Look Over Here…and There…and There

Because I am some sort of glutton for punishment, I have been blogging all over the internets recently. First I wrote this letter to my CEO after a hard day.

“Dear Dr. Goodnight,

First off, thank you. Thank you for…well…everything. My job. My husband’s job. My benefits. His benefits. Our flexible hours. All of it. I am very humbled by what you have given your employees. I have spoken of it often-here and here and here. I know the reaction from a lot of working mom readers is “well that isn’t the norm.” And they’re right. It isn’t. I am one lucky woman to have all this. And while I have it made, it makes me so angry that other people can’t get with the program. Such a simple idea as “treat your employees with respect and you get quality work in return” seems like such a foreign concept for the majority of American companies. Thirty-five years of profit on this philosophy. How much more evidence does there need to be? But I digress. You know all this. You did it!

I just wanted to speak out on behalf of the working mothers of SAS…[keep reading]”

Then when I went to make sure it was ok to publish said letter with the folks here at SAS, they not only said YES! but they asked me to write for them too. So last week we were ranked #2 best place to work in America and my post was featured as a reason why. Neato. Now I will periodically blog there about work life at SAS.

“I started working for SAS more than 8 years ago. At the time I knew it was a great place to work. Everyone in theTriangle area knows that, but I wanted to work here to combine my skills with a passion. I went to North Carolina State University to study computer engineering, and while being nerdy was an obvious byproduct of said degree, I wanted to use my skill set for something more than fabricating microchips or testing iPhones (ok I lie, that would be kind of awesome). I wanted to work specifically for education–not just a paycheck. I wanted to take my skills as a programmer and help teachers and students in the classroom. I set my sights on a job with SAS Curriculum Pathways, stalked the job listings and eventually landed a student position with the group. To this day I still work with that same group of truly talented people, and I am forever grateful for getting my dream job before I even finished college…[keep reading]”

Then about a month ago I was approached by the creators of an awesome baby site BabyHuddle based out of the UK. They are starting a US version and looking for some bloggers. I happily accepted and you can check out my first post all about Second Time Mom Toys. One of their neat features of the site is the ability to make and see other people’s lists of products. I love me a good list so I plan to start making some of the essentials around the Mann house. You can also pose questions to other parents to get advice and even product recommendations. Fantastic! Head on over and check it out!

“I knew a lot of things would be different with a second kid. You are more relaxed. You know there are phases. You can’t devote all your attention to just them. Those were all a given but one thing that never crossed my mind was the toy situation.

With my first, Landon, we had all the usual baby toys. We didn’t have a ton due to space but the tried and true ones were there. On top of that, it was a lot of trial and error. You got tons of gifts, bought what was cute and even did the “monkey see, monkey do” buying once he played with something once at a friends.

So when Oliver came along, I got all that stuff back out…[keep reading]”