Finding Teammates

A few years ago I had an at-home business selling make-up.

Despite being an adequate saleswoman, this was a laughable business for me, since wearing make-up and pantyhose (required by my business) are not my strong suits. I quickly cut back on the parties and personal sales, and started work as an in-home office assistant for more successful saleswomen.

I worked in the home offices of three different women, all married, all employed solely by the make-up business. Two of these women had children of their own and one did not.

I organized their offices, kept their books, stuck their address labels on the little tubes of make-up, and even cleaned their cars and cleaned out their purses. Whatever was needed.

One of these women was making six-figures a year, had just completed construction of her dream home and was the epitome of success. One of these women was just as in debt as I was at the time, and making little more then I did. The third was somewhere in the middle.

All these women were receiving the same message from their corporate office, so I heard that same message three times over!

Corporate directed women to value their time. To "consider their family." If you can make $50 per hour at a make-up party, shouldn't you attend as many make-up parties as you can?
Hire a nanny, hire a maid, hire a cook: Whatever you need to do, because your time is worth more then what you would pay someone to do your laundry.

Which is why a woman who barely made more then I did would pay me to take her car to the car wash, rinse it off, and throw away her gum wrappers from the ashtray.

Being single at the time, not to mention really, really broke, I never understood the message, on any level.
I was doing my laundry at the laundromat, and it didn't take that long if you hit it at the correct time, and I could usually balance my checkbook AND write out my grocery list while the washers were going. (While the dryers were going I would walk next door to the library for a bit.)
Meal planning when you're single and broke is not difficult at all, and I never considered my apartment "messy" because everything would be exactly where I left it -- which must be where I want it.

A few years have passed, I've been bankrupt and broke and unbroke. After many years of being single, I now live with a man, and, although we don't have kids, I get now why those women would consider hiring out the most basic tasks.

Is it that much harder to cook for two then it is for one? Of course not. But the amount of time I spend, as a woman, thinking "Would he like it if I made this for dinner? Or would he prefer if we had that? I should go to the store to get this item to go with that item I bought last weekend." more than quadruples my meal preparation time.

Is laundry that much harder for two then it is for one? Of course not. But sorting someone else's clothes, remembering what he hangs up versus what he folds....well, it all takes a lot more time then my tried and true "leave it in the dryer until you need it" method.

Is it that much harder to clean a house when two people live in it? Well, the answer could be yes, but, luckily for me, the answer is no. However, I spend more time picking up the book off the coffee table at the end of the evening, just to grab it again the next day, then I ever did at home. We both spend time looking for remotes and car keys then we did before. Shoes always get tucked away, whereas as a single girl they blocked the door.

So I understand, in part, why these women thought they needed some help. A team, if you will, so they could turn things over and focus on what was important.

Lately, I even understand what its like to be busy, and how being in a relationship just adds to the busyness.

Currently, I wake up at 4:45am and I am out the door by 5:15am. I head straight to the gym, then head to the office. After work, I head back to the gym at least three nights a week, generally getting home by 6pm. In order to be up the next morning at 4:45am, I give myself three and a half hours before I should be in bed.

In those scant 210 minutes, I have to unpack my bags from the day and repack with them with an outfit for the next day; pack lunch, breakfast and two snacks for both of us; lay out my gym clothes for morning; make and eat dinner; write a blog post if I have something to say; check e-mails, facebook, the mail, voicemail, smoke signals...well, you get the idea. In addition, there's dishes to be washed, laundry to be done, a phone and an iPod to be charged. At some point I like to actually read the book for my monthly book club meetings. Toss in looking at the grocery ads, making a list, cutting coupons, and actually grocery shopping.

And so on and so forth.

I was single long enough, that I can recognize that this wouldn't have been all that busy as a single girl.

But somehow, when you toss into the mix that I spend some of those precious minutes actually talking to him, asking about his day or telling him about mine, those minutes become even scanter. Instead of grabbing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to eat in front of the computer, we now have a discussion about dinner, and make something, usually with a side or two. And let's not forget there is now a cat demanding attention...and I still don't type quite as efficiently with a lap-warmer purring between me and the keyboard.

So now I fully understand why they wanted to hire their life away. I get it.

I've been broke for too long to want to hire a maid, a cook or someone to do my laundry.

So this is just a sneaky little way of saying thank-you to him for being my teammate. For doing all of the dishes and most of the laundry. For doing some of the cooking and a bit of the grocery shopping. For always being in charge of the trash and the recycling. For looking the other way the nights the gym bag barely makes it in the door before it hits the floor. For stopping to get the headlight bulb for my car because you knew I wouldn't get around to it - and then changing it in the dark because this winter I am never actually at home in daylight.

Back in that business they wanted us to understand that in order to get ahead, you had to think like you were already ahead. If you were making six figures a year, wouldn't you hire someone to do your laundry?

It's taken me this long to figure out why that never seemed quite right. But I realized it this week. Of the three women I worked for, it was the one making six figures and living in a custom-made dream home that did her own laundry and kept her purse tidy enough on her own. Oh, and her husband had done most of the labor on that home, too.