This story on SFGate about someone scoring a year-long culinary residency is interesting. And makes me jealous, and my mouth water.
But besides that, this excerpt from the article got me thinking:
Indeed, a sentiment I encounter frequently is that we’d do better work if we could get away from our work more often.
How many employers miss the opportunity to take advantage of mothers coming back from maternity leave and how reinvigorated and excited they might be about their jobs? (Maternity leave can be like a sabbatical, except you happen to have a baby while you’re gone.) In many cases, once you’re on the so-called mommy track, you’re reassigned to a job with less responsibility, perhaps less pay. That is, if you’re lucky enough to be offered your old job back. Or many employers assume you’re going to want to “scale back,” and treat you accordingly.
What these employers may not realize is that some mothers are willing — eager, even — to work just as hard or even harder after they return from maternity leave. Because their lives have changed so drastically, they might want to hang on to their pre-mommy selves as much as they can. For many women, this means returning to the careers they have worked so hard to build and challenging themselves to achieve even more. I wish more employers actually got this.
