(Working Women) - Anna from Montana

Anna is one of my closest college girlfriends. There's a group of six of us that all lived together is some combination or permutation throughout school, and we get together at least annually for a girls' trip that we've dubbed the "Women's Retreat" - this year we'll be planning our WR to coincide with our 10 year college reunion (didn't I just go to my high school reunion the other day?!?) Five of the six of us have lived fairly parallel lives - we got married within a few years of each other, and all popped out our first babies within 356 days. This has only served to strengthen our friendships, even from all across the country. Anna, her hubby Neil, and their adorable baby girl, Cora, are living the dream in Big Sky, MT. I've only gotten the pleasure of visiting them at their home once, and it was for their wedding, which really was more of a whirlwind than a true visit, but the vistas are nothing to complain about! It was actually Stacy and myself that first dropped Anna off in the beautiful big sky country - and I never would have guessed her winter in a ski town would turn into a real life and home to her great family learning to make it work in the mountains. When I think of Anna I think of a few things - Germany (her teaching us to say "Prost!"), camp, the tv show Felicity (I definitely just dated myself there), perfectly curly hair, long and strong emails, a contagious laugh, and my Moderately Type B compatriot in a land of Type A Personalities that we called college. She is exactly one of the people I had in mind when I thought, "What do my friends do for work?" And it's not that she hasn't talked about her job before - it's simply that she is in an entirely different field and I only superficially understand how she spends her professional time. I hope you enjoy reading her interview as much as I did. And maybe she'll re-post at her blog, which you can find here.

 

 

Bio info - who are you, how old are you, where are you from, where do you live, what's your living/family situation, what are your hobbies, etc. Essentially, what's your background story?

My name is Anna Johnson.  I am 32 years old.  I grew up in Roseburg, Oregon until I was twelve years old and then moved to Grass Valley, California where I graduated high school. I went to college in Tacoma, Washington, went to and worked at a summer camp on Orcas Island in Washington for 12 summers, lived in Germany for 2 years (one studying abroad and one teaching high school English) and now I have called Big Sky, Montana home for eight years and into the unforeseeable future.  I have been married for almost 4 years to Neil Johnson, we bought a house 5 years ago, and we have one baby girl who is 13 months old, Cora Rilee Johnson.  We love downhill and cross country skiing, hiking, camping, and watching movies, although I have yet to do much of any of these since Cora was born. Mostly it’s been being a mom, going for walks, sledding, and hanging out with other babies and their parents, which although not as active and at times somewhat lonely, is also a good time in a different way.

What is your current job/profession? What path did you take to get there?

I have worked for 4.5 years as an International Recruitment Consultant for CIEE (Council on International Educational Exchange).  After I graduated from college, then taught English in Germany for one year, I moved to Big Sky, Montana through a friend from the summer camp I worked at.  I sold ski lesson tickets in the ski school at Big Sky Resort for that first winter, thinking it would be a fun ski town winter before going to graduate school (for what, I didn’t know).  I had planned to work as a nanny the following summer on Martha’s Vineyard through a connection in Big Sky, but then changed all plans and decided to stay in Big Sky for the summer and following winter after having such a fun winter and meeting my future husband!  

I spoke with Big Sky Resort HR to see what job options there were for the summer and if there was any option for getting health insurance coverage, because I was losing coverage through my parents.  The HR Director told me about working in Conference Services, which is the job that makes the most money in the summer, but it is a seasonal job and not eligible for health insurance.  She also mentioned that there was a full time year round position in the HR office open, with benefits including health insurance coverage.  I was set on working back in the ski school the following winter with the friends I had made and decided to do Conference Services.  

However, after only a few weeks in the job I was miserable and my body was exhausted from setting up and tearing down for events and waiting on people who thought I was lower than dirt.  You can tell I really enjoyed it. :)  I went back to the HR office and the HR position as Benefits Coordinator was still open and they wanted to offer it to me! Oddly enough I had no HR background or experience, but the Ski School Director had talked highly of my work ethic and how well I did in the ski school office, so I got the job!  It really is about the connections and people’s recommendations.  I started in the HR office on July 3rd, 2006 where I ended up doing almost all HR related duties, including managing the seasonal staffing and J1 Work and Travel program that Big Sky Resort utilized.  Big Sky Resort is open December-April and June-September and closed in the off seasons, so the 4 month cultural exchange program was, and still is, a great way to supplement staffing and bring a cultural flare to the workplace.  

In 2008 I started traveling to interview and hire J1 university students in their home countries to come work at Big Sky Resort, first going to Taiwan, then Peru, Argentina, Chile, Thailand, Ecuador, and a second time back to South America.  I loved it!  I loved traveling internationally again and I loved meeting the students in their home country then being the person to help them upon arrival and during their stay in the US.  Working with the J1 program brought me back to what I loved about studying and working abroad, while also being able to live in amazing Big Sky, Montana. 

The J1 Work and Travel program is overseen by the Department of State as a public diplomacy tool between the US and other countries in the world.  The Department of State designates visa sponsors to administer the program and to ensure that all stakeholders are following program regulations for a positive outcome.  The intention is that motivated university students (often times studying law, medicine, engineering, etc.) have the opportunity to come to the US during their summer vacation from school to work for up to 4 months (to offset the cost of the program) and then travel to see the US for up to 30 days before returning to school.  They then continue their studies and go on as future professionals, law makers, teachers, and parents with their (hopefully positive) eye opening and life changing experience having lived and worked abroad.  There are right around 100,000 international university students coming to the US on J1 visas annually and over 50 companies are designated as visa sponsors for this program by the Department of State.

Founded in 1947 and sponsoring 20,000 J1 visas each year, CIEE is the oldest and largest of the J1 visa sponsors.  In the Big Sky Resort HR role, I ended up working and traveling with 2 sponsors for receiving our seasonal hires and CIEE was one of them.  Early in 2009, with the downturn in the economy, Big Sky Resort was cutting numbers of staff and lowering the number of J1 hires we made, so I had to make a decision to choose one sponsor.  I chose CIEE because they came across as more organized and professional, plus I really liked my CIEE consultant I worked with.  CIEE also invites employers to an annual Employer Forum, where 60 or so of some of the largest companies in the seasonal workforce industry come together, and I got to attend the one in 2008 that was held at the CIEE headquarters office in Portland, Maine.  The office is impressive, the people are impressive, and overall I remember being very impressed with the CIEE staff I traveled with and everything about CIEE. 

In July 2009 I received a call from the Vice President of Employer Relations at CIEE asking if I’d ever thought about a career with CIEE.  I actually had, however, Neil and I were happily living in Big Sky and I couldn’t really see us moving to Portland, Maine any time soon.  Well, it turned out he wanted to offer me a job staying here in Big Sky, working from home supporting employers hiring J1 students in Montana and the Northwest.  I hadn’t exactly been looking for a new job and had been happy in HR at Big Sky Resort, but this wasn’t an opportunity I could pass up.  I was a bit nervous about working from home because I loved going to the office working with colleagues and interacting with people, so I told myself I’d give it 2 years.  Now almost 5 years later I’m still working from home for CIEE and for the most part loving it.  I absolutely love the company, it’s mission ("to help people gain understanding, acquire knowledge, and develop skills for living in a globally interdependent and culturally diverse world”), and most importantly I love the people I work with.
 

What are the pros and cons of your current position?

I love the company I work for, I love the people I work with, I love traveling to new places, and I love promoting cultural exchange opportunities in the world.  I also really appreciate the freedom and trust that I have from management.  Cons are not being able to get all the work done I would like to between 9-5, being away from Cora when I travel for work, and the fact that I am sometimes emotionally attached and feel personally responsible for things going on at work, which makes me lose sleep sometimes.  I also dislike the competition with other J1 visa sponsors.

 

Walk us through a typical day/week/month …

My job varies a bit depending on what time of year it is.  Technically my job is sales, even though I don’t like to think of myself as a sales person.  CIEE has had all of the sales teams go through the Dale Carnegie Sales Advantage training, etc., to improve our sales skills, but what we really are doing is relationship building and educating people on cultural exchange. So my job is “selling" the Work and Travel program to seasonal businesses in Montana and Wyoming.  I started out with Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and North Dakota, but numbers have grown so much in this area that I am now only managing Montana and Wyoming.  But really what I actually do is write a lot of emails (in fact over 30,000 according to my sent messages folder), talk on the phone a lot, occasionally travel domestically and internationally, and overall support my employers with the hiring of their J1 students from the very beginning signing up with CIEE through the end of their busy season. 

There are 3 seasons that J1 Work and Travel students come work in the US: December-March (winter), March-June (spring), and May-September (summer).  For each season I (and the other 10 consultants on my team) am given a sales goal of how many jobs they want us to bring in for our territory.  At the same time the Partner Sales team is working with our partner agents in the countries on goals of how many students we want them to bring on the program from their country.  And the idea is that it matches up for us to have jobs for all students and students for all jobs.  Approximately 9 months before the students for that season arrive in the US we kick off our sales season of signing on employers with their available jobs.  About 7 months before they arrive we start advertising the available jobs to our partner agents in the countries so they can begin recruiting students at the universities.  About 5 months before students arrive we begin our hiring events interviewing students and placing them in jobs for the upcoming season and hiring often goes up to the month or so before they arrive.  Once students have job offers they have to go to a visa interview at the US embassy in their country, as well as make other preparations and travel arrangements to come to the US.  Then when the students arrive in the country, and throughout their work program, we provide support to both the employers and the students to make sure it is a positive experience.  

CIEE’s fiscal year is September-August, so September kicks off our big sales season for the following summer.  At that time of year I am sending out email blasts to employers who hired students for the previous summer to sign up again and making lots of phone calls to old and new employers to source jobs for the next summer.  CIEE has 4 main hiring services that we offer employers all free of charge: Road Show (for employers hiring large numbers of J1 students, typically over 25, but often into the hundreds, and who will be traveling with us to the country to interview students in person), Recruit (for employers hiring any number of students who are either under the 25 for a free trip or don’t want to travel and they allow CIEE recruiters to interview and make hires on their behalf), Virtual (for employers hiring 10 or more students and who want to virtually interview students from their office), Direct (for employers hiring small numbers of students and they want to review resumes and make hiring decisions on their own).  I consult the employers on which hiring service is the best fit, which countries and work dates we have available and which would be a good fit for them, we discuss any issues they had the previous summer and what we could do to avoid that in the future, or if they have had experience working with other J1 visa sponsors in the past I work to get them to hire with CIEE.  I work with the employer to complete or update their job profiles in our online system for advertising and to submit the hiring agreement and their business documents, then I use CIEE’s client management system to move employers through our sales pipeline and into commitment for the following summer season.  If the employer will be traveling with us on Road Show, then we work to finalize which countries they will be traveling to and how many students per country they will be hiring, etc.  

October is when we start advertising jobs that are in commitment to our agents, so I am making sure our operations teams have accurate websites and photos for the employers and that all employer company and job details are confirmed and approved.  October is also when we have our spring hiring events going on.  Even though we are moving forward with the hiring process, summer sales will often last into February or employers signing up very late may even bring in jobs right up until May when students start arriving.  It is always hard getting employers to think about hiring for the upcoming season so far in advance, but those who sign up early will have their jobs in front of the first students enrolling in their program and their jobs will likely be filled early in the hiring season.  

November and December is when we start summer hiring events, but it is also when winter students are arriving to the US.  

January and February are often still working on summer sales and working on any student issues for winter students. 

Then in March we have winter students in country, spring students arriving, we are in the thick of summer hiring events, and we have summer employers making changes to their summer requests or freaking out because their positions aren’t filled yet, etc.  Oh, and then winter sales for the next winter are just beginning, so needless to say it is probably the busiest time of year.  

April has spring students in country and winter sales is well under way. 

May is when summer students start arriving and there are often a lot of questions and concerns about arrivals, students getting settled, etc. 

June, July, and August is the thick of summer students in country, but usually by July things have settled down and students are busy working.  Winter hiring events are primarily in July and August, and then in July we kick of the sales season for the next spring season as well.  And then we are back to September and starting the whole cycle again.   As far as the numbers of students I’m responsible for each season, for the 2014 year I have approximately 170 students in winter, 100 students in spring, and 870 students in summer who are working in Montana and Wyoming for my employers.

During the months that students are in country I will schedule site visits to meet students and see the businesses I work with.  I have about 70 employers in Montana and Wyoming and they each hire anywhere from 2 students to my largest employer who hires 200.  I usually can do several site visits in one day if I’m visiting a community where I have a lot of hires, for example, around Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks, and I often combine site visits with sales visits, where I am meeting with employers to sign them up for the next season.  Usually my manager will come for a week to visit employers and students with me, often in the Glacier area or Jackson Hole area.  I used to go up to Alaska for a week every summer and I have a lot of freedom to schedule trips how and when I think will be most successful.  

On the topic of travel, the other reasons I travel for work is to attend conferences, go back to the home office in Portland for training, and then internationally on our Road Show or Recruit hiring trips.  Conferences that I will often attend are the National Ski Area Association, Montana Governor’s Conference on Tourism, Seasonal Human Resources Association, and Montana Lodging and Hospitality Association, or in the past the Alaska Travel Industry Association.  Basically conferences that will have a trade show where we set up a booth and will have access to talking to and networking with employers who potentially will use the J1 Work and Travel program or that our current employer partners will be attending.  The other type of conference I may attend is the CIEE Employer Forum, which has been in DC the past 3 years, or for example this year I will be attending the CIEE Civic Leadership Summit in August, which will also be held in DC and is an event we started last year to invite 60 of the Work and Travel students together to learn and engage in leadership development and cultural exchange.  I’m excited to work with the participants and attend this event!

I usually go back to the Portland office 2 times per year with travel on Monday and Friday and being in the office Tuesday-Thursday. We always go back the first week in May for the Summer Kick Off meetings, review of the last fiscal year, updates on Support, and some team building/bonding with all of the field staff in the office.  And then all field staff are invited to the office for a week in early December when we have the CIEE Holiday Party, and we usually throw in some trainings or group activities (the last two years the sales team has spent half a day volunteering at the Preble Street soup kitchen in Portland, which has been a great experience).

And then one of my favorite parts of my job, the international travel.  I typically have gone on 2 international trips each year and I have been to countries such as Moldova, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Macedonia, Kosovo, Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Jamaica, Brazil, Singapore, and the Philippines, in addition to the ones I listed earlier.  I never thought I would travel to Taiwan 4 times in my life or to Novosibirsk in the middle of Siberia!  Since I came from being an employer who worked with CIEE and traveled on Road Show, my first trip as a CIEE employee was a Recruit trip, so I could see that side of CIEE as well.  Recruit is where 6 or so CIEE staff members travel together and interview students on behalf of employers and place them in jobs.  Recruit is so much fun because you are traveling with your colleagues and really getting to know them on plane rides, bus rides, and over long dinners, and you are talking with the students who are motivated and smart and excited and you want to find them the best job placement possible (which is sometimes such a puzzle!), and you are eating the local food (my favorite part!) and sometimes seeing some of the sights.  But Recruit is also exhausting.  The trips can be up to 2 weeks and usually 5 hiring events in different countries, often times with only travel days in between and then long hiring days where you are interviewing students for more than 8 hours straight.  Whew, I just did one of these trips after having taken last year off with Cora, and I think it may have been a bit much to jump back into, but of course I did have a great time.  But since I had been an employer before, most of the trips I’ve done the past 4 years were Road Show, which is where 4-6 CIEE staff travel with up to 10 or more employers who are interviewing and hiring students in the countries.  My role up until now has always been Employer Liaison, which is basically the point person for all employers and to ensure that employers are having a good experience.  I would arrange any outings for shopping or sightseeing on the days off, I would get the group together for dinners, I would check in with the employers throughout the hiring events, and I would mostly be assisting the Trip Manager with any other things that needed to be done.  I think Employer Liaison is the best role because you aren’t the person completely in charge of the whole trip and you mostly are hanging out with the employer representatives and making sure they are having a fun time.  I had always expressed to my manager that I didn’t want the responsibility of being a Trip Manager, and up until this last year that was true.  Well, then I started feeling like I wasn’t being utilized to my fullest potential and that I would be a really good Trip Manager and so my manager and I made it one of my goals for 2014 for me to manage a trip.  It turned out that I unexpectedly ended up managing the Recruit hiring event in Russia last month because the Trip Manager didn’t get her passport with her Russian visa back in time, so she met up with us in Kosovo.  And then I will be managing my first entire Road Show trip leaving at the end of next week, which is going to Slovakia, Poland, and Spain.  I’m a bit nervous to be in charge of the entire group and responsible for the well being of everyone on the trip, but I know that I will be calm and I will make the best decisions possible and I will be able to rely on my staff to help me out.  It will be a really great experience for me.

When I’m home working a normal week a typical work day (Monday through Friday) goes something like this: I aim to work 9 to 5 and take an hour lunch break from 12 to 1, which is what employees in the office do and what my manager has set the expectation as, however, I often work more like 9:30 to 5:15 with no real lunch break.  I drop Cora off at day care around 8:30-8:45am and then make my breakfast  before getting settled around 9:30.  At 5:15 I leave to pick Cora up from day care by 5:30 and if she falls asleep in the car on the way home, then I will sometimes get back on the computer to wrap up some emails or what I was working on until 6:30 or so.  When I sit down at the computer at 9-9:30am with my tea and bowl of oatmeal, I usually read the new emails and flag ones I need to follow up on.  I often have various meetings throughout the day, often times virtually with colleagues in the office.  Mondays 1-2pm we have our Consultant Team Meeting, which is a virtual meeting all field staff call in on and we see everyone on the screen.  I love this time to connect with my colleagues and feel part of a team, even though I work from home.  While students are in country I usually have a weekly meeting with my Coordinator (my partner/back up who is based in Portland) and our Support Buddy (the Support Coordinator we are assigned for the season to work on any student issues that come up).  I also have been a mentor for newly hired consultants, so I have had weekly or every other week meetings with them to discuss whatever relevant topics at the time.  During the sales season I also have weekly meetings with the Hiring Events Team on allocating my jobs to countries to make sure my employer requests are being met.  The I have a weekly one-on-one with my manager for an hour where I have a list of questions that have come up or we discuss pressing issues going on, where I am at in meeting my sales goal, or upcoming trips, etc.  And then for example the couple weeks before a hiring trip (like I’m currently preparing to manage) we have meetings with the Travel Department and dress rehearsals or employer calls in preparation for the trip.  Or I may have meetings set up with employers…to call them at a certain time to discuss x, y, or z or to meet them in person if it is an employer in the Big Sky/Bozeman/West Yellowstone area.  We will also have hour long “call-a-thons” during the heavy sales season to get the entire team calling employers at the same time and to make it a little competitive and fun. I mean, who likes cold calling??  Not me. :)  Right now we are doing a project to review all employer job profiles in our system and each consultant has 90 or so of another team member’s profiles to read through and mark corrections/improvements.  So we are doing “profile-a-thons” 3 hours a week for this month.  I will also time block an hour here or there to work on a project...following up with employers in the Verbal Commitment pipeline status, or to work on writing my goals for the upcoming year, or to plan a site visit trip that may be coming up, etc.  And then sprinkled in all of that are the emails and employer phone calls or “emergencies” that come up through out the day.  Usually the day flies by with way too many email drafts open, web pages open, and things that need to be followed up on, but hey, I guess that’s why I have a job!  Always something to work on the next day!   And of course unless I’m traveling and then it is, well, you know traveling…and trying to keep up with everything else going on.

 

What is something about your job that other people might not know or expect?

I actually think that working from home has made me a more productive and efficient employee.  I have no idea how people work in an office setting and get anything done with all the distractions!  People will often ask me if working from home is hard because you get distracted with house work or you end up doing work on the weekends, etc.  But honestly I think for people who manage their time well and are dedicated to following a schedule, it works really well!  I’m so busy during the day that I don’t even think of doing any house work.  In fact, I’ve tried putting a load of laundry in in the morning and then when I’m about to go to bed I realize that I never moved it over to the dryer!  I also try really hard to shut my computer off and leave it off when I’m doing family stuff or on the weekend.  I do my best to stick to the 9-5 M-F schedule because I know that is what all of my colleagues in the office do.  So working from home works really well for me!

 

How much do you make? (Too forward?!? Probably. But let's be real, a large part of the reason we work is to make money - give us some deets about your income, as much as you feel comfortable sharing, whether specific to your personal salary, or generally speaking, as in, What Would Google Say).  

I started this job with a base salary of $38,800 and a bonus potential of $8,000 per year, which I can exceed if I am over on my sales goals.  And each year during my performance review I’ve received between a 2% and 5% increase in base salary and am now at $43,670.76 and the bonus potential is still at $8,000.  So, I currently am earning right around or just over $50,000 per year.  I have never counted the bonus as part of my income and always put that money directly into a savings account, which Neil and I have dedicated as the “vacation fund”.   As far as the bonus goes though, they exponentially pay more the closer you are to 100% and then every job over 100% is worth $30.  So for 2014 my winter goal was 157 and at the time they pulled commission I had 163 jobs in (104%), then for spring my goal was 75 and at the time they pulled commission I had 91 jobs in (121%), and then for summer my goal was 737 and they won’t pull the commission until May 1st, but I currently have 870 jobs in (118%).  So instead of the $8,000 bonus, this year is looking a lot more like $12,650!  My manager joked that the $3000 extra I’m getting for the 100 jobs over goal for summer I should put away in a bank account for Cora to go to my summer camp.  I might do that, that’s no joke! :)  

 

Do you anticipate making any career changes in the next 5 to 10 years?

Not necessarily.  I don’t know how long I’m going to want to do this exact job, especially if we decide to have more kids in the future.  The travel is tough, especially with a family, and the older I get the more exhausting it is.  I definitely think there could be other opportunities for me at CIEE.  Management has made it very clear to me (especially with being pregnant and having Cora) that they don’t want to lose me and want to make it work for me to stay working there, which I really appreciate.  I’m not sure how many of of the other opportunities involve me continuing to live in Big Sky versus moving to the headquarters office in Portland, Maine, which I would possibly consider if the right opportunity came along, but it would be a big change for Neil and would be a huge decision.  Before I even knew what CIEE was I had thought I would like to work at a university in the Study Abroad department helping students to have a similar study abroad experience like I had myself.  And as it turns out, CIEE has one of the larger study abroad programs for American university students, so I could see myself potentially moving into that department some day.  I absolutely love CIEE as a company though, their values of family, time off, healthy lifestyle, and of course cultural exchange are exactly in line with mine and that is very important to me.

 

If you could have any other job in the world, what would it be?

Any other job in the world?!  I don’t even know!  Maybe working with or studying animals in the wild or a photographer who travels the world or something where I got to be outside instead of working at a computer and desk.  This can not be good for my back and body in general as I get older! 

 

If someone else was interested in your job, what piece of advice would you give them?

What my manager has said to me…yes, our job is important and some situations may seem like the most dire or frustrating thing, but it is not life or death and there is no reason to lose sleep over it.  Speaking of which, I need to take that advice.  In preparing to manage the upcoming Road Show I’ve woken up the last few days early in the morning with my stomach in knots thinking about it.  That has rarely happened to me since having to take exams in college! 

How do you balance work life and home life?

This has been hard for me and think it will continue to be a challenge, especially since Cora is getting older and is more active and busy these days.  Obviously, I love my job and what I do a lot.  I’m not really willing to give up working and I hope that doesn’t come across as harsh, but for the most part I enjoy what I do and I feel like I would get antsy if I stayed home as a full time mom (which in no possible way do I mean that isn’t challenging, because I am exhausted after having Cora home with me for 2 days on the weekend!).  I also want Cora to be an independent girl who can get along fine without me all the time and who is also well traveled.  I try to bring Cora with me when it works, for example, at 4 months she came with me to Portland, Maine for the week in May (along with my mom!) and in January Cora and Neil came with me to visit Whitefish Mountain Resort (I visited the employer and the students, while Neil skied and Cora hung out in the day care).  I’m also planning for Cora to come with me to Portland again this May, but this time Neil’s mom is going to come with us to watch her during the day.  And if I can’t take Cora with me, then I make sure it is going to work while I’m not there.  Neil’s mom came for the 4 nights I was at a conference in California last November (my first long time away from her!), my parents stayed for 2 weeks while I was on the Recruit trip last month, and then Neil’s mom is coming next week while I’m on the Road Show trip.  And I even arranged to drop Cora off for 3 nights with Neil’s parents in Minneapolis/St. Paul while I flew on to Maine for the Holiday Party in December.  Luckily it all went off without a hitch!  Neil and I are very lucky that we have parents who are able to come help out and who want to.  Neil’s parents said to me that they want to a part of Cora’s life and since they don’t live where we do, then the only way to do that is by visiting.  Unfortunately I think in the last year since Cora was born, the person that my travel has been hardest on is Neil.  He works at Big Sky Resort and being a ski resort he is extremely busy from October through April, which of course is when a lot of my travel is.  We made an agreement last November that we would see how this year went and in November of 2014 we are going to review my work travel and what needs to change.  I am always torn because they offer me opportunities that are really great, like managing this upcoming trip or helping lead the Civic Leadership Summit in DC this August, and I don’t want to pass up the opportunity.  Management has made it very clear that I can say no and they won’t hold it against me, but I do have a hard time saying no.  And Neil’s side is that I can’t say yes to everything and I can’t do everything, which I know is true.  For example, I have told them that by doing these 2 international trips this spring that I am not able to do any other international trips for the rest of the year, which they said is totally fine.  And some days I feel completely overwhelmed and like I can’t do this job anymore and be a good mom, but other days I feel very satisfied with how I have managed everything and ultimately what is most important is that Cora is a happy, healthy, smart, funny, and very much loved little girl.  So I feel good about that.  I will continue to try to do my best, which is really all we can do in this life anyways.