on their field or desired position, and then we’d play it back and discuss what they did well and ways they should prepare better answers or change how they talked, or looked, or used their hands. Some people didn’t need a lot of coaching. And others were just a mess.

Now you might be thinking, “who needs to be taught how to act in an interview?” But most of my clients did. You have to understand: many had worked for the same place for 20 or 30 years. Many had never thought of developing a “personal brand” or how they looked to a hiring manager. And if you lost your job in, say January of 2009, it didn’t matter how well educated you were, or what skills you had, or what seniority level you’d attained in a big-name company — there just weren’t enough jobs. If you wanted to fill one of those few openings, you took any informed advice you could get.

Meanwhile, I had started a little vlog to share my days with friends who’d moved out of town. Mostly I posted videos that described what I’d seen on my latest walk or something equally mundane. But then I got the idea to ask a few of my clients, the more articulate ones with whom I felt some connection, if they’d tell their stories online, on my vlog. And some said yes.

Originally, the posts all featured women I knew. Then I started hearing from other people who’d stumbled upon my site, asking if they could submit their stories. After a little hesitation, I decided sure, let’s open this up. This situation is bigger than me and my clients. I understand men were disproportionately affected by the recession, but I decided to focus on women, who were more willing to share … and eager to be seen and heard.

By providing a space to express themselves, I also got submissions from women who felt secure and perfectly happy with their choices. Soon it wasn’t all an exercise in despair. In fact, the site morphed over the years into something that celebrates all the different ways we work. And that makes me really happy, having built a community of women who support you when you’re down … and applaud you as you rise.

That’s how my site “Career Girls” was born. Now that you’ve heard my story, let me share some of my favorites. I’ll start by introducing you … to Mary.

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Welcome to “Career Girls”

Years ago, when I was laid off for the third time in a decade, I wrote a series of monologues about working … and not working. By choice or by chance. To the characters’ dismay or delight. I titled it “Career Girls: Tales from the Great Recession.”

Lots of people leant me their voices

Over my holiday break, as I thought about colleagues who are no longer working with me this year, I revisited my old monologues and polished a few. Reorganized them all. Reminisced about the friends who contributed anecdotes and real experiences that made their way into my fictions. Recalled how several folks gathered at a conference room in my church to read through the whole lot (at the time) and give me some feedback. Appreciated the actors who brought eight of my favorite creations to life at a New Works Festival. And decided, maybe it’s time to give these characters another chance to speak to people, in a different format, that will reach a wider audience than my beloved community theatre circle.

Join a new community circle

You may see echoes of your own experience, or of people you know, in my characters’ stories. You may be moved to share what you like — or dislike — about what you read. And you’re welcome to post suggestions for new characters and their occupations, because I’ve only written about twenty so far. A couple of ideas are already sprouting in the back of my mind, and your comments might help them grow.

I’m thinking of publishing weekly until I run out of my original monologues. Maybe I’ll switch it up with other ramblings; I’ve penned a few poems in my day. And random song lyrics. I’ve also written a couple of “ten-minute” plays that could find their way on here. We’ll see. Who knows were this will end up. Want to come along?

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