Re-Entry Conference

Staring at me this morning from the Philadelphia Inquirer Jobs section was an article about a conference about Mom’s and the decision to work, or not work, and how to go back to work. The conference is on October 8th, outside NYC, which puts it about 1-1/2 hours away from my home, but only 45 minutes from my parents’ house in northern NJ.

Looking through the materials, they state that they are also open to Dads interested in down shifting, or those concerned with work-family balance issues (check!). The lunch presentation is entitled Downshifting Dads, and several of the individual sessions seem applicable to my situation.

Part of me thinks it might be of value to go. Naturally, I would need to make sure my wife is not working that weekend, which I won’t know until October 1, or there abouts. At $150, the money isn’t a concern (which is nice).

Another part of me thinks that I probably know most of what they will talk about, and it might be a waste of a Monday. And there will be scheduling conflicts since its on a school day.

Networking on facebook

In order to resuscitate my professional network, I have been using some of the online tools that have become available in the past several years. Having been out of the workforce for so long is no excuse for not staying current with current technology. I’ve signed up with several job posting boards, and most recently, facebook.

I graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in 1981, long before there was an internet. I recently came across my “facebook” from my freshman year at RPI, complete with high school yearbook pictures of all the incoming freshmen. But RPI was an engineering school, and always technologically advanced. It has always generated graduated comfortable with technology. So imagine my surprise to find that only 8 of my classmates have registered with facebook!

Am I really so old that facebook isn’t relevant? I found other people of my age listed in other networks. Have all the old engineers registered somewhere else?

The only pleasant surprise I had was when looking through my high school alumni. One of my best friends was one year behind me. When I checked that class year, he was the only person registered. I was just glad to see he was still alive; there was a time when I thought he might not make it.

Colleague reaction

I’ve been an at-home-Dad for about 8 years. In that time, most of my professional network has become inactive. I’ll update my networking activities in some other post. But today, I had thoughts about the state of my current contacts.

My current contacts fall into several loose categories:

1. Parents of my childrens’ friends
2. Neighbors
3. People I encounter almost daily at the gym where I exercise.

One of the advantages to staying at one health club for 7 years is that many people know me. I’ve chatted with people in many different fields, including entrepreneurs, real estate professionals, photographers, videographers, doctors, and engineers. Some of these people have even been workout partners for between six months and 18 months. My longest term workout partner is also someone that has been very successful in developing real estate, both commercially and residentially. He’ s been very successful, and I always thought that when I was ready to return to work, he would be someone that might be willing to provide me with introductions.

So today, we chatted briefly, since we were on different schedules. We talked about how my daughters were becoming more independent, allowing me to be at the gym this morning and leave my daughters unattended at home for a little while. He commented that my job would get much easier now that they were becoming more independent. I agreed, and said it would give me a chance to more seriously consider re-entering the workforce. He laughed and said I shouldn’t do that. I should stay home and enjoy the easier days. I tried not to leave it at that. But it wasn’t the warm offer of help that I had been hoping for.