It's Best To Close Your Eyes When Flinging Sharp Things Through The Air

When Breastfeeding and Work Don't Work

This post is part of BlogHer's Women@Work editorial series, made possible by AFL-CIO.

Right from the start, Alexis was a breastfed baby. I was home with her for essentially the first six months of her life. While I sometimes wanted to use her head as a hockey puck in those early days when latching felt like an alligator clamping down, we really didn't have any major problems. She never had a single drop of formula and I was able to build up a decent stockpile of frozen liquid gold. Then I started working. Along with that, of course, came the need to pump at least twice per day.

That topic was one that I had discussed with my future boss when I interviewed, so I wasn't really expecting to have any problems with it. I was very, VERY wrong. At first, I was told that I could just use a vacant office for those two brief disappearing acts of pumping.

Then, midway through my first week, I learned that the office was slated to get an occupant. My supervisor didn't have any ideas for alternatives, so I e-mailed the Human Resources Department. Nothing. So I e-mailed again, this time copying the HR Representatives supervisor. I got an answer quick, but it basically said, "Use a restroom or reserve a conference room. The end."

Now, I don't know about you, but I'm not game for making my food in a bathroom, so I wasn't really game for making my kid's food there. Besides the fact that it's a gross idea to me (I compare it to taking the Foreman grill in there and cooking up a hamburger. Would you do it?), it was a logistical impossibility. The restroom housed two stalls, neither of which had an outlet for my pump. The only outlet happened to be right by the door. Silly me, I've never had aspirations of putting on a peep show complete with wondrous sound effects.

So, the bathroom wasn't happening. The conference room idea was just plain dumb, given that there is a major shortage of them in that particular building, so they are impossible to get. Oh, and there's the small manner of most of them having windows looking out into the hall and none of them having working locks on the doors. Again with the discreet issue.

Maybe now would be a good time to mention that my former employer was a very large hospital system -- as in one of the twelve largest in the nation. It also happens to be one of the most profitable. There are more than 45,000 employees, including over 4,000 physicians. That particular non-profit organization reported net profits of well over $200 million in 2012. I worked in the corporate headquarters, just a few stories down from one of the best paid CEO's of a non-profit in the nation. Anybody else see a wee bit of a problem with the lack of appropriate accommodations?

Anyway, when it became clear that the Human Resources Department was full of non-compassionate robots, I devised a plan. I would go down to my SUV twice a day, every day, and sit in the back seat and pump. It was an underground parking garage, so it was relatively dark, and my tinted windows afforded me a small amount of privacy. Of course, I can tell you that at least four people saw things they probably wish they hadn't, but it was a livable option.

Then I was told I needed to move over to a different building. It made a fair amount of business sense, but the new building was a warehouse, with even less in the way of accommodations, and no parking garage. The only viable answer was still the car, but this time there was an outdoor lot complete with LOTS of traffic. Obviously I couldn't just sit in the parking lot with my boobies hanging out and various machinery hooked up, so I went cruising for options. I ended up finding a car wash where I could park my SUV in a stall and only have potential traffic on one side of me. So that's what I did, every day, twice a day, for months -- four months, in fact.

The lack of accommodations severely hindered my ability to be efficient in my breaks, I was less productive at work, and I was constantly stressed. Trying to maintain a professional schedule and needing to drive ten minutes just to pump milk really put a strain on me. I skipped lunch to make up for the lost time, I pumped in the morning before leaving for work, I pumped in the evening after work, and I nearly always brought work home with me in a feeble attempt to balance it all. I can tell you that many important people at the giant hospital system were aware, and not a single one actually gave a crap. Not a one made any attempts to make some sort of accommodation. In fact, when Alexis was nine-months old, a high-level manager told me, "Isn't your daughter almost a year old? It's time for her to quit getting breast milk anyway."

WELL THEN.

*smoke comes out of ears*

*deep breaths*

*more deep breaths*

OK. ANYHOO, Alexis and I made it to 13 months. She never once drank a single drop of formula, and overall, I'd say we had a very positive experience. Our only real challenge was making sure she had ample supply while I was at work. THAT was a significant struggle every.single.day. Looking back, I have no idea how we made it, other than to take it one day at a time. It sure wasn't with the help of one of the nation's leading health care systems.

This post is part of BlogHer's Women@Work editorial series, made possible by AFL-CIO.

If Only Live Nation Had Figured Out This Whole "Concert Venue" Thing

Random things sometimes fall from the sky and land in my lap. That is how it came to be that I went to Star Lake (aka Coca-Cola Star Lake Amphitheatre, aka First Niagra Pavilion, aka Post Gazette Pavilion aka WHY CAN'T WE JUST CALL IT STAR LAKE?) THREE times this summer.

That's more than I've gone in the several past few years combined.

But random being what it is, I kept ending up there.

And I kept ending up frustrated by the same issue. What the heck are people allowed to take inside?

Here, let me just show you.

Good luck finding that list anywhere else, by the way. I took that photo at the entrance, which is seemingly the only place that anyone thinks it needs to be. Sure ... I'll drive 20+ miles outside of Pittsburgh for a concert, walk a mile across an uneven gravel parking lot, and THEN find out I can't take my stuff inside. That's totally reasonable.

Ahem.

Anyway, because I've been there three times this year as well as once last year, I was pretty familiar with that camera policy. No pro cameras. Fine. I won't bother to tell the Powers That Be that it's not the camera that makes it professional, it's the person pushing the buttons, but WHATEVER. What do I know about cameras?

Oh, wait. I know that the fine print below the rule is total crap. "No lenses longer than three inches." Ummmmmm ... my wide angle lens (the lens I use for chalk portraits) is three inches long and is completely worthless at a concert, unless I'm trying to take a photograph of the ENTIRE AUDIENCE. If the goal is to prevent people from having too much zoom power, back away from the DSLRs. My long lens, which is WAY long, only goes to 300mm. That's not all that much zooming. In fact, Alexis' $20 point and shoot camera can zoom in significantly further than my not-$20 DSLR.

Whatever. I don't really know what the goal of the camera policy might be. It was clearly written by someone who doesn't know crap about cameras. (The goal can't be to prevent someone from blocking another concert goer's view because TABLETS ARE ALLOWED OMG I HATE YOU IF YOU TAKE PHOTOS AT A CONCERT WITH YOUR IPAD. I DO. i HATE YOU. I'M NOT EVEN SORRY ABOUT IT.)

In a similar vein, whoever is in charge of training the staff at Star Lake (you can't make me call it First Niagra Pavilion! You CAN'T!), knows absolutely crap about how to train. I know that because I know that how that whole "no pro cameras" thing is enforced varies based on who is standing there checking your stuff.

For the first time this summer, I experienced that inconsistent training stuff first-hand. I walked up to the bag check for the Maroon 5 concert and was promptly told I couldn't take my camera in. "You'll have to check that," the woman told me.

"What?" I said. "It's not a professional camera," I continued.

For the record, it wasn't. I took my Canon T2i, which is the camera that every soccer mom in the land bought about two years ago. It's considered a "prosumer" camera, meaning it was designed for wanna-bes. It ain't professional. It especially ain't professional when it has the kit lens on it, which is what I had.

(Don't ask questions around that lens stuff, camera geeks. I ain't telling you my secrets. AHEM.)

I know better than to argue with someone who is just trying to do their job, fortunately, so I just sort of rolled my eyes at the poorly trained employee and walked towards the check line. Apparently, I was going to allow a total stranger to hold onto my preshussssss during the concert. It was either that or walk REALLY far back to the car, which wasn't really an option because OMG TRAFFIC. We had already missed the opening act and nearly all of Kelly Clarkson.

The thing about checking my camera is that EVERYBODY WAS CHECKING EVERYTHING. The line was deep and it was full of people with backpacks, larger bags, draw string bags (because of that whole "not trained" thing, people were being told they couldn't take them in), and every possible other type of bag imaginable. As I stood there pondering how much safer I felt knowing that the lady with the fourteen blush containers and giant box of tampons was being stripped of her purse, I realized that the really long line of dangerous purse-toting criminals wasn't moving.

At all.

Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.

Kelly was singing her heart out and I was missing it. All of it.

So I did what any responsible adult who believes in rules would do, I walked to another entrance. And played stupid.

And walked right through the gate with my contraband camera in hand.

WHOOPS.

(That security guard checked it. Totally. She said it was OK. SOOOO.)

And then I spent the entire concert trying to dodge security. WEEEEEEE!

The thing is that there was an employee with blond hair who very clearly was all, "I'll allow it." She saw the camera and said nothing. But then there was a guy with dark hair who was all, "Put that away, please." He very clearly wasn't OK with it. Then there was the lady with brown hair who was cool with it.

I'm pretty sure I looked like a crazy person as I tucked my camera away, ripped it out and took a photo, and then tucked it away again. OVER AND OVER. AND OVER.

I haven't been so committed to hiding something since high school when I used to sneak out of the house at night. Wait. What? Me? Sneak out? I don't know what you're talking about.

Anyway, I have no point other than to say I wish the "fine folks" at Live Nation would learn how to communicate. Post the rules on the website, create a section for that sort of stuff on the Facebook page, and for the love of all that is as hot as Adam Levine, communicate it all to the staff. THEY NEED TO BE CONSISTENT.

PLEASE.

(I realize that the rules change based on the artist. Truly. I do. Wouldn't it be swell if there was a way to find out that the rules are special for a certain concert before you drive all the way out to Star Lake?)

(Holy first world problem, Batman!)

(Wow. That was a lot of parenthesis in this here post. WHOOPS.)

(One more, just because.)