Thank You For Your Help...

Thank you for your emails and for sharing your kids with me. It is extremely humbling when parents send me videos and discuss personal moments with me...to be shared with pediatricians to try to help the next family. Please keep sending. It's a series of ten encounters- fifty pediatricians each course.

Which brings me to my own family: Jordan and Sofia are doing well aside from the fact that Jordan has bronchitis. I've been busy trying to get it all done. I just lived a really ugly experience with an Italian agency that contacted me for a job interview. I'm always looking for new opportunities especially when they include travelling and meeting new people. I was contacted for a job interview with a woman. I arrived on time for the interview, however she was unable to be there due to an emergency, so I spoke to her associate. He was very nice and talked to me about a part-time job dealing with English-speaking clients by phone and email that wouldn't require much time in the office, just the morning or the afternoon- and that every now and then, I may be asked to travel to Dubai.

*Sounds good to me*

The woman I was supposed to have the interview with sent me a TEXT MESSAGE, did not call, sent me a text message to arrange an appointment for the next day. I said okay and added a smiley- not very professional of me, but after receiving a text message request for an interview, I felt free to be a little less professional.

I looked over their website and thought it was professionally done and interesting and...that it needed to be translated in English.

The next morning I arrived on time for the second interview and met this woman, who was a very good-looking woman with a firm handshake- can't stand weak handshakers. She sat behind the desk and started talking. I believe the first ten minutes of the interview we had major communication problems. She was discussing a job totally different from the one the other guy had proposed. First of all, she asked me if I was available to fly to Dubai on Tuesday- keep in mind I have the pediatric course on Monday- two and a half hours from where I live and I finish at 7 pm. Then, she insisted that if I went to Dubai, it would be the beginning of a relationship that would not require travelling and only light work interpreting or translating that I could easily do from home. Sounded perfect to me! Even though it had been proposed in a totally different manner.

We continued our conversation in a less-stressed manner, once she started to understand that the other person had explained a different type of job and that he had in no way, shape or form requested that I fly to Dubai in six days time. She mentioned that she wanted a woman and I asked why? She responded that they deal with male clients and that women have better interpersonal communication skills than men in certain types of situations, that she had to work closely with the interpreter and that the interpreter had to have a psychological read on the clients to grasp the subtleties- she said men did not have that ability. I agreed.

I liked her because she had obviously worked hard to reach the level of success she had obtained and she was obviously a woman with balls.

After the meeting I ran home to pick up Jordan to take him to the Doctor because he was up all night coughing the night before and Luca and my mother-in-law, who spent the weekend with him said that they were worried. While I was in the car, I started laughing.
He said, "Why are you laughing?"
I said, "Nothing."
He said, "Tell me!"
I said, "Well I might have the possibility of flying to another country for three days to work as an interpreter just because I speak English."
He said, "Why might?"
I said, "Because I don't know if I can leave you and Sofia for three days."
He said, "Why not, then I can finally stay with my dad for three days in a row."

I smiled. I was a little saddened by that comment, but I was happy that Jordan was happy to be able to spend three days with his dad. It was kind of like him giving me permission to go.

So, I sent Luca a request to watch the kids so I could seize this opportunity that most likely would not pass by again. He said he'd think about it. Three hours passed. He still had to think about it. I told him I had to know so I could give an answer. No response.

I called my mother-in-law and she said, "Absolutely, if you need me to be there for Jordan and Sofia, I'm there, especially if it's a job opportunity."

I cried.

I'm not going to Dubai, it fell through...but it was really nice to know that finally, without needing to fight, beg or plead, someone was there to help.