Erma Bombeck once said, when applying for a job, “Pardon me, sir, I’ve been a wife and a mother for fifteen years.  I’ll need two extra sheets of paper to list my background and skills.”  All of us moms know how true that is.

Several years ago, I was working for an architectural firm.  One day my boss asked me if I would like to be the on-site construction manager for a huge apartment rehab project.  (Of course, when your boss “asks” you something like this, what he really means is “guess what you’re doing next?”)

I was terrified.  I had never done anything of this magnitude and told him so.  He said I would do fine (especially since they had nobody else to send out).  He promised all the support I might need … just a phone call away.  That was the last time I heard from him.

Now picture this five-foot-tall-thirty-something-woman arriving at the construction site and announcing she was the new construction manager.  I got some sneers that made me want to crawl back into my hole and die.  And I was going to be at this job for an estimated 15 months.  Ugh.

It’s amazing the transformation that took place over the next several months.  I mediated fight after fight among the subcontractors until they were putty in my hands.  When the painters left a mess, I went and gave them a piece of my mind … soon they cleaned up just so they wouldn’t have to listen to me scream.  When someone said they would be there at a certain time and didn’t show up, well, this was one mad momma and they heard about that, too.  I had to be five places at once on a regular basis.  I was asked to squeeze dollars out of an already tight budget.

One day, the main contractor came into my office for a meeting.  He looked at me and said, “You know, you’re really good at this job.  How did you learn all this stuff?  What is your background?”

I thought of Erma Bombeck.

I learned how to solve fights because I do it, oh, ten times a day between my kids.  I learned how to put the fear of God into anybody who messes up my clean house a long time ago … dealing with grown men was even easier than kids because they’re afraid of getting fired (if only we could threaten the kids with getting fired … ha!) 

Teaching manners, like being somewhere when you said you would be, was not as easy, but even that improved over time, just like with kids.  Being a parent teaches us early on how to be at multiple events on the same night (little league, dancing, softball, meetings, gymnastics, scouts), so it never even frazzled me when I was juggling a mere five meetings at once.  Someboody else’s scheduling nightmare is a piece of cake for a mother.

And squeezing money out of a budget?  I am the queen.

Erma would be proud.