Mindful Jobs

After college and before I had a family I was an engineer. Although my degree is technically in Astronomy, I decided that a paying job in a technical field was preferable to years of poverty and graduate school to get a doctorate that would allow me to teach.

Yes, I sold my soul for cold hard cash.

Most engineers starting out at an engineering firm have an engineering degree. So once I was hired on they weren’t sure what to do with a certified Spacey Blonde (being female didn't help-- luckily I left my southern accent in Georgia). But a sympathetic boss got me into systems engineering courses and pretty soon I landed a position at the bottom of the engineering food chain: Briefing Engineering. I can make PowerPoint do anything.

Ten years later I was somewhere near the edges of engineering again-- doing Process Engineering. Now to most people, "process engineering" sounds like a engineer's professional death knell. But for someone who is working part time and raising a family, Process Engineering is the perfect job. A mother of five and a process engineer have a lot to learn from each other. And if you are one in the same, you can grow in each profession by leaps and bounds.

Process engineering is studying how humans do a task, figuring out the best way to do each step, and then capturing it in a form that can be repeated over and over. In essence, it is teaching humans to make tasks machine-like so that they can be optimized for efficiency and quality. Which is to say, to help humans to design repeatable tasks.

Did you say repeatable tasks? Every mother reading this just nodded knowingly. A mother's life comprises endless repeatable tasks. It can seem mind-numbing. But process engineering and improvement saves you from the mindlessness.

What does process improvement have to do with raising a family?

Say you get married and have a baby. That’s a family of three. In one day there are 24 hours to accomplish a set of tasks: Laundry. Unloading the dishwasher. Reloading the dishwasher. Laundry. Cooking breakfast. Making lunch. Grocery shopping. Picking up toys. Serving dinner. And, of course, Laundry. Now add another person to the family. Same tasks, more volume, but still 24 hours. Add another person. And another. Now there's a lot more to do, but there are no "schedule slips" allowed here. And even though we've all tried it, stressing out doesn't work. Process improvement does. You can get more done with the same amount of time, but you have to stop believing you're doing mindless jobs.

The tasks themselves are only mindless if you stop thinking-- think about how you can do it better or faster. That's what makes doing them interesting. And it is so rewarding when you figure something out that actually makes the task take less time or more fun. I'll never forget when I figured out how to do the laundry without sorting. Sorting is probably half the job. Which means I bought myself an extra couple of hours each week to do something else. Like figure out how to keep the basement clean. And write a blog.

It's taken me many years and having five kids to figure out some basic strategies for doing process improvement. Here are three of my favorites:

Be a creative manager. At some point you have to do some training and delegating with the kids. They can start younger than you think. And a little creativity goes a long way. Yes, it‘s that worn out corporate phrase: "Think outside the box," but try it. For instance: put your pans up in the upper cabinets and the dishes in the lower ones. Then the kids can unload the dishwasher. And reload it. And set the table.

Take a lesson from Tom Sawyer's fence-painting story: "Oh honey, I’d love to let you use the washing machine, but it’s just too hard a job for you. You‘re not quite big enough yet.... Really? Really? You think you can do it? Well, all right." Forget about the wrinkles. By the time the kids care if their clothes are wrinkled, they’ll be able to use the iron for themselves. But if you give a kid a job they perceive is important, then they feel important doing it. Being coy with allowing them to do the job makes them feel like they're getting something valuable. And they are.

Finally, acting is a great skill-- use it. Just because you think picking up the basement is drudgery doesn't mean you can't pretend it's the most fun ever. Just like a baby responds in fear to a mother's fearful face as he attempts to do something dangerous, children will take their cues from you. Play basketball with the toy bin. Count points. See who can count the highest number of things picked up. Or pretend you're the wicked witch who will inspect the results and throw them in the dungeon if she finds anything out (this is the easiest one to do when I'm feeling, well, "witchy").

Any mom who can figure out how to do more work within the same schedule and over the years grow and train a support staff to accomplish those repeatable tasks with a high level of efficiency and quality has all the skills she needs to be a highly successful professional (and by that I mean paid) Process Engineer.

I happen to know the non-profit Process Engineers (there's a new job title for you, Moms!) get better benefits and have higher job satisfaction. There's nothing like the affection from a well-trained, confident staff who thinks helping out is fun.

(PS If you want to learn from the master and one of my all-time heroes, read The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes.)

Copyright © Elizabeth Hertz Puglise 2009. All rights reserved.