I started a business. It made me want to drink copious quantities, smoke myself into oblivion and hit my head against a brick wall. Instead I wrote a blog.
Site Launch Day: 8
User Count: 36
Going right: Boyfriend being really sweet to be to avoid being slated in blog.
Going wrong: No ideas as yet about how to make use of the month of downtime.Comment: Contemplating cultivating vegetable patch.
When I met my Swedish sister in law (or outlaw since we are not married), she turned many of my ideas upside down. I was pregnant with an-as-yet-unknown girl when she asked,
"So are you going to find out the sex of the baby?"
Luckily my boyfriend and I think alike on this issue - neither of us see any point in waiting to find out. But Sonja feels differently. Radically differently as it turned out.
"When K was born, I asked everyone not to tell me the gender, I wanted to hold my baby for five minutes and relate to it without classifying it as he or she. It was the only time in my life I could do it because no matter how we try and treat our children neutrally as individuals, they always end up with gender stereotyping."
Just so you know, Sonja is a judge and highly respected lawyer. Not a tree-hugging, Abba-fan from 1972. Oh sorry, that middle bit is untrue. She IS an Abba fan. (Swedish, ergo Abba fan sum).
I was even more flabbergasted when she told me about another couple who had decided not to tell anyone the sex of their baby for the first six months. Unsurprisingly enough, she said that few of their friends were able to relate to the baby as a person because we are so brainwashed in pink and blue.
It's true that we tend to need several markers in life to be able to categorize people. The first is gender, followed closely by name, nationality and last but not least profession.
After - How do you do, what do you do?
My boyfriend's cousin visited us today and told me that she had read my blog - this blog - in a vain attempt to find out what I do. She is none the wiser from what I have written and to be honest, I am not surprised. I also find it exceedingly difficult to define myself and usually guffaw halfheartedly saying
"Oh I play with excel a fair amount."
In any case, here are some of the hats I wear on a daily basis. Annie - this is for you!
1. Financial Analysis Consultant (used to be in Technology & Telecom, but now several industries) - mainly to help companies forecast the success (in money terms) of their project investment. Some people call it decision support.
2. Excel Modeler - In order to do the above, I build/program financial models in MS Excel which help predict customer demand and revenues for new products, or cost savings driven by technology replacement and in general the possible outcomes of different scenarios.
3. Mother & Expectant Mother (self-explanatory)
4. Business Owner - To win contracts to perform numbers 1 & 2, without sacrificing the time for 3 I have developed a web-based consultancy called "Investment Impact" where I sell products and services about 1 & 2 - both online and offline - which gives me more flexibility to manage my work.
5. Contract Referrer - The platform I have built, is developed to be by definition a marketplace for consultants and clients across industry and discipline. It sources more contracts for services 1 & 2 than I can manage or indeed have the ability to do, so the website funnels the project details that come through the website to consultants who have signed up to get them. I don't take commission, but consultants have to pay a small amount (£20) to get the contact details, if they are interested. It's like a 'call' option on a potential project.
6. Business Model Designer - To cover 1, 2, 4 & 5 I have spent the past year designing a business model that is profitable but not cost prohibitive for the consultants who want to sign up. I have also made sure there are no bottlenecks to prevent the model being completely scalable. This means we can handle as many projects that come in, without adding on huge overheads. Consultants remain their own boss and define their own pricing. But first they have to prove that they are good by creating products demonstrating their expertise and selling them online. These products are ranked and reviewed by users. So it is the users themselves who determine who gets the most projects from this system.
7. Woman suffering from severe Onychophagia - due to trying to achieve all the above and be a mother.