Meet Amy Geer: Urban Living

Amy Geer is a Human Resources Business Partner at the Canadian Institute for Health Information. Her husband has a management role in the finance department at one of the local hospitals. They live in a condo in downtown Toronto, with their two-and-a-half-year-old son. Both work in the city, and commute to and from their jobs using public transit.

What does a typical weekday in your life look like?

“My husband and I typically wake up between 5:00AM and 6:00AM to get as much as we can (showering, unloading the dishwasher, packing lunches, etc.) done before our son wakes up.  We generally leave our home around the same time (~7:15AM), I take transit directly to work, and my husband walks our son to daycare and then picks up the subway train which takes him to his office from there.

I typically work until close to 5PM, and take responsibility for picking up our son.  I take the subway train (~25 minutes) to our daycare, and walk my son home in the stroller from there.  (We could take the bus, but traffic in the city is so terrible at rush hour that walking is notably faster!)  We often stop into the local grocery store along the way, picking up anything we might need.  

Our weekday evenings are spent cooking, tidying up, and getting our son to bed in time to do it all over again the next day.”

What is the biggest professional challenge you had to overcome when you became a mother and how did you solve it?

Short answer: Deciding on timing and being true to myself about what does and doesn’t work for me now that I have a child.

“Deciding on timing.  (Keeping in mind that the timing of having a baby cannot always be planned.) I like working, and there is always more I want to accomplish.  But, as many people say, the timing will never be perfect; one just has to “go for it” and accept that everything will work itself out and that there will be plenty of work to go back to once maternity leave is over.

Also, I have found it very challenging to be true to myself about what does and doesn’t work for me now that I have a child.  Organizations and roles change over time, as do personal priorities. It was difficult for me to come to terms with the fact that the role I was in was, for various reasons, no longer a good fit for me, as I loved (and still love!) the company I worked for the past seven years.  Having just recently made a job change, though, has helped me to realize that there are other fantastic opportunities out there and one should not have to compromise themselves too much in order to feel fulfilled in a job and happy at home at the same time.”

What is the biggest personal challenge you had to overcome as a working mother and how did you solve it?

Short answer: Cooking our meals.

“When it was just me and my husband, I would spend hours looking through recipes, planning meals, and cooking somewhat elaborate dishes, even on weeknights!  Unfortunately, I do not have the time or energy to do these things anymore. Simplifying our meals has helped, making things using a shorter ingredients list.  Also, whereas I used to make everything from scratch, I have become more open to using packaged foods. There are lots of great products out there (granola, certain cooking sauces, etc.) that contain only whole ingredients, which I feel good about serving my family.

Finally, we sometimes take advantage of the many meal service and kit options we have available to us.  One company we use enables customers to physically go to one of their locations and spend an hour or so preparing a set of freezer meals.  We are able to select from a menu which meals we want to prepare in advance, and all of the ingredients are set up at a station for us to put together a dish without having to worry about chopping vegetables or clean-up.  And meal kit delivery companies deliver fresh pre-portioned ingredients to our door on Sunday afternoons, and come with explicit preparation instructions. Kits like these enable us to eat healthy, fresh meals without having to do much thinking about what we are going to eat.  Before having a child, I could never have imagined “resorting” to services such as these, but now we realize who their market is. Also, these services – although they do cost more than traditional home cooking – are considerably better than the alternative, which usually ends up being take-out pizza or Thai food in our case.”

If you had a magic wand, what would you change in your workplace to make you happier as a mother and career woman?

Short answer: Honestly . . . I have been very lucky in my experiences.  

“The company I worked for up until recently had a great, family-friendly culture, as does the organization I am working for now.  Knowing that I can work flexible hours to accommodate my family-life, and leave the office if daycare calls asking me to pick my son up because he has fallen ill, ensures that I remain a dedicated and loyal employee.”

If you had a magic wand, what would you change in your personal life to make you happier and more fulfilled as a mother and career woman?

Short answer: If we could raise our son in a proper house with a backyard in the city, I think I would feel happier and more fulfilled as a mother and career woman. 

“My husband and I live in Toronto, one of the most expensive cities in Canada.  We live in a 900-square foot condo in the downtown core. We would love to have a proper house, but for us that would mean a move to the suburbs and a lengthy commute.  Furthermore, the fact that we live in such a central location means more opportunities work-wise. Not only does it enable us to get into the office earlier and leave later than if we were to have to worry about catching the train on time for daycare pickup, it also means that if/when we ever do want to make a job change, we have more options with respect to where our new office is physically situated.

Sometimes I feel badly that our working lives take precedence over our son having a backyard.  But, living where we do, we at least have easy access to all kinds of great things to do. We have annual passes for the aquarium, the museum, and the nearby children’s amusement park which operates throughout the summer months, all three of which we can walk to on a moment’s notice.   We spend time at my sister-in-law’s pool on summer weekends (she lives about 45 minutes from us), and go camping. Our priorities might change as our son gets older, but for now, living in a small space so we can be close to work is working well for us.

To answer your question: if we could raise our son in a proper house with a backyard in the city, I think I would feel happier and more fulfilled as a mother and career woman.  But I can’t complain, things are pretty great for us all things considered.”

What do you think is missing in large corporations today to help women balance all their obligations and be happier at work and in general? 

Short answer: Flexibility and understanding.

“Again, I have been lucky as both my former employer and my current employer are very family-friendly.  But not all companies are as supportive.  

Flexibility and understanding is definitely essential in a workplace that would allow women to be balanced.  Flexible hours that enable all parents (not just women) to put in a full workday while working around daycare/school, after school care, and transit schedules are imperative to supporting working parents.  Equipping employees with laptops and remote access enables parents to work from home when their child has a school concert in the middle of the day, a snow day, or is sick, not only promotes balance, it makes good business sense as employee who feel supported are dedicated and productive employees.

It also helps to have women who have children in leadership roles who understand and demonstrate the importance of balance; it makes employees feel better about their own needs.”

Would you share a little secret that has made life easier for you as a working parent?

Short answer: Meal  preparation services.

As I mentioned earlier, our little secret that has made life easier for us is meal  preparation services/kits. Although it would be my preference to continue cooking everything from scratch the way I did before our son was born, this is no longer feasible.  The meal kit option helps us eat healthy and balance meals on weeknights.

How do you maintain your sense of well-being? 

Short answer: Working out.

Fitness was always a very important part of my life before our son was born.  Going to classes at the gym is still my favorite “hobby”, though when I went back to work I found that I wasn’t able to go as regularly as I would have liked due to location and scheduling conflicts.  I ended up switching gyms to one closer to home that better accommodates my schedule. Now, a once or twice a week, I will make a point of leaving work on time to make a 5:15PM class. Our son’s daycare is across the street, so on the weeknights on which I go to the gym, my husband picks him up, they meet me at the gym, and we all walk home together.  It’s great because it enables me to get in something that I like to do without much impact to my day.

While the gym I am going to these days is not my first choice, it is still better than the alternative (not getting in a workout at all), plus it’s still a pretty good facility with great instructors.  I have realized through this experience that not everything is going to be exactly what I want.

What advice would you give to a new parent who returns to work?

Short answer: Be kind to yourself and accept that shortcuts and alternatives are ok.

Accept the fact that you won’t be able to maintain the same life you did before you had a child, and that shortcuts and alternatives are ok.  Sometimes your house might be messier than you like, sometimes you will have to buy lunch when you are accustomed to packing it. Be kind to yourself when it comes to these things, you are not alone!

What type of work-life balance requests are usually made by your mom employees, or that you hear from your mom colleagues?

Short answer: Working from home options and flexible hours. 

The most common request I see is having the ability to work from home, on a part-time basis.  On a similar note, I also encounter requests for flexible hours, either earlier start-and-end-times or even compressed work weeks.

Thank you Amy for a great interview.