Value

As deal after deal falls through, the partners are learning what they need to do differently.  It seems like every time they find a promising project there isn't funding or when they find funding there is no promising project. Its frustrating, but sometimes there's enough interest in one thing or another that the desperation is actually hopeful. This job, these lifetimes of training, these careers that has fallen flat in the face of global turmoil and markets feel wasted and the partners question daily, sometimes hourly what they should be doing differently.

We talk about this--my husband and I.  We talk about what kind of changes he needs to make, what kind of career he'd want to change to. He's angry, disappointed, sad and frightened. The role changes in our family has hit him harder than it has me. My contribution is measurable. I have a monetary value. For a long time my value wasn't measurable as I stayed home to educate and raise the children. For a long time, I had to rely on my gut instinct that I wasn't completely failing. My successes were never measured in cash. And for a long time he had measurable value. From the time he was 13, he could know the value of his actions and time in dollar amounts.

Its still poverty.  We're still too poor for even ACA insurance for him. We still need the government to help us keep our kids healthy. We can't afford to fix our family vehicle, and we can't afford to replace it. We grimace that it has a full tank of gas. We talk about upcoming expenses and wonder how we'll manage to deal with them.

I've forgotten again to ask if I have vacation time accrued to cover the time I need off for surgery. I've forgotten to see how many sick days or personal days I have available. So when I come down ill with a summer stomach virus, I go to work. Feverish, taking breaks between tasks to vomit, I can only hope that I haven't missed something huge. What if I did let something major through? On the other side of the computer screen is a designer who is more than happy to work sloppy. I don't look at the paper the next morning. I know. I know I didn't catch every mistake. I can only hope I caught the big ones. And I worry that I've lowered my measurable value for the company and thus jeopardized my measurable value for my family.