Why I love-hate my job

1. It allows me the flexibility to be a mom first, person second, worker third. That’s the most important thing in the world to me.

2. It allows me the opportunity to be personal, to hear someone’s story and lets me care. When your name is Cath, you need to care. It’s an instinctual thing. It lets me connect to people in a way that still enables me to disconnect when that person does not need me anymore.

3. It allows me the opportunity to not be personal. To play with ideas and technologies and geek out when I want to or need to.

4. It pays the bills. Kind of. Enough on that score.

5. It’s high-pressured, most of the time. It means working a lot of hours, sometimes at 2am.

6. I work with some of the most incredible people on the planet. I have been lucky to know some phenomenal characters.

7. On that score, I’ve also been privileged enough to be exposed to some of the world’s finest arseholes. It makes for good training for life, when you can spot an arsehole within a five-mile radius.

8. Much of what I do requires extreme attention to the finest details. I’m all about the fine print. Being anal retentive about detail has it’s benefits. I was not always that way but, always wanted to be. Nowadays I get commended for paying attention.

9. Some days, however, I don’t really want to.

10. I do not have regulated smoke breaks. Trust me on this one, some people do. And that just sucks.

11. The tea is good, the coffee every morning is made for me before I get here, and there is often cake.

12. Coming to work in your pyjamas is not frowned upon. In fact, it’s expected. As long as you’re getting the job done, we’re not going to worry about how you look. This is very important when you’re me, who battles to co-ordinate her two feet, never mind her clothes, every morning. I’m getting better at this though, and have managed to only appear at work with my clothes inside-out twice this year, thus far. That’s a record for me.

13. I may not be the cleverest person on the planet, but I know what I do and know how to do it well. What I am clever in, is what I do.

14. Most of the time, I get to make my own rules. That’s, however, sometimes harder than you’d think.

15. At other times, I have to abide by ones prescribed to me. At those times, it’s still okay for me to work with my middle finger extended towards bureaucracy at all times.

Hells, it’s been six years this week. That has to count for something, right?