Promoted

     I have something wonderful to tell you.  I've been promoted!
     This came as a total shock to me, like a fat inheritance from an uncle you never even knew you had.
     I've been back to work for one year.  In 1996 I retired from my career as an advertising professional when my sons were 6 and 3, and I had been a stay-at-home mother for sixteen years.  I stayed and stayed until the children grew up and left me.  I went back to school to learn ASL, but as regular readers of this space know, my attempts to help the hearing impaired were, well, impaired.
     I knew that there was no chance of getting a job in advertising after a 16 year break. But I had an accomplished career as a volunteer during my layoff, and thought I might be able to turn that into a professional job in a non-profit.
     When I began my job search, the economy was bad.  My odds of finding a job seemed remote.  I made a quick-off-the-top-of-my-head list of friends who had gone back to work after ten or more years at home.  I counted 17 friends, and only four went back to their previous careers (teacher, nurse, landscape architect and accountant.) Six had taken non-professional jobs in retail or selling something they had created.  Five had their own service businesses, consulting on something they knew how to do.  Only two had been hired to do something new.
     I dipped my toe into the professional world of non-profits with a consulting gig.  After impressing the interviewer with extensive stories about my fundraising, board and leadership development skills, she put me in charge of six Excel spreadsheets.
     I still think I could have been good at this, even though it was the opposite of my skill set, but when you are a consultant, you are alone at your kitchen table with no one to ask, and if you are 52 years old and have been out of the workforce for 16 years, you have a lot of questions.
     I had been hired for the wrong job, and it was painful. Luckily, as I've mentioned before, I have a condition my husband calls, "confidence for no apparent reason."  I resigned after a couple of months and pretended it never happened.
    Then I found a part-time job doing fundraising for a local non-profit called Friedman Place, a residence for 81 people who are blind or visually impaired.  I have absolutely loved it since the day I started.
     Recently my boss called me into her office for my one-year review.  We talked about the successes we've had this year, and she asked me about my personal goals.
     Now to be frank, I didn't have any personal goals--not where my part-time job was concerned.  I had fundraising goals, but I had not spent even one minute thinking about this as a career.  I had been so happy to have the perfect part-time job that my only goal had been for everything to stay exactly the same.
     But my boss wanted me to assume more responsibility and be the director of my department.  I had no idea this door was still open for me.  I wish I could have seen my own face.
     My first question, of course, was whether or not I could still work part-time. I don't think that is the question that Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook, recommends in her book Lean In.
     Anyway, my boss said yes, and so I said yes.
     I am so accustomed to being proud of my children, I'd nearly forgotten I could feel so proud of myself.
     Yay Me!