I Gotta Go Call My Mom

Well, I got promoted last week and it’s taken all week for the dust to settle and the hangover to go away. I am really proud of this achievement but the more I think about it, the less I find it has to do with me. They say kids are like sponges and they absorb everything they see and hear and I think that’s so true. Honestly, I still feel like a kid most days and I’m just proud of myself when I manage to make my bed and take my vitamins. Never did I think I could actually be a vice president at the age of 27, especially after struggling to find a job right out of school. God, I remember feeling so discouraged and disappointed in myself. I had spent my summers in Mexico visiting my grandparents, playing tennis and partying with my friends only to find out that you need a million years of experience for entry level jobs.

It’s hard to attribute my success to just one person or one significant event but I can’t deny that my mom has had the biggest influence over me in all aspects of my life. My parents divorced when I was just about 1 year old, so for me, having my parents separated and my time divided always seemed normal to me. When I was 7, or so, the company where my mom worked at in Mexico, got bought by an American company located in none other than Louisville, Kentucky. She was supposed to go for 6 months and ended up being hired full time and staying for 6 years. I moved to Louisville, barely knowing how to speak english and leaving the rest of my family behind because my mom’s side of the family was also still in Mexico for the most part. At the time I don’t really think I understood what was really going on or what that really meant but I had been traveling alone since I was really little, so I would fly back on holidays to spend them with my dad and the rest of the family. Sure, I wish I could have spent more time with him and the rest of the family. Many of you don’t know that I have two perfect half brothers and a wonderful step-mother that loves me like her own. But at the time, I needed to be with my mother.

My mom has been my best friend for as long as I can remember. She was and still is my hero and the more I mature and understand why she made the choices that she made, the more respect I have for her. I remember when I started school in Kentucky. My mom had made friends with a coworker that had a wife, a son and two daughters. The daughters were just around my age, one older by a year or two and the other younger by like 9-10 months. They were my American family. I was enrolled in their same school and their mom would pick us up after school and take me home with them. This went on for many years and we switched schools together, my mom and her coworker would come home after work and my mom would pick me up and take me home. That was my first glimpse into her work ethic. I think I was surrounded by incredibly dedicated and hard working people my entire life but that was the first time I realized what was going on.

My mom would drop me off at school early and pick me up from their house pretty late. Her phone would ring literally off the hook and we couldn’t have a meal without her blackberry buzzing or her Nextel making that walkie-talkie noise. I would get so irritated when she dared to take a call while we were out to lunch on the weekend or something. I didn’t get it.

I remember at some point in high school I would get asked what I wanted to do or study in school. I would always say I wasn’t sure but I knew I didn’t want to turn into my mom and have to sit behind a desk and be on call all the time. As if there was something wrong with what she was doing. I thought it was funny at the time but now it’s not so funny, particularly on days when I sit at my desk for 18 hours, hunched over my computer. My boyfriend makes fun of my because I can’t really drive in the dark because my eyesight is shit — we think it’s because I’ve spent so many hours in front of the computer screen. The point is, that I DID turn into my mother, and that’s a good thing.

I remember going into my mom’s office and just hanging out there on a Saturday while she worked. All of the other employees there were always so nice to me and I realized how well she got along with all of them across the different levels. After all these years, I still can’t quite articulate what she does but that’s because her role has changed from year to year and company to company. She seems to coordinate logistics and planning at manufacturing plants. So manufacturing plants have the actual plant where there is some sort of manufacturing (lmao what a bad description) or assembly of some sort and then there’s the office part that has like sales and planning and shipping and stuff like that. She is in the office. A lot of the employees in the manufacturing part tend to be hispanic and my mom being the social butterfly that she is, made friends with all of them. She would help with translating and anything that they needed to make them feel more comfortable, even if it wasn’t really required of her. I remember on several occasions donating some of our gently used clothes to some of the families for themselves or for their kids. She always taught me the value of treating everyone with respect, no matter what position they have at the company. On the flip side, I remember having dinner with her bosses and enjoying the perks of her having a good relationship with her teammates. They always made me feel welcomed when I had to hang at the office.

One summer I stayed in Louisville and interned at her company’s IT department. She swears she’s great with tech but the verdict is still out on that one. She was always good friends with the IT folks and they taught me a lot. It was so strange being coworkers with her, first of all because we have the same name and second of all because we look the same. Here she taught me professionalism. She always knew how to have fun at work but when she needed to get serious, that was never a problem. I used to wonder how the heck she could transition in and out of that so easily but I suppose that comes with time and practice. We would have lunch together almost every day and it was so fun. I was in love with the idea of working with my best friend. I actually had the chance to work there full time after college but ended up deciding to leave for NYC. I just felt like I was so comfortable there with her, and that’s no fault of hers. But I needed to be pushed out of the nest and forced to fly, and so I did learn to fly.

My boss retired last year in March of 2021 and I was so devastated. I had been reporting to him for a little over two years and had worked with him previously for another two. He was always grumpy, like me, but had incredible industry knowledge. He was born in the wrong time, I swear. He really knew how to get me motivated and push me out of my comfort zone. He would tell me things just as they were with no sugar coating even if he know they would upset me. When he retired, I really thought I was going to have to start over with a new boss, but I was wrong. I had met my new boss a year or so prior as a client of our space. Luckily for me, I left a good enough impression on him that he decided to have me lead the team when my other boss retired. Me, a manager? I mean, I’m very bossy but I didn’t know anything about being a proper manager and helping others develop their careers. I could barely develop my own career.

You guys know how obsessed I am with perfection and success. Failing was not an option but when I got this position I was terrified of failure. My new boss really took me under his wing and despite only knowing me for a short time, he knew exactly what to say and how to say it to make me feel capable. I always tell people that when I leave our 1:1 meetings, I feel like I can do literally anything. He really makes me feel like I’m able to do the things I want to achieve and that has been really nice. I still felt like there was probably no chance I could get promoted this first year with him but he inherited my nomination and took it to the finish line.

Promotions are announced once a year at our company and usually it’s a huge celebration. There are typically no meetings on this day and we celebrate those who got promoted as well as bonuses and raises that are also communicated on this day. Comp Day, we call it. It’s honestly like our own little firm holiday and even when you don’t get promoted, it’s super fun to celebrate those that did. Our office is in lower Manhattan and typically we cut out of work early and head to the bars across the way on Stone Street, but of course, this year we couldn’t do that. With the rise of Omicron, they restricted attendance to the office for the beginning of January and so Comp Day had to be held over Zoom.

I didn’t really want to think about it being on Zoom vs in person because I wasn’t even sure I was going to get it and no one had even told me I was for sure up for it. I remember calling my mom on hard days saying that I deserve the title and that I was exhausted. I have pretty bad anxiety and depression so the anxiety of having to wait until comp day was killing me and the fear of not getting it and falling into a deep depression was looming. My mom never said that to me but I think she knew it too. Anyway, I assumed that IF I did get it, that it would be over Zoom and it would just be my manager and I or maybe his peers as well.

On Thursday, January 13th, 2022, I woke up SO early. I could not sleep because I was so nervous and anxious. I don’t like to not have control over situations and this was beyond out of my control. The comp site went down and since we work in IT, we had to be the ones to fix it. I didn’t have to do anything but it still caused commotion in our department, so promotions were delayed. All morning I was stressing out and thinking that I had COVID because I couldn’t breathe. It was just a panic attack.

Finally I get an IM to join the Zoom call and I notice it’s not my boss’ normal Zoom number. I enter the call and it’s my good friend coordinating the breakout rooms and such and she put me through. There were like 30 people on this call and amongst them was Steph and my cute mom on my boss’ phone via FaceTime! I started crying immediately. It was so surreal to hear them say that I was a Vice President but to have my mom and best friend on the call was beyond thoughtful. Later I found out about the difficulties that my mom had with Zoom trying to get in the call so the fact that they kept trying to get her on and make that moment special for both of us was incredible.

So my boss starts talking about me and I’m sobbing, trying to keep it together. Then my former boss’ boss and their boss. It was so overwhelming because they really are like my family. I know they say that when employers say it’s like a family it means that it’s a toxic work culture but it’s really not in this case. These people had a hand in hiring me, bringing me back, developing me and turning me into the person that I am today both in and out of the workplace. They say it takes a village and it really does. Yes, I did the work but it is a lot easier when you have people supporting you along the way. Anyway, after they all speak, they asked my mom to say a few words and when I tell you that she had all 30 people crying or on the verge of tears, I am not exaggerating.

In this moment, I realized that my wins and her wins. She made me who I am today and while we don’t see eye to eye on everything, she still supports me no matter what. She is my rock and I’m so happy to be writing this post because two summers ago we had a falling out and I never really thought we would ever get back to “normal”. It was a very hard time for me and I’m sure it was for her too but she has really worked hard to repair our relationship, probably more than I have, honestly. A mother’s love is like no other and when your mother is your best friend, it’s an indescribable feeling. I’m so thrilled that we got to share this moment together because without her I would not be a VP at a massive firm. After she gave her speech and hung up, I had so many messages from people on that call saying they were in tears or truly touched. One even said “I need to go call my mom” after hearing her kind words. What I can say is that though everyone may not have this kind of relationship with their mom or parents, there’s still time to repair it if you want to and trust me, it’s worth it.

How much you wanna bet my mom is crying right now as she’s reading this? Grab the tissues — here’s the clip of her speech at my VP promotion.

Lastly, my mom is a breast cancer survivor. I remember hearing her voice breaking on the phone the day she told me she was diagnosed. She had been keeping it for a few days because I was going through a messy breakup so she didn’t want to make things worse. I remember being in the office and stepping out into the hallway where it was usually empty and just collapsing in this little corner. You hear the “c” word and immediately think of the worst case scenario.

In a time when the family was supposed to be her source of strength, her rock, we were all falling apart. Ha. My grandpa and I try to pretend like we’re the strongest but we are probably the biggest babies when it comes to crying. My mom was actually OUR rock and managed to have a smile on her face all the time. One of my favorite memories with her is the day of her first surgery, I was in the waiting room with her about to knock her nurse out because she couldn’t even remember which arm to put the central line in after we had told her numerous times. My mom was so scared that day but she started cracking jokes left and right because she knew I was just as scared. She didn’t want me to know how scared she was and even on that hospital bed, before her surgery, she was putting me first and trying to make me smile.

She came out of the surgery with flying colors and only needed one more minor surgery to remove the rest of the area that could have had left over cancer cells. She was in so much pain but she was still always smiling. She couldn’t control anything else at that point, but she could control her attitude and perception of life. She may look small but she is the strongest person I know. Besides Alex. Alex definitely has bigger muscles (sorry mom!)