Work and mummy rot

One of the things that people fail to tell you when you have children is about a condition called “mummy rot”. This is the fact that 10 percent of your brain deteriorates with the pregnancy and birth of each child.

I have three children.

When I was working full time, I used to try and hide this condition from my boss. I was doing fairly well until a meeting with an analyst.

It was with one of those now defunct dot com analyst firms named after a planet in the solar system. Industry analysts are a breed of their own, and this guy was no exception. In a different era he might have been one of those professors that spent their career publishing loads of headline grabbing research under the guise of “nice understated lecturer”.

My boss, who resembled Kenneth Branagh and my daughter’s teddy bear, asked me to set up the briefing, we were launching a new edition of our software.

I was pleased that my mummy rot didn’t show for most of the meeting. I achieved this mainly by keeping my mouth shut and nodding my head each time a word like “Enterprise Content Management” or “Collaboration” was mentioned. I tried not to let my mind wander, though I was still undecided as to what to get for my daughter Emily’s 2nd birthday on Saturday. Maybe a new teddy bear?

Boss: “… and our customers are very happy with the new release. Ford is using it to collaborate on 1,000 projects with 140 divisions in 18 different time zones.”

I felt my head nod. I didn’t know there were 18 different time zones. I wonder what kind of teddy bears they had in Asia?

Analyst: “That’s impressive; do you think I could speak with someone there?”

Boss: “Yes, they are power Enterprise Content Management users.  I’m sure Susanna could get you in touch.”

I felt my head nod again.

Then I felt both eyes on me.

Me:  “Yes, I’ll have Emily at Toys R Us give you a call.”