By Jacqueline DooleyÂ
As a self-employed person I am breaking lots of rules by working outside of the normal 9-5 office environment. I can think of a few key things right off the bat that feel deliciously rebellious right now. These include working in jeans, working from home, making personal phone calls and getting started later than 9 a.m.
The flip side of this is I’m completely on my own and require a large amount of self-discipline and direction, which is often challenging. There can also be complications outside the office that creep up unexpectedly and it’s up to me to figure out how to overcome them. For example, yesterday I was feverishly working on two deadlines when I lost my Internet connection at about 1:30 pm.
I had only started working at noon because I’d taken my kids to the dentist, then had to drop them both off at school, which required some sophisticated navigation due to all the flooding-related detours.
Luckily my sister-in-law lives in New Paltz and her house is always empty during the day. They rarely lose power or Internet. So I drove the 10 minutes to get there and was able to complete my work (for the most part). In truth, I surprised myself by my own productivity. Even though I wasn’t working from a “traditional” office, I was able to concentrate without the temptation of multiple distractions.
Office has distractions
I called my sister-in-law to thank her for letting me work at her house and she agreed she gets a lot more accomplished when she works from home. There are lots of distractions at her office so it’s difficult to focus. She’s even going to set up an office in her basement so she can work from home occasionally. I wonder if she will find once the newness of working from home wears off, it can still be difficult to avoid distractions.
To that end, I wonder if taking yourself out of whatever work environment you’re used to can actually help with productivity. I used to think working from home 100 percent of the time was the best way for me to get my work done, but now that I’m living that dream, I’m beginning to yearn for a place to go outside of my house - at least once in a while.
I’ve lived the other extreme for many years and I know working 100 percent outside my home is also not what I want. If I do that, I’ll begin to resent the commute, the time away from my kids and the drudgery of being in the same cubicle day after day.
It all comes down to the fact that rules are made to be broken. Since (for me) a key rule of self-employment is I get to work from home, it stands to reason breaking that rule and going to work somewhere (anywhere) else can actually help me stay focused and break me out of a rut. This was certainly the case yesterday when I found myself working at someone else’s quiet house, on a nice country road where my own home-based distractions and chores couldn’t steal my focus away from work.
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This article was published in the Poughkeepsie Journal on Saturday, April 21st, 2007.
By Jacqueline Dooley
I often wish I could take time off more spontaneously in response to events that make it difficult to put in a full week’s worth of work. For example, both my girls were home this week because of spring break. My older daughter is in kindergarten and this is a pretty big schedule shift for her.
My youngest daughter goes to a childcare program at BOCES, which is also closed for spring break. She only goes a few days a week, so staying home all week is really no big deal for her. She’s used to being home with her father while I work upstairs.
The big challenge is having both girls home together all week. The little one is used to having some time to herself and the older one actually misses school. This is the first time she’s been really, truly bored.
They are both getting in each other’s hair while I work upstairs listening to it all and wishing I could do something with them. But there are some weeks I just can’t break away. I’m going to be away all next week at a conference, plus the first week of the month is my busiest time.
I used to think it would be easy to take time off since I work for myself, but it’s often the opposite that’s true.
My husband and I have had many conversations about what we should do when our kids get older in terms of extracurricular activities. We agreed to keep each girl in one extracurricular activity of their choosing and keep their schedules fairly open during vacations and weekends.
When I came to the above conclusion, my older daughter was about three. At that point in time, she was quite content with playing with stuffed animals and contemplating her navel.
Now she doesn’t miss an opportunity to tell me she’s bored and ask me to do something with her. I love that she wants to spend time with me, but I hate the guilt. I’m also realizing that what may be right for one stage of a child’s life isn’t necessarily going to be what’s right for another.
That’s how I found myself scheduling her week, much the way I schedule my own week. A play date on Tuesday, gymnastics camp on Wednesday and Thursday (with her little sister along for the latter), a sleepover at grandma’s from Thursday to Friday and I’m home free (or rather, work free) by Saturday.
Not like the past
When did this happen? Is this a working mom thing or a typical parenting thing? I remember playing outside during school breaks, or coloring or reading. Well, OK, she can’t read yet so I’ll give her that.
This short break is making me realize that I’ll need to plan better for things like summer vacations and holidays. I don’t want to keep missing them. In retrospect, I wish I would’ve scheduled a few days off this week even though I’ll be away next week so I could spend time coloring, playing outside and reading with both my girls.
To this end, I have hired three subcontractors over the past couple of weeks to help me get my work done. I think this is a good way to build a safety net so my business can stand to be without me for a few days (and vice versa). Hopefully, this will ensure that I can enjoy more than a few lazy days of summer with my girls, instead of working through all the fun stuff.
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This article was published in the Poughkeepsie Journal on Saturday, April 7, 2007.
by Jacqueline Dooley
When I first started freelancing in 2002, the ability to work remotely from my home and on my own terms was extremely exciting.
When you’re starting out with a new business, the excitement of endless opportunity can make each day feel like the first day of summer vacation. It was the first time in my life that I couldn’t wait to get up each day and go to work.
But things don’t stay new forever and (as the saying goes), the honeymoon period only lasts so long before any new beginning can begin to lose its sparkle.
I think that’s what’s happening with me lately. My home business is starting to feel less like I’m striking out on a new frontier and more like an actual job.
Even though it’s mine, and even though I have way more freedom and I’m making way more money than I ever have before, I’m beginning to show signs of burnout and worse - boredom.
I realize it’s not uncommon for people to question their jobs and their careers every so often. Many of my friends and colleagues are doing just that - whether it’s scoping the field for a new and better job or completing their master’s degree, everyone I know is moving in a new direction.
I guess we all love that shiny feeling of endless possibility that comes at the beginning of a new journey.
I’m chalking up my own feelings of boredom and burnout to a long, hard winter of much work and little play. The first day of spring, which came and went this week, has probably fueled my own restlessness.
Before last year, I never really thought much about breathing new life into my business and regaining the momentum and excitement I had for it when I started out. My business was in a constant state of flux as I tried to find my niche, obtain new clients and learn how to manage it all. I also worked part time for the first two years.
Now that I’ve exceeded two years of full-time self-employment, I’ve begun feeling the standard full-time job burnout that I remember from the old days when I was more traditionally employed. However, unlike 2002, when it was nearly impossible to find a full-time position in my field of expertise, (online marketing), the industry is booming.
Good to have choices
That provides me with a lot of different options for shaping my career. On the one hand, I can try to align myself as a full-time contractor with one company or even seek a full-time job as an employee. On the other hand, since I’m not ready to give up the good life, I can put some effort into my professional growth by going to industry events and conferences, taking certification programs that are becoming more readily available as the online marketing industry matures and focusing on developing and refining my service offerings.
In fact, I’m taking my own advice as early as next month, when I’ll be speaking at one of my industry’s most well-known conferences, Search Engine Strategies in New York City.
As a speaker, I not only get to attend the conference for free, I have a unique opportunity to meet some of the top minds in my industry. It has motivated me to do everything from updating my certifications and Web site content to ordering new business cards. I can feel the boredom fading away already.
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This article was published in the Poughkeepsie Journal on Saturday, March 24th, 2007.
by Jacqueline Dooley
Sometimes I love my work. It provides blissful escape to the drudgery of household chores and Disney movies. It is tied to my self worth and is a source of pride. Rarely, my work even seems easy, but those moments are few and far between.
More often than not my business feels like a very needy and high-maintenance third child. It’s difficult and demanding - a source of worry and stress. When work becomes as relentless as parenthood, I’m in trouble.
When that happens, I can get lost in the minutia of day-to-day tasks that force me to work too much, sleep too little and juggle a million things that seem on the brink of crashing down on my head at any moment.
At first, I begin to obsess over little things such as unfolded laundry, messy beds, unreturned phone calls and stacks of bills that need attention. But those little things become monumental - transforming into a nonspecific and ever-present feeling of dread that I’ve forgotten something terribly important, or I’ve made a crucial mistake.
I handle this feeling by multi-tasking, but that only works for so long. I know I’m fighting a losing battle when I find myself helping my 5-year-old with her homework while chatting with a client on the phone and simultaneously checking my e-mail.
It must be what a hamster feels like when it’s running in its little wheel busily moving forward and getting nowhere. But perhaps I’m looking at this from the wrong perspective.
Maybe the hamster is completely content with the experience of running in one place and never getting anywhere. Maybe I can learn from that hamster and just enjoy completing tasks as they come up without ever expecting that I can finish everything. Maybe I should give myself a break.
Ups and downs
I realize these phases of frenzied activity are pretty typical for working parents and that my life is really a combination of extremely busy weeks followed by slower days or - dare I hope - even weeks of down time. Still, that doesn’t make me stop worrying about what balls I’m dropping or who I may let down.
Most working people experience ebbs and flows in their schedules. We get weekends and holidays off. We get to unwind in the evenings and recharge our mental batteries during slow periods at work when we can organize our process and feel energized for what’s coming down the pipeline.
But when you’re a parent, there’s almost no down time at all. And when you’re a working parent, you can forget about down time altogether. I’m lucky if I can even grab a full night’s sleep or finish a meal.
I work twice as hard as a mom as I do as a business owner, but when my business cries out for attention, my kids inevitably begin to protest in ways that tear at my heart. For example, my 2-year-old refuses to leave my side whenever I enter the room and cries inconsolably when it’s time for me to go. My 5-year-old insists I read to her four books in a row - no doubt because it allows her to sit next to me for a long time and focus my full attention on her. But this is working motherhood, and I accept that.
It isn’t always one crazy day after another and I have to admit working late for me means that I don’t get downstairs until 5:30 p.m. instead of 4:30 p.m. Still, when you’re stuck in the hamster wheel, it’s hard not to feel like there’s no end in sight.
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This article was originally published in the Poughkeepsie Journal on Saturday, March 3, 2007.
By Jacqueline DooleyÂ
Every Sunday morning, I get an e-mail newsletter filled with job openings in the media industry. I’ve been receiving this newsletter for at least four years, and each year I’ve used it differently.
During my first year in business, I used the newsletter to actively seek employment. I often sent introductory e-mails offering myself up as a source of interim talent to the companies seeking to hire full-time employees. My feeling was that even part-time, freelance help was better than no help at all.
Even though I no longer need to troll the listings, I continue to receive the newsletter. Now I use it to gauge the health of the industry, and evaluate the types of jobs out there.
One of the things that catches my eye among the listings is the phrase, “permanent position.” I wonder what permanent means these days?
Oh, I’m jaded, I fully admit that. I’ll never be able to trust the permanence of any “permanent” position again based on living through the layoffs that occurred at the agency where I worked from 1997 to 2002. Not only did I witness at least six rounds of layoffs during my tenure with that company, I eventually ended up on the chopping block.
It was hard to believe that’s how the story ended back then. Getting laid off from a position that, in 1997, had unlimited potential for growth was not only shocking, it was a huge eye opener. I think my own naivete was a big reason for my blind faith in the permanence of my job back then. My father has been employed with the same company for more than 30 years, after all. I saw no reason for my own career path to be any different.
Yet I’ve always felt a nagging uncertainty about being dependent on one company for my complete financial security for an indefinite amount of time.
Not sure it can be done
These days I often wonder if it’s possible to be permanently self-employed. How long can I go on running my own business, which is paradoxically dependent on the viability and success of other businesses - and their ongoing need for talent - until the day I fold up my computer and retire to a hammock in the Bahamas?
I’ve asked that question a lot lately, and the answer is always - well, forever. But my husband has pointed out on more than one occasion that we have no safety net like we would if I was an employee for one company.
When you’re self-employed, you are not covered by unemployment. There are no severance packages, or COBRA benefits. The money just stops until you can find a way to start it up again.
Now my financial stability must be independent from job permanence. My business is the path to that reality - I truly believe that - but only if I plan it properly and don’t ignore things like IRA contributions and supplementary long-term disability insurance even though they nibble away at my immediate income.
Planning for contingencies so my family is covered if the money stops coming in is part of what I have to consider to keep this well-oiled machine running. If I don’t take the time to plan ahead now, then I may as well start sending out resumés again.
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This article was originally published in the Poughkeepsie Journal under the title, “Job security is just a wish for most self-employers” (a title I hate) on Saturday, February 17, 2007.
By Jacqueline DooleyÂ
Last week I got a rare glimpse of myself, as I was two years ago, from the perspective of an old friend. I last saw my friend in mid-2005 when she stayed with me for a few days and really got to “look under the hood†of my life. I didn’t hear from her again until this past weekend.
What she finally told me about that visit made me realize how difficult it was to start up a home business, and how much I have learned over the past couple of years.
I’d already been self-employed for over two years in the summer of 2005, but I hadn’t put any effort into my business for the last few months of 2003 and throughout all of 2004. There was a good reason for this - I was pregnant in late 2003/early 2004 and I learned that my baby would be born with a severe facial birth defect – cleft lip and palate.
During the entire first year of my daughter’s life, I was devoted to her care. I worked part-time so I could spend one day a week, each week, for six months taking my baby to New York University’s Institute of Reconstructive Plastic Surgery to have her face molded and shaped in preparation for her first surgery.
I spent the next six months preparing her for, and then helping her recover from, the two major surgeries she had to repair her lip, gums, nose and palate.
It wasn’t until the end of April 2005, when she was fully recovered from extensive reconstruction of her palate, that I sat down with my husband and we made the collective decision that I needed to start working full-time. We were completely broke from medical bills and my own lack of work.
So the summer of 2005 (when my friend visited) found me highly irritable and emotional for a number of reasons. I can’t underestimate the amount of stress I was under back then. I missed my kids because I was working so much, but I had no time for myself because the kids, the house, and my husband all needed me.
Visible Strain
I was sleep-deprived and angry all the time, I felt guilty when I wasn’t with my girls, but guilty when I wasn’t working. I lashed out at everyone, and felt guilty for that too.
I can only imagine the impression I must’ve made on my friend. It’s no wonder she got a little worried about how much I was taking on, and how I seemed to yell at my kids a little too much.
I can’t believe I’d forgotten how hard that summer was.
The anniversary of my daughter’s second surgery and her third birthday both fall in April. April also marks two full years from the moment I made the decision to put everything I could into my business and try to make a better life for myself and my family.
I didn’t realize how much of myself I put into my business two years ago to create something that I’ve become proud of, and has enabled me to finally realize some of my life long dreams. I’d forgotten how hard it can be, when you’re at the end of one hard journey and at the beginning of another. So, while it hurts to see myself as I was, albeit through someone else’s eyes, I’m grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to appreciate just how far I’ve come.
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This article was published in the Poughkeepsie Journal on February 10, 2007 under the title, “Friend’s visit recalls rough road.”
By Jacqueline DooleyÂ
No matter how many hours I spend in the office, I almost never find it difficult to leave the trappings of full-time employment and step into the role of mom at the end of the day or week.
Perhaps it’s because I never truly relinquish that role while I’m at work. My first priority is my children. My first thought when I leave them is about how happy I’ll be to see them when the day is done.
So it seems ironic that I spend a lot of time talking and thinking about work while I’m with my kids. I think this contradiction lies with the fact I want to be accepted by parents and professionals as an equally invested member of both groups.
When I speak with clients or prospective clients, I feel compelled to let them know I am a mother. Whether it’s a quick mention of picking my daughter up for kindergarten, or apologizing for the occasional loud shrieks from my 2-year-old as she plays downstairs with my husband, I rarely start a relationship with a client without making it clear I have children.
The same is true with regard to work when I’m in a social situation with other parents. This weekend, for example, I was at a birthday party filled with people who didn’t know me. My 5-year-old ran off to play but my 2-year-old stuck to me like glue.
Be proud
At one point I was chatting with another parent over a bowl of chips. I asked him what he did for a living, we talked about his job for a few minutes and then there was one of those awkward pauses that so frequently occur when meeting new people. I waited for him to ask me about my job. He didn’t. He looked at my 2-year-old and said, “So I guess she gets you out and about a lot, right?â€
I could’ve acquiesced at that point and moved on. After all, she does get me out and about a lot and here was an opportunity to be 100 percent mom in a setting where that was completely acceptable.
Instead, I smiled, explained I was self-employed as a full-time marketing consultant, dropped the names of several of my well-known clients and threw in the fact I wrote a weekly column for the Poughkeepsie Journal. It felt great to say all those things and be proud of it.
It’s definitely easier to admit to myself and others that I miss my children when I’m not with them. But to admit enjoy working and running my own business, and contributing to the financial growth of my family is much harder.
But the truth is that while I’ve built a business out of my home so I can be closer to my children, I’d be lying to myself if I didn’t admit that my business is all about me and the way I prefer to work.
At the end of the day, I don’t think it’s a bad thing to admit I spend my days doing what I love to do, and that sometimes it’s hard to table that even when I’m spending time with the people I love most in the world.
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This article was published in the Poughkeepsie Journal on Saturday, February 3, 2007 under the title, No Need to Apologize for Work at Home.”
By Jacqueline Dooley
Last Tuesday, I spent 10 minutes angrily telling my husband about a project that really annoyed me. It was around 4 p.m. and I hadn’t had a break all day. I’d meant to run downstairs and quickly have something to eat, when I caught him in the kitchen and started explaining a problem I was having with a client.
Somehow the explaining turned into complaining and after five minutes I realized I was talking very loudly. At one point, I paused for breath and my husband said (very diplomatically), “It feels like you’re yelling at me.â€
He was absolutely right, not that it stopped me. So why was I yelling at him about a work-related problem he had nothing to do with? Because there was no one else to yell at.
Work follows me around like a cloud when I’m at home. This is an obvious pitfall of being self-employed. The fact that I have no colleagues, supervisors or peers to vent to on a regular basis is part of that pitfall. I have several cyber colleagues I regularly e-mail and chat with, but typing out your frustrations in a chat window doesn’t feel nearly as cathartic as yelling, cursing and waving your arms around.
Admittedly, this sort of behavior is very nonproductive no matter where you do it. When I worked full time at an agency, a key pitfall was wasting too much time chatting (in person) with colleagues, or venting, or gossiping or complaining.
I really tried to avoid getting too caught up in all that negativity in the spirit of maintaining my sanity, but I have to admit it was good to be able to talk/complain/vent to people who understood exactly what was causing my angst. Now the opportunity to gripe at the water cooler is gone, I sure do miss it.
The good thing about unloading my stress on my husband (good for me, not for him) is that since he’s not as close to my work problems as I am, he can be a lot more objective. He was able to point out some of the reasons I was so frustrated — reasons which bring me to the next pitfall.
Unrealistic expectations
The reason I was venting was because I felt very overwhelmed due to a relentless series of deadlines that seemed to mysteriously crop up. My husband pointed out there was nothing mysterious about it. The deadlines all hit me at once because of unrealistic expectations, both mine and my client’s.
It’s my responsibility to set realistic expectations about what I can and cannot do, and it’s the client’s responsibility to accept that. Accepting I’m not a full-time employee and therefore can’t handle the workload of one can be difficult for me and my clients.
Which brings me to another huge pitfall of working as a remote freelancer — bandwidth. The longer I freelance for an agency, the more they begin to regard me as they would an internal employee. From the agency’s perspective that means I’m always available, and can get things done immediately when asked. But from my perspective that may not be possible, because I work for five agencies, all of which have deadlines and priorities.
So it comes back to me, and setting expectations, which can be a problem if I do it wrong. This is what led to that episode of venting on my unsuspecting husband, dragging both of us into that first huge pitfall of working from home. Even so, I felt much better afterwards.
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This article was published in the Poughkeepsie Journal on Saturday, January 27th, 2007.
By Jacqueline Dooley
It doesn’t matter whether I call myself a freelancer, consultant, subcontractor or remote employee, at the end of the day I bill myself as an expert. I’ve been in the online marketing industry for nine years — longer than most of the people who hire me to work for them.
This lends itself a lot of responsibility. In my experience, companies reach out to freelancers for one of two reasons: because they need someone who can come in at a very high skill level and work directly with a client for a short period of time or out of sheer desperation.
In first scenario, companies are truly looking for experts and, as a result, these types of projects tend to be the ones I enjoy most. The agency that brings me on board as an expert will likely have some experience working with a consultant. They will immediately recognize my value based on my level of experience and will often introduce me to the client from day one as a valuable resource for the project.
It’s when companies hire me out of sheer desperation because they are short handed and need somebody, anybody to help get the work done, that I run into trouble.
Agencies that rarely or never outsource to freelancers usually don’t know how to work with them. They see me as a vendor, not a member of their team. They usually don’t know how to best leverage my expertise and they keep my interaction with clients to a minimum. They don’t recognize my value and grudgingly include me in day-to-day correspondence. Even though I may be able to come in and get the job done with very little direction, they see me as just another body doing busy work.
Generation gap
The truth is that while sometimes I feel like the oldest person in online marketing (particularly when I visit agencies where half the staff are in their early twenties), I’m proud of the length of time I’ve been in the industry. And you know what? It does make me an expert.
I really believe agencies are doing themselves and me a disservice if they don’t leverage that to their advantage when they bring me on board to work on a project.
Perhaps I don’t sell myself like this because I’ve taken on the apologetic stance of the subcontractor grateful for work rather then presenting myself as an expert that can add very real value to any project.
Whether I call myself a freelancer to one client, a subcontractor to another or an expert consultant to yet a third, I’m still doing pretty much the same thing for all of them. So why should it matter what label I put after my name? The answer to that isn’t simple because it’s wrapped up in how I perceive myself and how I want to be perceived.
The projects that give me the opportunity to show off my expertise to the entire team — including the client — are the ones I find the most fulfilling. I’m beginning to realize the busy work just isn’t cutting it anymore, no matter how much they pay me.
Maybe I’m a marketing snob, but after nine years in this business I’m much more comfortable sitting at the table with the vice presidents and chief operating officers and talking about how to affect their company’s bottom line than sitting on the sidelines putting spreadsheets together. Perhaps it’s time to hire an assistant.
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This article was published in the Poughkeepsie Journal on Saturday, January 20th, 2007.
By Jacqueline Dooley
As a business owner and a mom, I’m constantly faced with an ever-present barrage of decisions. The start of the workweek brings with it a host of small decisions that, if made poorly, can snowball into large problems.
What I choose to do on Monday morning will inevitably affect how much spare time I’ll have to spend with my kids, whether or not I’ll have any downtime and my frame of mind during the coming week.
My very first decision on Monday morning involves my to-do list. Should I read my e-mail or polish off a deadline before I get too involved with non-billable work? Even though I know the productive choice would be to work on the deadline, I decide on the e-mail, which is undoubtedly a poor choice.
I can always finish the deadline after I work on e-mail for a couple of hours, right?
Wrong.
It’s 10:30 a.m. and I’ve told my husband he can take a shower at this time while I watch our daughter. So, it’s downstairs for a 20-minute break, which actually turns into a 50-minute break. By the time I get back to my desk, it’s nearly noon.
Now, not only have I not started on my deadline, but I also forgot that I had a report due by the end of the day. Everything gets pushed aside for this second deadline (a decision that takes me only a moment to make).
The report will take me three to four hours to complete, but I’ve planned to leave at 3:30 because I have to take both my girls to the pediatrician by 4 p.m. At 2:45 I’m only halfway done with my report.
Should I ask my husband to take the girls to the doctor without me, so that I can finish the report?
I ultimately decide against it, even though I know he’s more than capable of handling it. At 3:30 I send an e-mail to my client indicating I’ll have the report to them later in the evening and thus I’ve committed myself to working after the girls are in bed. Oh, and I still haven’t begun to work on my first deadline yet.
There are consequences
I’ve lost my free time for the evening because I chose to read my e-mail in the morning instead of working on my first deadline. That simple, self-indulgent decision will likely have repercussions for the entire week in the form of delayed deadlines, annoyed clients and stress that bleeds into my home life and affects everyone.
No matter how many decisions I make, or how good I think I get at it, there’s always the potential to make a really bad one. A couple of weeks ago I chose not to give my 2-year-old antibiotics for an ear infection because it was so difficult (an understatement) to get her to take the medicine. The pediatrician wasn’t sure she had an infection at all because she couldn’t see the ear drum, so I thought we could wait it out.
It was the wrong decision. Her ear drum ruptured a week later (she’ll be fine — she’s since taken antibiotics and ear drums typically heal on their own).
When it comes down to it, parenting decisions are way bigger than business decisions — at least in my experience. They help me put the so-called important decisions into perspective so I don’t become too obsessive. They also make me realize that even the smallest decisions can have a very big impact not just on myself, but on the people I care most about.
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This article was published in the Poughkeepsie Journal on Saturday, January 13th, 2007.
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