The Best Job In The World

I have the best job in the world.

Over the past month I have received a number of calls and texts from former clients and colleagues. Aside from saying hello and staying connected the majority have been in relation to my career and what it is I’m now doing with myself. The response on every occasion has been the same – “I have the best job in the world right now”. “I’m a full time Dad”.

For those that don’t know; among other things I’m a Perth boy, have been in Melbourne for nearly a decade and am a self-confessed workaholic. In April I took a redundancy and after years of selling high performance tights, working late nights and catching long haul flights, I was suddenly waking up in the morning with nowhere to be. It felt bizarre. But it also felt totally fine.

Days after I had officially stopped working my best friend who lives in Houston called me to check in. Among the general chit-chat arose a question I’ll never forget.

“Ben – in so many ways your job is your identity – are you going to be ok?”

He was absolutely right. My job was so much of my identity. I loved it. I was good at it. I was respected. I was satisfied with the career I had established. I was proud of the outcomes I had achieved.

All of a sudden that was gone and with one of the world’s largest pandemics on the horizon things weren’t looking bright in job land for Melbourne based executives in the sporting and retail trade industries.

I was given my marching orders three days before the Easter break. By Good Friday I had notified my network and it was during that series of emails and calls that I suddenly realised that whilst for the first time in my career I was unemployed, in a lot of ways I had just been promoted.

I am conscious of what I am about to say, as there were many people out there in April that needed to be working and there are many people still out there now that need to be working – and are not. Personally, my investments over the past 15 years have afforded me a level of financial stability that means finding a job that pays wasn’t and still isn’t priority one, but further to that, I married someone a lot smarter than me (life hack) and she’s doing very well for herself (us).

Now, that last comment might seem arrogant but it’s not intended that way. It serves a purpose in this short story. That being the removal of the household “Bread Winner” stigma and the call for greater support of Women returning to the workforce postpartum or post maternity leave.

In April my wife was also unemployed (imagine what was running through her head when I dropped the news on her and we had a 4-month-old rocking away blissfully in his Baby Bjorn and both sets of families on the other side of the country in Perth). A month prior she had accepted an unrelated to Covid-19 redundancy as the company she worked for was executing a significant re-structure. Her intent was to get back to work once our son was approximately 7 months old. Around this same time in April she started consulting for a few brands within her network and it was at that point (literally just days after my redundancy) that I leapt into my promotion as full time Dad.

My wife’s consulting was a success, so much so that her “I’ll just do a couple of hours a week” theory almost immediately became six days a week of work. I instantly became a major fan of Sundays when dual parenting was possible and never in my life had I been more tired – not even 25 hours of flying Melbourne – Sydney – Dallas was comparable.

I had always respected the stay at home parent but I never truly understood the intricacies of it. My appreciation radar for these people went through the roof and all of a sudden, I was the guy at virtual Mothers Group who followed @heysleepybaby and @play_at_home_mummy on Instagram.

Fast forward to July and my wife had three high profile, big company executive offers in front of her. Yeah – the consulting was a huge success. I remember sitting at the kitchen stools with her after I had just put our son down for the night and drawing a SWOT analysis for each role (my first taste of corporate strategy in over 3 months). For my wife the underlining decision was her ability to stay truly connected to her son. “I don’t want to miss out” she said. But she also didn’t want her career to miss out.

When you think about it - giving birth is so unfair on so many levels. I’m not going to drill down on the obvious there but when I think about that moment in the kitchen with my beautiful, intelligent and highly competent wife running her eyes over the three SWOT axes with an ambience of anxiety, I really did feel for her. The reality was that whichever job she chose she was going to miss out on a lot of our son’s milestones – even if she was only upstairs in our home office (Melbourne Covid-19 lockdown style).

In the end, she went for the role that she felt would allow her the flexibility to feel as close to our son as possible. And you know what – in the preceding months that decision has been justified time and time again. She is absolutely killing her now job, delivering amazing work and results, building and leading an engaged team and firmly remaining as the favourite parent to our little monster. I’m so proud of her for returning to the workforce with such grace and success.

So where has that left me?

Well, I’m still following Mummy Bloggers on Instagram, keeping the family baby Whatsapp group’s content stream alive and doing the best I can to raise our son and instil good habits and behaviours. On the regular there are moments where I say to myself – “it would be a lot easier to have a job that pays”, but then I flash back to a conversation I had before the arrival of my son with a mentor who said his biggest regret in life was that he put his job before his kids and genuinely did miss out on watching them grow up.

And that’s the silver lining of this global pandemic for me. I’ve been given the best job in the world and one day when I retire, I’m pretty sure it will have been the best job I ever had.

Ok Ben. That’s poetically beautiful but there’s a but. You’ve already confessed you were a workaholic who loved his job. Would things have really changed if you hadn’t lost your job?

It’s a question I have grappled with but in my heart of hearts I know the answer is Yes. The joy I get when I make eye contact with my son is unheralded and there really isn’t anything on earth as good as it. Why wouldn’t I orchestrate a lifestyle where I can do something that brings me that much joy more often!?

Over the past 5 months during naptime I’ve silently followed my LinkedIn thread and a common topic of conversation for the unemployed and childless has been about what they are doing whilst they’re not working. This has annoyed me. Some “experts” would demand these people be out finding a cure for cancer or completing an online intensive MBA at Stanford. The summation of these discussions has been that If they hadn’t done something impressive it seemed they weren’t applicable for the job they had just applied for.

Well guess what.

That’s bu**sh*t. And if you received that sort of feedback upon an unsuccessful notification then you wouldn’t have wanted to work there in the first place.

Yes, doing something more constructive then bingeing all 208 episodes (9 seasons for those playing at home) of How I Met Your Mother would be better, but don’t think for a second that because you didn’t complete an overpriced online course on how to use Excel more efficiently means you don’t deserve the job.

And for those still not working.

That’s absolutely OK.

It’s also absolutely OK not to be working where you thought you would be or should be. My next-door neighbour was formerly a national sales leader in pharmaceuticals. A brilliant communicator who oozes positivity and passion. He’s currently stacking shelves at our local Woolworths on night shift and weekends while he raises his two sons and his wife works. And he’s doing it with a smile on his face.

What I’m trying to say is, for me, this pandemic has given me so much more perspective on what’s truly important, all the while developing me into a better leader and manager thanks to a 9-month-old and my opportunity to be a spectator rather than another person on the train each morning.

And that leads me to the paid job front.

There still isn’t much out there that is a match for me. I’ve had some fantastic discussions with some great recruiters and business leaders but everyone’s bleeding right now and quite frankly fewer people are simply being asked to do more. What I do know is that often the best jobs aren’t advertised - just like the one I have now. So, I’ll continue to network, volunteer and like I always said to my staff “control the controllables” – like making sure my son stays in clean nappies.

So that’s what I’ve been doing. Oh, and I grew a beard too.

For those that have read this far. Thanks. I hope this made you smile. Life ain’t so bad.