Thursday, March 24, 2011

Buildergrrl on idle

On the one hand, it's been a good time to have a baby. The way the construction industry has been rapid-cycling over the last 15 years, it's been difficult to imagine taking time off and jumping back into work without paying a severe penalty. It's still a man's business. Despite some nods to progress it remains rare to see a colleague granted time off for paternity leave without a bunch of grumbling, even if it is his right by law. And since I've known less than a dozen other women construction managers I've never seen a pregnant woman running a job, let alone take maternity leave. I've dealt with enough over the years that this was one barrier I wasn't all that eager to bust through.

Then came the "housing crisis." The construction industry fell on its ass. Hard. Easily 80% of the folks I worked with and did business with lost their jobs. Two years later the vast majority of them are still unemployed or just marginally employed. Taking a scan of the potential markets out there it looks like another two years before we see any kind of rebound in construction.

So here I am... full-time stay-at-home mom, ears to the ground for signs of life, tuning my network, pitching my resume for the scraps of work that make it to the job boards along with everyone else... and there are so many of us.

At least I have an ace in the hole. When I get asked what I've been doing for the past two years, I get to say, "I took time off to start a family." And that sounds a hell of a lot better than, "I sat on my ass looking for work in an industry that ceased to exist."