My 15 Minutes

So this weekend I got my fifteen minutes of fame - or as a friend of mine put it 3:30. As if what has happened in the last year and half hasn't been crazy enough, I had the opportunity to be interviewed on the CBS Morning Show this weekend. Apparently my little blog is getting read by more people than I thought and it's pretty exciting for me. I mean I am writing this blog mostly for myself, but also for anyone who thinks my story is interesting. I guess some of you actually do because it was a reader of the blog that sent it off to Nicole Williams and that's how I got to be part of the segment about Singlism in the Workplace click on this link to see the segment.

Last week my "I Have a Life" post seemed to strike a chord with lots of people. Since I ended up on the national news I want to expand on what was discussed offline and more on my feelings on this subject. First of all, in no way am I a victim here, yes I often made sacrifices for my career, but those were choices I made. In many ways, I brought it on myself. I did say "yes" every time. I think if you polled all of my former employers they would all agree that I never said no when many of my peers did. So in a way, by not pushing back, I was encouraging the behavior.

The choice was really for me, what was important to me. I THOUGHT it was my career. I realized, after many years, I wanted more of a personal life, again this was a very personal decision. This goes back to choices. There are no victims unless you allow it. This is not to say it won't happen, but know that you do have a choice.

Employers, I do hope this makes you think a little more though about some of your single employees. I mean really, dating in NYC is tough enough, if we are always at work, we have no hope of ever not be single :)
Seriously though, next time you assume a single person doesn't have important obligations outside of work simply because they don't have a family of their own - think about it. Because they haven't given birth doesn't mean they don't have a family. Family is often more than a genetic connection (more on this in another post). At the very least, spread it around a little more.

I do need to thank Nicole Williams, Jill Jacinto, Marci Waldman, Rebecca Jarvis & Jeff Glor and all the other wonderful people at CBS for this great opportunity and making me feel at ease (and pretty) during the process. It was a fantastic opportunity and I do really appreciate it!