A Much Needed Break in Barbados! (and the job change story)

The past year has been full of change – and change can be stressful. Until now, I had been lucky enough to never really experience the stress of a major job search before. My first job out of grad school was a continuation of my doctoral teaching role for Michigan State. I was nervous about finishing my dissertation (a condition for getting the full time gig) but I never had the to run the gauntlet on the economics job market. When we moved to Wisconsin, I had just scored my first grant and I continued to work from home on contract work but was not officially looking to return to work when I connected with UWL and learned they had a tenure track position open. I did my first round interview 8 months pregnant and my 2nd round only a few weeks post partum. Again, stressful but I was just focused on one application and one interview process and I was fortunate enough to get the offer and spend nearly a decade with some wonderful colleagues in La Crosse.

When I decided to explore roles in industry last year, I was not prepared for how stressful job search can be. I’ve studied job search as a labor economist, and I thought I could empathize with the human experience behind the data but the reality itself was so much harder than I had expected. I interviewed with several major tech companies, a start up, a medical research firm, and I was a wreck from about the time I send my first applications out in January (Why is no one contacting me yet? Maybe I’m not employable!) through March when I was scheduling final round interviews left and right and feeling like I failed each one (I remember permutations and combinations are not the same thing but I should have tattooed the formulas to my forearm! Now I’m sure I failed that technical screen…) My brother was so patient with all my questions and freak outs and was such a great source of advice and help as I navigated the culture of the tech job search.

Thankfully before committing to mathematical body art, I received two offers back to back that I was really torn between. Even though I had a tough decision to make, I was so relieved to be able to cancel the final round interviews with other companies and be done answering questions about coin flips and balls and urns. The roller coaster of interviews, talking with recruiters, not knowing whether to send out more applications or wait, playing chess over scheduling final rounds and negotiating offers was exhausting. And did I mention the balls in urns?!? Although I was tired and needed a break, I didn’t have the luxury of any any time off between jobs. Indeed wanted me to start as soon as possible and though I wasn’t teaching, I had a lot to wrap up at UWL before I could feel good about stepping away. I care a lot about my colleagues and I am insanely privileged to have searched with the knowledge that I had secure employment with good colleagues to return to. Most job seekers don’t have that advantage.

Looking back, I’m actually glad we didn’t try to take a break or go on a trip before I started or while I was newer at Indeed. Academia was (and really still is) so much a part of my identity. Stepping away was hard. I felt unsettled and unsure about whether I had just blown up my life. While focusing so hard on getting an industry job, I never stopped to think about how it would feel to start over new again. I knew so many things about how academia worked, and I could navigate all of the UW System quirks that seemed normal, if annoying at times. I spent my first few weeks at Indeed with a major case of imposter syndrome, even though everyone I met was really helpful and honest about how long it took them to ramp up (they were right – it takes 6 months). I remember taking a little time off in June (I had started April 25th) and being so unaccustomed to actually putting up a vacation responder and unplugging that I struggled to truly relax. But my boss knew I was struggling with this and I appreciated her telling me one night at 6pm that I needed to stop chiming in on Slack. She was on Pacific Time but knew I was Central and she reminded me that this could wait – we do important work but it’s not brain surgery. Tomorrow morning is soon enough. There are times when that’s not the case, but when that’s the exception rather than the rule, you have the energy to give what is required. And I’m grateful to have a mentors at Indeed who have helped me navigate when things have gotten intense. Navigating long hours in academic always felt like a solo sport and at its worst it felt competitive.

Flash forward to now – I’m feeling far more comfortable in my role. I’ve learned a ton and I truly love the work. There are things I miss about academic life but there are more similarities than I would have expected. I still mentor and teach – it’s just not the formal academic setting. I’ve done as much or more challenging econometrics in the last 9 months on the job than I had been doing in my academic research. And I’ve learned the value of being able to take time off. This is something I wish academics could learn from industry. Instead, academics talk about being ready for the school year to end so they can get some time for research. Even after making tenure I regularly worked a 12 hour day each weekend to get uninterrupted time for research. I spent time at lakeside summer VRBO slaving away on an R&R rather than in the boat with my husband and my kids. I took calls and zoom meetings from Jamaica when Dave and I were there with the kids last year and I ended up on a search committee because technically I didn’t have paid time off and felt I couldn’t block my calendar and say no. Some of that’s on me – I could have done less and been successful. But in those moments I truly could not figure out how.

There’s something about the ability to claim paid vacation time that feels different – like time away is a priority supported by your employer and recognized as something that enhances your productivity. You see successful people all over the organization do it. You are encouraged to compensate for and reset to quit the unhealthy habits we fall into when trying to do long hours of desk work. We have some major things going on at work right now and I just started reporting to a new boss, but when I mentioned my upcoming trip I had strong support from her to protect that time, I’ve seen that attitude consistently across the company, and do my best to practice it with my own direct reports.

So, after signing on with Indeed last spring, Dave and I decided we would take part of my signing bonus and take advantage of the open PTO policy Indeed offers to splurge on a vacation to Barbados just the two of us. At the time, February of 2023 seemed a long way off but I’m so glad we waited. After all, as of this coming fall, we will have been together for 20 years… This time, I didn’t have a laptop with me. I did not check email. I did not have to schedule our trip around breaks in class schedules. And, because of the generous signing bonus, we splurged on a truly exceptional suite. It was everything we had hoped for – and we were nervous about hoping because the last trip we had tried to plan just the two of us was supposed to be spring break 2020… Neither of us really believed this was happening until we got into the car at the airport in Barbados to take us to the hotel. But it happened and we’re so grateful to have had this time together. Huge thank you to Grandma for having the kids at her place while we were away – though they were jealous of the beach and the warmth we enjoyed they had a great week back here at home with her too!

From the City to the Slopes

Nate’s birthday was certainly an event this year! Our trip to Chicago was a huge success. It started with a train ride but the train was several hours late so at one point Dave and I were discussing driving instead. That’s when we realized how important the train ride was to Nate – he was almost more excited about that than the trip itself! It was a great way to get from La Crosse to Chicago – even though it was a little late. We had a lower level section of the car nearly all to ourselves and the boys loved watching out the windows until it was dark. Because of the delay, we ended up just having sandwiches on the train for dinner but we definitely made up for that over the next few days with lots of amazing meals out.

The first day, we hit Shedd and the Planetarium. The boys still love fish as much as they ever did…

That night, we went to Rosebud for an incredible Italian dinner and a very special birthday dessert.

The next day we hit the Museum of Science and Industry and were there from open to close. That place is so incredible and the boys remembered a lot from their first visit – the model ships were still a favorite.

Somehow they still had enough energy for Sky Deck that night – and messing around with revolving doors…

We capped the weekend off with a huge breakfast and a visit to the Field Museum – and while there’s a lot at the Field to see, it was Day 3 of museums for us and it was Free Day so the place was jam packed with people. We were ready when it was time to head to Union Station and take out train home.

Then last weekend we had a party at our house with Nate’s friends. I was holding my breath for this to work out for two major reasons. (1) We live 45 minutes away from the school he attends and I wasn’t sure how many of the 7 kids he invited would have parents up for the drive. (2) We needed snow to make the sledding themed party work. Both gambles paid off. All 7 kids RSVPed yes and 6 made it up (one was sick). Thursday before the Sunday party, we got about 10 inches of new snow. It was perfect! We didn’t even have normal January frigid temperatures. It was about 28 degrees. And to top it all off, our favorite bakery in Galesville made a sledding themed cake just for Nate. By the end of the weekend, I was exhausted. I clocked over 20,000 steps the day before for the party just in our house cleaning and getting things ready… It was worth it.

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Nate Turns 10

While the things that make him giggle have changed a lot over the years (lighting candles with a blowtorch at 10 vs. Tractor Mac and Dusty Crophopper at 2…) he’s still our favorite youngest son! This week we had a quiet birthday celebration for Nate at home on “Brother Night” (a tradition we started during the pandemic where we break from our regular dinner as a family with no screens and the boys eat dinner on their own watching a show upstairs while Dave and I have “Date Night” dinner to ourselves downstairs). We broke Brother Night protocol to enjoy cake together.

His major birthday celebration will be next weekend in Chicago. We’re taking the train to the city from La Crosse with Grandma to do museums and enjoy some time in civilization. Nate is most excited about hitting Shedd and Museum of Science and Industry. We’ve done this with the boys before. Last time was in 2018 – Nate was 5 and Zach was 8. Below are about the only pictures I have of the boys that aren’t blurry images of them literally bouncing from tank to tank with excitement. They both LOVED fish – and still do. We now have two aquariums – one in each boys’ bedroom. On the whole the boys have been really responsible about caring for them with minimal help (that’s easy for me to say because that’s Dave’s department, he may have a different take…)

The picture in the middle is especially cool for me because I remember sitting there at the aquatic show at Shedd as a kid with my own family. My younger brother was really into whales. They asked a question, and his hand shot up right away. The speaker called on him to answer and he was so proud to know his stuff. On that day pictured above, I relived that moment with Zach. When they asked a question, his hand shot up and he was called on! It was so cool.

In other news, the Xmas cards are finally getting addressed tonight! Maybe I’ll even get them in the mail before Easter…

The 7 Year Blink

How do you start up the family blog again after an almost 7 year hiatus. Well, turns out the hardest part is figuring out how the hell to log in again! We’re at a VRBO on a lake for the weekend and Dave and the kids are out ice fishing in 10 degrees of grey cold for the 3rd day in a row with no fish yet – so I’m sure he was super thrilled to get a text from me from inside the cabin with the panoramic Christmas card lake view through the pines asking for a password reset…

7 years is a long time to recap. And looking back at my past entries, we were really burping along in fits and starts from fall of 2013 on with little consistency but many good intentions and a few drafts I never published. At least this time I printed on our Xmas cards “After a 7 year hiatus the blog is back!” but the cards are sitting next to me here on December 31st on this table unaddressed so that’s not really a very good commitment mechanism, now is it? Well, nonetheless, here we go.

So, what’s happened since 2016? Here are some highlights:

Zach is about 6 feet tall and is in 7th grade. Nate is gaining on my 5’3″ fast and is in 4th grade.

We have a boat and spend as much free time as we can fishing in the summers.

We said goodbye to our sweet Yara and welcomed Jukka.

We doubled our acreage and Dave started making syrup.

We welcomed a new nephew, Wes Hoffman, into the world.

We’ve also had lots of fun Hoffman family visits with Grammy, Grandpa Duck, Aunt Erin and Uncle Bob in Arizona, Seattle, and even fishing here in Minnesota and Wisconsin. There were so many great pics from those that I’ll have to cover them separately, but here are some great baby Wes pics for now.

We are no longer parenting without a net!

In spring of 2022, Dave’s mom Sandy (“Grandma”) moved up to the La Crosse area and we now have family within 45 minutes of home. In years past, she’d driven the 6 hours from Illinois to come to our rescue (and to my garden’s rescue) many times, but this fall we were all especially grateful she was local. That’s a story for another post.

I’m sure there’s much more I’ll recall as I comb through pictures from the last 7 years, but there’s one final piece of news that makes me hope more regular posts will be possible again – I am on leave from my professorship at University of Wisconsin La Crosse – a position I started in fall of 2013. After returning to teaching in fall of 2021, following a very strange sabbatical in 2020-21, I found being a professor was overwhelming. Despite my best efforts, I could not set up healthy boundaries between work and my life outside of work. I had promised myself and my family that, after tenure and my final promotion to full professor in fall of 2020, life would be better. The fall of 2021 proved otherwise. Something had to change.

I started applying for jobs in January of 2022 and, since April, I have been managing the People Science team at Indeed. Like many tenured academics who have made the move to industry, I am fortunate to be able to explore this career path and leave a door open to return to academia with tenure. It’s an incredible privilege – especially given the uncertainty in the economy right now and in the tech industry in particular. I’m still not sure whether this move will be temporary or permanent but so far I’ve learned a lot and I really love the work. We help people get jobs is a very motivating mission. The projects I’m involved with tie more closely to the personnel economics topics that I learned about decades ago in my labor economics class at ASU when I decided to become an economist than anything I worked on while in academia. I also love the focus on healthy work-life balance – though it’s not perfect. There have been weeks every bit as intense as what I had at UWL and I really battled with imposter syndrome for the first few months. Now that I’m more settled, I’ve found having the ability to take time off, and a manager who encourages me to do so when I need it, is a game changer. This is the first time I’ve spent the days between Christmas and New Years reading and relaxing with my family without end of semester grading or travel to the AEA Meetings looming over my head. So, I am hoping in addition to all the good this career change has done for my family that this blog – and many other hobbies outside of work – can flourish along with my career.

Happy New Year y’all – it’s great to be back!

The Frozen Calm Before the Storm

I know we can’t complain too much because we’ve had a really mild winter so far – but it’s cold today. The high is above 0 but just barely. So here we are on a Sunday morning stuck inside and trying to find ways to entertain the kids (and ourselves). We’ve done the board games already and I’m sure it will be movie time later but neither help to burn off all of that little kid craziness. So it’s bounce house time. Of all of the ridiculous toys our kids own this is probably the most ridiculous. It’s certainly the largest! But it’s actually the second one we’ve had. The first was a Craig’s List score and worth every penny. So when it finally got too leaky to hold enough air anymore we bought a replacement brand new.

The kids do the normal bounce house jumping around but their (and our) favorite activity is to take some soft balls and engage in a dodge ball like game. Here are a few pics of the game in action. So although it’s freezing and calm outside there’s a hailstorm of small balls raging in our playroom this morning. Hopefully this will buy some afternoon quiet time…

  

Sports during the school year?

Today starts our first attempt at after school sports. Both boys are starting with swim and then Zachary has basketball. While this is normal after school chaos for most families it’s a little extra challenging for us. We can’t go home before and when we finish up we have 45 minutes to drive home. So we’re trying it all on one night – 4:30 starts swim then 5:15 basketball. Snacks will bridge is over to a late dinner at home.

So far so good – we’re in the middle of swim now and it’s clear both boys need this. Nate is already giving his teacher a hard time and Zachary is trying to fake his way through jumping in. And Zachary just tried to give his brother a shout out halfway across the pool. The longer we wait to get this going the farther behind they’ll be – both in terms of ability to swim and just normal social stuff you get through sports. So we’ll tough out the logistics and see what we can do. I’m sure like most things this will be tougher on me than them.

   
   

Christmas and Commitment Mechanisms

In behavioral economics, a commitment mechanism is something you do in the present to force you to take a certain action in the future that present you values but future you might be tempted not to stick to. The example I use in my health Econ class is taking a different route home so you’re not tempted to stop for fast food instead of cook. In my case it’s mailing out our Christmas cards with our blog URL on them before posting any new content…  

So here we go as the cards make their way through the USPS, this is a brief update since my last post over the summer. At the end of the summer we spent nearly two weeks in AZ with “Gram and Grandpa Duck”. Zachary learned to swim and ride a bike and we got to hang out with my childhood friend Jacqui and her daughter Kaitlyn. We must have picked some of the hottest weather of the summer to be there but we made the most of mornings and late afternoons and the pool. 

Fall meant back to school for me and both boys. Zachary started kindergarten in Onalaska (la crosse metro area) and Nate started at the Campus Child Center. This means 5 days a week we commute down together about 45 minutes each way. It has it’s ups and downs. The kids love their schools and I even get a chance to volunteer now and then – but spending so much time in the car everyday has required some compromises and the evenings seem very short. Admittedly, part of that is just the stage of life we’re at. Thankfully we’ve had a super mild winter so the driving hasn’t been bad.

In October we traveled to Seattle for my brother Bob’s wedding – the boys were super excited to be “ring masters” and we’re all thrilled to have Erin as part of the family. We’re hoping to get back to Seattle again soon to do more exploring – it was tons of fun – although Nate was not a fan of the monkfish at Pike Market… We were lucky to have Grandma Sandy come along to help so Dave and I got to stay longer at the reception and have extra hands along for all of the travel. Fun fact – if your kid gets croup right before travel buckle up – the meds they have to take are like speed and our pediatrician literally told us to give him a chocolate syrup chaser because they taste bad. Of course this was Nate and he’s nuts on sugar as it is. It was a crazy flight out there. Thankfully things were back to normal before the ceremony and despite making me sweat it out until the last minute they walked down the aisle perfectly.

Croup was followed by a stomach virus and pretty much permanent colds- sometimes with double ear infections as a bonus. But I guess that’s to be expected in the first year of center based daycare and all day school. It does make all of our logistics really tough when we get sick and I’m still trying to figure out how to cope – for now it’s a scramble every time. But things are looking up – Grandma Sandy retired this fall – we’re super excited to see more of her and grateful that she has offered to drive up to the rescue when needed to help out with sick kids and work travel.

Speaking of work travel – this October I was back in Ann Arbor to present some of the work on German retirement policy I’ve been working on for awhile now. It was a huge opportunity and the presentation went well. In general it’s been a good year for my research – my friend and colleague Kandice Kapinos and I published 3 articles on colon cancer screenings – one of which even got some press. Within 5 minutes of the online post of the local news article I was called a socialist because our work was examining the effects of the Affordable Care Act. Ironically we were essentially testing the law of demand – which is at the heart of “free market capitalism”. I’m learning that when it comes to the press a sense of humor helps.

Dave also had a great year at work – he’s coming up on the end of his first year with Central Wisconsin Ag Service and he and the company are both doing great! In fact, in December he went to Bulgaria to scout consulting opportunities and there may be more trips ahead in 2016.

Thanksgiving this year was a huge treat! We had a table full of family and friends – Grandma and Grandpa Duck were in town from AZ, Uncle Glen came up and the Hirschboek family joined us. The kids and the adults had a blast – and MSU’s football success this year made Dad and I especially happy. Go Green! 

December was a blur – thankfully while Dave was out of town my friends and their kids came up for an overnight despite the fact the we had nasty colds just to help me out and let the kids play. It’s a good thing they did – I had completely lost my voice! Someone had to yell at the kids for me 🙂

At the end of Decemebe Steve and Sandy came up for a grandparents day at Zachary’s school. It was great to see them as always and especially good this time as we lost Dave’s Uncle Wayne (Sandy’s brother) to a short and aggressive battle with cancer this fall. He and Aunt Debbie had just retired to Florida.  This has been really tough for all and we miss him.

Christmas this year was probably one of the best we’ve had as our little family on our own. The kids and I wrapped up class and finals on the 22nd and on the 23rd we met up with our friends the Fredricks and their three little girls at the MN Zoo in the Cities. We had an awesome day exploring the inside exhibits and even braved the snow to see a few outdoor ones. The drive home that night was a little scary in the weather but there was enough slushy snow the next day to take the boys sledding! Xmas day was nice and quiet at home with tons of presents in PJs. Then the next day we surprised the kids with a weekend at Great Wolf Lodge in the Dells. It was so much fun that it may just have to become a Christmas tradition.

Well, that’s all – and as I look back it’s a whole lot! No wonder it’s tough to find time to document life – we’re pretty busy living it.

We wish you all a wonderful new year with your families! Thanks for checking in on us.

Love, the Hammans
At Great Wolf Lodge

  

Writing to Santa
    

Christmas Eve 
  

Making cookies – lots of cookies

  

Bedtime stories
  

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

 

A long overdue picture

I don’t really do Facebook much anymore and haven’t posted here in ages. And it’s not that I’m being antisocial. I just have found that juggling work without purchasing full time childcare has meant any screen time I do steal has to be used to keep my work going. But I’m rounding the bend there – research has really gone well over the past year. And we’re very close to purchasing childcare like normal people! Zach will be started kindergarten in the fall and Nate has finally gotten a position at the Campus Childcare Center. It will mean a lot more car time for the kids but I think they’re ready for the social experience. And their nanny left us this spring to take a job at Ashley with more hours and better play – very happy for her – she also got married and bought a house!

Dave and I are doing great. He’s working hard at his new practice and enjoys being a dairy exclusive vet now – no more middle of the night horse or cat calls.

Anyway, enough update stuff. Here’s what you really want- a pic of the boys this morning playing together at the park.

  

Goodbye Preschool

Zach’s last day of preschool was right before Memorial Day – and it caught me off guard. I hadn’t thought about it much until the night before, but saying goodbye to his teacher and classmates was hard… on me. Zach didn’t fully comprehend. I think he’s still realizing that preschool is over. But we had such a wonderful year at Congregational. Zach thrived there. He can write his name now, he loves singing the songs he learned, and he talked about his friends all of the time. For his 4th birthday we had a little party with friends from preschool. And I was lucky enough to get a chance to go along for his end of the year field trip. I think that actually made it tougher to see the end of the school year because watching his class together was just so great. I took a few pictures and I also got some of Zach on the playground with his friend Vivian after their end of the year celebration. Unfortunately I had to go to that on my own with Nate and Nate was really upset to see brother but not be able to go up and stand up front with the big kids. So I missed most of the program. According to the other parents Zach was a ham and sang at the top of his lungs. I’m was pretty bummed to miss it. But he was up for giving us an encore performance at dinner time so Dave got to hear him too. I just can’t believe he’s headed to 4K.

Summer at Last

It’s official. We’ve survived my first year on the tenure track. And although the summer is pretty busy too I feel like we’re finally catching up. I’m not teaching and Zach is now done with preschool. So we’re spending much less time in the car. And after the winter that felt like it would never end, we finally have beautiful weather and we’re loving it.

Dave has mowed some trails around our property and we hike often with the boys. Nate is still riding in the wrap with me when we’re hiking but he insists on walking on his own in the yard or when we go for a walk down the street. And when we’re in the house he’s running. It’s amazing to me how fast he’s become a “kid” and no longer a baby. He wants to much to be one of the big kids. He’s now stair safe and he and Zach often wander upstairs to the playroom together. It’s been a strange and wonderful change to have the boys be so independent. And so cool to see how much they truly love playing together. And they’re both getting huge!

Dave has been really busy at work since they’ve been down to just four vets for about a year. But their new hire just started after Memorial Day and soon the on call time will ease up and hopefully the schedule will become a bit less hectic with the work shared with another guy.

In a week we’ll be in the UP for the fishing trip with my family and Meg, Joe and Tatum. And for the 4th, we’ll be with Dave’s family, and in August we’ll be out in California and then it’ll be back to the classroom after Labor Day. I hope we’ll have some long lazy summer days in between. It is amazing to watch my kids play and know that in their world the summer seems to last forever like it did for me as a kid. For us it just flies. But I’m trying hard to set the work and thoughts of what must be done before I’m teaching again, leave the house dirty, and just sit down and watch them play. When I do that I remember my own summers – playing with my brother, pissing each other off because we were bored and couldn’t think of anything better to do, laughing like maniacs together over absolutely nothing, and hanging out in PJs all day because there really was no where we had to be.