I decided this weekend that one of the hardest things about having Pete leave for a weekend is having to field all the questions all by myself! These little people here ask a LOT of questions... I know I've written about this before, but it bears repeating (as does, apparently, just about anything else that gets said around this house. The repeating things over and over is almost as tiring as the questions!).
Anyway, most of the questions I get asked are pretty simple and I can answer them while still thinking about whatever I was trying to think about (usually what we are going to have for dinner, or whether or not the bathroom door got closed so Colsen can't get in). But all too often the questions become more brain-busting, and these are the ones that lead me to that dazed expression I so frequently sport these days.
So here are some of those brain-busters I had to deal with this weekend. (Keep in mind I have to try to answer these questions while also responding to 1 or 2 other little voices, as well as cooking, driving, shopping, talking on the phone, studying for work, listening to another adult, emailing, etc.)
- What letter of the alphabet is used most often?
- Why is this yogurt?
- What is your favorite thing? ("not person -- so don't say Jesus!")
- What color do you want my hair to be when I grow up: blue or green?
- How many types of guns are there in the world?
- Do you want to go make a crown?
- What is the name of that movie? (there was no context on this one... she just wanted me to tell her what movie she was thinking about)
- What's Daddy doing in Virginia right now?
- I want a band. How do I get a band?
These are the types of things that just make my head hurt!
Meanwhile, the 10-year class reunion of my MBA program is this month, so many of my classmates have been emailing everyone to say whether or not they're coming, what other classmates are up to, etc. And at the bottom of each email is always a 10-12 line signature, full of impressive sounding titles, contact methods and numbers, etc. Clearly these people have important jobs! (And, I even found out one of my good friends from the class is the former "vice-minister of the economy" -- of Ecuador -- and now he's running for office so there are all these video clips online of him debating on news shows and stuff. Pretty funny!)
And I can't help but chuckle about how different my life is from my classmates'. I daresay my head must be just as challenged as theirs are sometimes, though. Especially considering the fact that I have far fewer brain cells than they do since I've poured significant amounts of mine into 3 kids! :) But I do want to tell them that contrary to what they may believe, I do use many of my MBA skills in my current post. For instance, I use the principles of the Critical Fractile model quite often in my inventory planning. (the model deals with the probabilities and costs of understocking and overstocking goods) And my model has the extra twist of having to sift through weekly changes in sale prices from numerous competitors (grocery stores) on top of the other constraints!
And speaking of "constraints," I find my current job has way more constraints to deal with for any given project than anything I EVER did in the business or academic world. But that's a whole other train of thought, and my brain is still too weary from question-answering all weekend to pursue it now.
In the meantime, I'm going to go dream up some good job titles for me!
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