20 Days of Chill - The Next Ten Years

Day 14 of A 'lil HooHaa's 20 Days of Chill!

Today's prompt is 

The Next Ten Years

Who hasn't had to answer dreaded questions about strengths and weaknesses and where you see yourself in 5 or 10 years' time in job interviews? 

I really hate those questions, and that's why I don't ask them when I'm the interviewer. 


99% of the candidates will say they are impatient, and they'd like to have taken a couple steps up the career ladder within our organization.

How is that answer helpful?

It's not that I never ask myself the question of what I might be doing in ten years' time. Everybody is curious, right?

A while back I did this experiment. While I'm usually too fidgety to meditate I managed to relax enough to visualise my future me. Yes, really! It was a wonderful experience.

So for the next ten years basically I'm gonna have to do what it takes to become the future me. 

I think this January's efforts of eating better and going to the gym are a great start. 

Also I did something else that I'm proud of. It may sound silly and minimal to you, it is still a big deal to me: In an effort to minimise my screen time, I deleted my café world app. Cold turkey, from one day to the next after having been playing for several years. 

I established, furbished and decorated a café where I baked and brewed seasonal yummy treats for my guests. Every month there used to be a new challenge where you got to purchase new tables, chairs, tiles and wallpapers and build ovens to prepare new products. 

As wonderful as it sounds it took up quite some time, especially if you wanted to be involved in the community of other café owners. You would visit their places and leave tips and wish them a nice day. 

You needed to be careful and always be back in time to serve the baked goods. Croissants for example take two hours to make. So anywhere between two and four hours you needed to log in and serve the croissants, otherwise they would go to waste. You had to be careful not to run out of cake, otherwise your customer satisfaction would go down. Once at zero, you're done as in ruined.

Long story short, I quit without so much as taking a screen shot of my cute café, but here's one I found on the internet (of course mine is much larger and nicer)

The next ten years also make me think about my "career".

As I went into maternity leave they made me decide whether I wanted to come back to my stressful full time job or not at all, which was kind of a joke. What new Mom can work long hours and travel internationally? So my husband and I decided that I would stay at home for an unspecified time and then look for a part-time job. Which, as you know, happened rather sooner than later when I joined the airline. 

In summer 2011 hubby's business partner passed away unexpectedly, and my husband found himself responsible for the entire IT company. When the two young guys founded the firm in 1993, my husband agreed to do so under the condition that his type A personality buddy would take care of all things management: drum up business, negotiate prices, hire and fire employees, you get the picture. As for him he made sure the technical projects were being handled skilfully and thoroughly. 

From one day to the next he had to deal with personnel and customers and assure them the show was gonna go on. That's kind of where I came in. 

Now I may underestimate my contributions to the business. These days I have been organising the Christmas dinner, sending out Holiday cards, filling in the dreaded end of year  social securities payroll forms and getting all the 2017 binders ready. 

On paper I'm overqualified and in the wrong place (I also do a bit of bookkeeping which is so not my thing) in reality I honestly appreciate the light workload and the fact that our office is located 10 minutes from home (as opposed to the commute to the airport one hour plus each way). 

If needed, I can quickly run home to transfer my wash to the dryer or start the oven for dinner. Sometimes I have Colin come to the office after school. 

What I am saying is: I have been going for convenience. I am happily living in my bubble between home, office and hockey arena. 

As Colin gets older I may have to think about doing something with my professional life. 

The thought of going back to the political corporate world is not appealing. 
Building up my own HR business sound nice at first, but then it's a tough world out there, and I am not sure I am up for it.
I like to write, I doubt this is a reliable way to make enough money, though. Same goes for party planning. 

For now I'll keep enjoying my bubble. Please check on me tomorrow. I'll be in Zurich. 

In the meantime, don't forget to visit my fellow bloggers.