Kerstin Baker-Ash

The Working Mother

With the move over and things finally starting to settle down in Toronto, I'm left both cherishing my last week of maternity leave and looking forward to the new challenges ahead. So it's a bit clichéd, but it's my blog and I get to be philosophical when I want to be.

I've always been of two minds about returning to work. From the moment I saw the little blue line appear on the pregnancy test, I knew I wanted to take loads of time off to be with my little bundle. I didn't factor in the exhaustion of pregnancy or the heavy duty commute and the toll it took on my body. In the UK, I got fantastic maternity benefits, and was able to start my maternity leave at the end of October 2009. I used my nearly three months pre-baby to rest and relax and prepare to become a mother. Sure, it wasn't all rosy - especially when my aforementioned bundle was more than reluctant to meet and greet the world - but I really enjoyed my "me" time. 

When my daughter was born, it was a whirlwind of emotions. I did get the baby blues - nothing serious, but it was unlike anything I'd ever experienced before and it was gone in about two weeks - and my life became about her needs. I re-prioritized everything, and I loved it. Life is and was diaper changes and poosplosions and breastfeeding and learning how to collapse the damned stroller and sleep deprivation and baby cuddles and first everythings and more love than I ever could have imagined possible. My daughter is, in my no-holds-barred-very-biased opinion, the most awesome little creature and smarter than I could have imagined. 

But this post isn't about gushing about my fantastic daughter - it's about trying to reconcile her needs with my needs and our family's needs.

We moved to Toronto to make working work. I was not going to go back and work in London. It made no sense to put her in daycare for twelve hours a day while we would endure a pushy, hellish commute only to spend five minutes with our daughter before she had to go to bed. In Toronto, I am hoping to work hard to make a work-life balance realistic and manageable for both my family and my new employer (more on that in a later post).

So, it's with excitement, trepidation and sheer exuberance that I return to work - missing my baby terribly but knowing she's having a great time with friends and cherishing the time I do have with her that much more.

Maternity. Leave?

My maternity leave starts around 6 tonight. Maternity leave? No work? No commuting? I know most women would be ecstatic - and to a certain extent, the possibility of cooking, napping and resting before Baby Ash arrives makes me ecstatic, too - but I'm a bit terrified.

Why would I be terrified? I'm moving on to a stage in my life that, although desperately wanted, leaves a very longstanding and comfortable routine and reality behind. Work, couple time, seeing friends on a whim - that won't exist anymore. Let me clarify that I'm not in mourning for my old life - I'm beyond excited to start a magnificent journey as a mom - I'm just wondering about the unknown.

What does maternity leave when you've got nobody to take care of yet shape out to be? I had visions of whipping up Bree Van De Kamp-esque meals, taking long walk through the Hertfordshire woods and sleeping in. If I'm honest, I have very little energy for anything beyond short spurts of cooking and cleaning, and forget the sleeping in. Baby Ash has a single-minded schedule of kicking, rib grabbing and bladder bouncing (arguably it's favorite activity) that makes any regular sleep pattern rather difficult. I know, I know - it's preparation for Baby Ash's grand entrance into the world of nighttime feeding and changing - but can Mom get just a bit of rest to build up her stores in advance? It would seem nature has a cruel, alternative agenda to mine.

And what happens to Work Kerstin? I've been working pretty much since I left university, and the notion of unemployment - paid unemployment, in fairness - is a bit daunting. How do I define myself beyond mom after the baby is born? Am I still an account manager, a search engine marketing geek, a speaker? Of course, many women have come before and managed to carve out a delineator between motherhood and careerhood - I'm just wondering how exactly that's done.

I'm sure the answers will come to me soon enough, and that I'll not only be Baby Ash's mommy but a woman with professional ambition and skills that I can still call my very own. When staring at a very different reality, it's hard not to get philosophical about the changes you'll be making in life as you know it. My comfort zone changes today, and for ten weeks I get to define what that is. In ten weeks' time, Baby Ash will define that new reality, and I can't wait.

Roll on January.

The Crush of London Commuting

I really do enjoy working in London. I'm close to any store I need to be, the food choice at lunchtime (even though they closed Harry Morgan's) is excellent, and I really do feel like I'm in the center of everything. That's probably because I am. This is an unfortunately typical scene which awaits any weary commuter trying to get home after a long day at work at Oxford Circus:

 

There's really no point in getting worked up about the wait. Most people in this photo have their heads down (save for the curious chap smiling for the camera on the left), reading a newspaper. We're used to this - it happens every day and you just have to wait it out (usually less than 20 minutes). What gets my goat is the people who decide that they are going to try another method of transportation (usually gormless tourists with oversized suitcases), pushing past everyone and saying "excuse me" when they really mean "get the f*%£ out of my way!". I seem to attract pushers for some unknown reason - forget the fact I'm wearing a large TfL "Baby on Board" badge or that I am, at seven months pregnant, sporting a rather telltale uterine bump.

Some people, usually younger ignorant little sods and sodettes, see my waddle as a sign of weakness. I wouldn't do anything to put myself or the baby in harms way, but if you're trying to cut in front of me, I will just keep walking (arms around the bump, of course). I have pregnancy weight on my side, and at 5'10 I'm slightly taller than the average Londoner, male or female. Trying to get on the Tube when people haven't yet exited is another prime example of gravity and weight, I'm not stopping, and I'm coming down from the train - that usually means you are, too. In real life, I'm very polite and courteous, but something about the sooty London air turns me into a fullback who believes that "every little helps" when teaching good manners to the masses of the capital.

Thankfully, good samaritans exist, even in the urban social skills deprivation zone known as London. A lady stopped someone from pushing past by putting her arm out in front of my stomach, saying to the pusher to watch herself. Another lady asked me if I was okay as we were navigating through the crowds after they finally opened Oxford Circus one night. More recently, owing to my gargantuan stomach, have been jumping out of their seats as soon as I do the pregnant belly rub. If all else fails, I break out my secondary weapon - the North American accent - and politely tell the sir or ma'am that they're sitting in priority seating for pregnant women.

I'll miss my job and the people I work with, but I'm very much looking forward to waddling back into the confines of a relatively polite Hertfordshire, where pushing is seen as rude, not necessary.

Why Do Recruiters Call You At Work?

Another day, another call or e-mail from a recruiter. I suppose it's a bit trite in this economic climate to complain about getting calls from recruitment consultants, but do they have to do it at work? 

Let's get a couple of things straight:

• You're not a headhunter, you've found me and my job title on LinkedIn and called reception
• It's never a good time to talk at work, you know, in front of colleagues
• I don't want to relocate to Manchester, I don't care how nice you think the city is

Since you found me on LinkedIn and just won't admit it, don't you think it would be helpful to ask me about a role I might be interested in? Qualified for? The "exciting role" I could really "sink my teeth into" isn't in sales, it's certainly not in database management - I mean, just read the title description on the search results for my name:

 

Also, calling three weeks after you've started a new job is awkward to say the least, and it's pretty annoying to have to explain that you're new there in front of people (again, which they would've seen on LinkedIn if they hadn't been intent on making a thousand cold calls before noon). I'm not looking to move jobs, I like the work, the clients, and the people I work with, but that never works as an eff off should. Now? I've got the perfect, airtight excuse these days - and would recommend using it even if it's not true. As soon as you say the p-word, they run scared, stumbling over their words and apologizing for disturbing you at work. Sure, you can call me again in a year when I'm back at work, but are you really going to remember?

Finally - no, I don't want to recommend names of other people at my work that would be interested. Do your own darned job.

Reckon I'll still get calls from recruiters after this post? I sure as heck hope not.

Coming Up...

Yeah, yeah. Promises, promises.

Trust me, if you had a full time job (which did not involve the tiniest bit of blogging), a mountain of actions and to-do lists and two conferences to prepare for, you'd be a little light in the blog updates. I'm not complaining - far from it. I like being busy, I like being kept on my toes. I just need to prioritize sometimes, and while I love writing... hey, my $2.16 waiting for me in AdSense won't pay the mortgage (or for my latté habit).

SMX was great - I had a really nice time catching up with old and new friends, and not-so-secretly believe that the panel I was on with Kate Morris and Guy Levine was the most entertaining and informative. Takeaways from the conference (I only attended the first day because of work commitments) were a push to get search at the front of mind of clients (even from a research perspective), a desire never to be in a sales pitch or tool demo at any conference (I was in two), and that nitty gritty search marketing techniques are still the way to go for meaningful testing and actionable results. 

What's next for me? SES Toronto, of course. I'll be in town from Sunday afternoon, so feel free to suggest coffee (remember the latté habit discussed above), geeking out about search or the best place for dumpling soup in Chinatown (there's only one, and it's splendiferous). I know I've rabbited on about a sneak peek for my panel on SES, so keep your eyes peeled this week for a preview.

PPC Hero and Holiday Hijinx

In preparation for my upcoming holiday, I've not really had much time to blog, take photos or do any new videos (well, there's one new video, but I can't talk about it because the person I'm making it for reads this blog).

I'm very chuffed (that's happy in American) that a post of mine was accepted on the PPC Hero blog, run by the folks at Hanapin Marketing. I wrote about five essential tips, tools and tricks for the multimarket account manager - from an English-language perspective. More and more in this economy, marketers are looking to expand to "low hanging fruit" - in this example, an easy cross-border setup between the United States and Canada. I've talked about potential pitfalls in language differences, and also some free tools you can put in your belt to make your multimarket campaigns easier. In case you're just starting out in search engine marketing, the PPC Hero blog is regarded by many to be one of the great authorities on pay per click marketing (and even got a mention from industry great David Szetela at SES New York in March).

What does our schedule look like?

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

April 24 - 26th

A friend's wedding, and also a morning with an SEM guru herself. Neither my husband or I have been to Philadelphia before, so we're looking forward to it.

Montréal, Québec

April 26th - 28th

Home of the Habs (boo!) and French Canadian goodness, it's a city I last visited on way back in 1990-something. James is looking forward to the Poutine.

Toronto, Ontario

April 28th - May 5th

So it's not as exciting a place to visit as Montréal or Philadelphia, but it's my hometown and the city we lived in for three years. Seeing my grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles, cousins and friends is always a big highlight; little things like Swiss Pidge, movie nights with my brother or seeing my beloved Loon Lake recharge our batteries.

So, there it is. A-guide-to-when-we're-not-going-to-be-in-our-house-so-you-can-steal-stuff post. And if you're in Toronto and I've missed you off my visiting list, tell me so we can have a coffee and a catch up.

Eleven Calls to Belize

A colleague of mine forwarded this to me, and it's just too laughable not to share.

It amazes me that folks are as brazen as they appear to be at this company - £600 (nearly $900 US) on directory enquiries when online is free, £73 ($105) on photocopying a holiday brochure for the Maldives, a single £25 ($36) call to an, ahem, adult line, and eleven calls to Belize. News of the deep recession, which is hitting British businesses hard, must not get through to employees of this firm which shall remain nameless. This isn't stealing a post-it note pad; this is theft. I don't care how much you think your employer has "screwed you over" during your tenure, as a human, as an adult, this is just ridiculous. 

I say go for the witch hunt - the ones taking advantage might be deserving of a karma boomerang.

My New Job

The worst snowstorm in recent history separated the time between my departure from I Spy and starting out on a new path at i-level. I've been very pleased with my decision these past three days; meeting a bunch of new people and ramping up in my new role. Not even the commuter chaos has been able to wipe the grin off my face, which I take as a good sign.

As I'm getting stuck in to my new role, I wanted to manage expectations by letting people know I don't envisage a lot of blog updates during the month of February. I hope to be liveblogging a little bit (when I'm not speaking) at SES London, and posting a photo or two over at Flickr. The people in the office have been more than friendly, and the free toast, cereal, coffee and milk bits have been extra perks (especially for a non-morning person like myself!).

The way my induction has been structured means that I'll be learning lots about various aspects of the business in my first month. My immediate team members have been incredibly helpful, and I really feel like I've plotted a course to what I want to do in terms of getting my hands dirty and stuck in. The fact that there's a lovely Canadian on the team means I can say things like double double without people thinking I've gone nuts and started my own jibberish.

Three-day verdict? I'm ecstatic, enjoying it immensely. More (hopefully) soon!

A New Job

That was quick... I have a new job, pretty much immediately after I ended my last one. It's a nice feeling, because I'm now allowed a bit of luxury (and not feeling like I have a gun to my head looking for a new one). When the time is right (it's not, right now) I'll share more details, but I wanted to make it known that I'm off the market, rather officially.

I'm very excited about the role. It fits like a glove (not like an OJ Simpson glove, either), and I've already had the pleasure of getting to know some members of the team. It's one less stop on the Tube and no changes on the line, so even the small things about the job (and the proximity of many, many coffee shops) are getting me pumped up.

The thinking is that I'll start soon-ish. I'm taking the time off to cross off a couple of things that need doing around the house, and organization of my life and routine. I'm also chasing the not-so-helpful people over at Taylor Wimpey (who built our house) to fix the garage door for the second time; if you're in need of a guillotine in the Hertfordshire area, please let us know - until it's fixed, our garage door serves as an effective one.

It's amazing how going full tilt at work and taking vacations away from home have caused boxes to pile up on us, unopened for the most part. Grand plans of unpacking boxes from our move to the UK from Ireland (two years ago) and even from Canada (nearly four years ago) only started this weekend, and we've found many treasures along the way. My brother gave me a pair of Roots earphones many moons ago, and I serendipitously found them just after my current ones handed in their notice. Photo albums from high school made a welcome reappearance (no, I will NOT be posting what I looked like with braces), and I found some very nice soap from Lush (a gift from my father last year, thanks for the hint!) which had been waiting patiently in a suitcase from Canada. My mother who, up until very recently, operated coffee shops in Toronto, gifted us some coffee which I've been drinking during my "woman of leisure" mornings. I'm looking forward to starting; fresh, relaxed and ready for a wonderful new challenge.

/cheese

My Work Farewell Letter

It’s been a great eighteen months at I Spy.  From the warehouse in Battersea to swanky Haymarket, I’ve had a wonderful time and met an amazing bunch of talented and energetic people. Thank you all for helping me grow and develop within the SEM industry; you have each taught me things I wouldn’t have been able to learn without your help. I will miss the team at I Spy, not least because you have helped contribute to a wonderful working environment which pushes everyone to achieve great results; that has been reflected in the honours and recognition we’ve received so far, and I can only see many more to come for I Spy.

 

I will cherish my memories here, especially the banter and camaraderie that has developed so organically with each team member; it’s been wonderful to meet and develop friendships with you all.  Being a part of a company that has grown substantially over the past two years and has great prospects for the future has been an honour and a privilege, and I wish each and every one of you the best of luck.

 

Trying not to sounding like a high school yearbook entry –  please do keep in touch. Stevenage has a hopping bar scene (i.e. my house) and I’d be happy to host a night on the big town. J

 

All the best,

 

Kerstin