Happy Working Mom of 3 at Confio
My husband is from France, and I am from South Korea. We are raising 3 boys in Madrid, Spain, where we don’t have any family to get support for the kids.
Some people call me Superwoman and ask me, “How do you manage your life? How can you work full-time, taking care of 3 boys without any help?”
There are two very simple answers to that question.
- Great teamwork with my husband. (My perfect partner who supports me 100% when I go on business trips, without too many complaints and keeping everyone alive. 😘) We both, as a couple, share all the things together like cooking, grocery shopping, cleaning things, dropping off and picking up kids, helping with their homework, etc. Depending on each other’s schedules, we coordinate things together.
- Work remotely at a family-friendly company, Confio. I would like to share more about my experience in this article.
My Previous Employee Experience
I started my career in a Korean shipping company where I had to commute, which was normal, and we didn’t have a remote working option back then. I chose that job as I wanted to use my language and work internationally. But soon after I joined, I was very unhappy as the work culture was pretty male-dominant, ‘women are meticulous, so better do a (boring) operator job meanwhile, men can do a (fun/more sophisticated) stuff like future trading’ narrative was choking me, so every Sunday evening I felt depressed.
After I moved to Madrid, I got a job at the Spanish branch of a global conglomerate. At first, I was very happy to work in a well-known company,(so that your mom can proudly show off to her friends that her daughter is working there, yup, typical Korean thing), but soon I realized that the only thing I was enjoying was the Korean meal. I had to follow all the pre-decided things as protocol, I was just a tiny, small part of this giant organization. And of course, there exists a certain ‘caste’ system between ex-pats and the locals. Being a non-Spanish local was not really desirable caste class, and the off-boarding process was traumatic.
Then, my first working remote experience started with a French blockchain startup 4 years ago. I learned the joy of working remotely without all the hassle of commuting. What I also appreciate is they gave me the opportunity of meeting people in the crypto world, but the biggest present from them was the encounter with the people I still work with now, including the co-founders of Confio. However, there were issues; a lot of uncertainty and missing communication (one example; my boss left, and I was waiting for the regular meeting with him as no one bothered to notify me), and other issues concerning the working environment, that made me decide to look for other opportunities.
In short, whether a remote working company or not, working at all those places was enduring a lot of things inside me, which surely had a negative impact on my mental health, and the not-even-much salary was the only motivation, so every Sunday I felt blue.
Now With Confio
No more Sunday blues.
Why? Because for the first time in my life, I am working proactively. There have been a lot of things that I have little or no experience in before; dev surveys and analysis, organizing workshops, setting up branding, social media marketing, recruiting, outreach, business development, etc. A lot of things were learned on the go, and it was an enjoyable experience with the satisfaction of accomplishment each time.
And then, not only my inner contentment, I get credit for what I have done at Confio. A few words and sentences, verbally or in written form, makes you feel good. That really motivates me a lot. I try to do that also whenever I find a reason to, and I think that is one of our good company cultures.
We are a tech company but what matters most is the people. This vision of the co-founders aligns with mine, as I do think people matter. Every important decision is transparent and shared with everyone, there are no authoritarian-minded (🤞 cross my fingers to keep it this way), people hear you out when you ask for help. Always there for you, remotely of course 😉.
You don’t believe me? I will give you some episodes then.
One day, I left a message that my boys are sick so it might affect my efficiency that day. And the same week, Confio offered paid child sick leave benefit which doesn’t exist in Spain, and sent the contract to sign for Spanish employees including me.
At the beginning of the Covid outbreak when uncertainty was everywhere, Confio announced the UNLIMITED Covid test for all employees, freelancers, AND their families.
On our shared calendar, we not only share a work-related schedule but also our time to pick up kids and it is no shame or anything.
Personally, these things show that actually people care for you at Confio. To me, this is a lot bigger compensation for my loyalty than a big bonus or PERKS. (But I wouldn’t say no to these either! 😜)
So, Confio is Perfect?
Well, nothing is perfect in our imperfect world.
I think we could do better for the HR part. We can do better internal training, and we need to fill out the gap between dev and non-dev, blockchain experts, and newbies. We could improve the onboarding and offboarding process with solid ownership.
But I don’t worry too much, I know that we are moving forward, growing up, taking the right direction.
Wanna Be a Happy Working Parent? Then Join us!
Working mom is not an easy job, a lot of people feel they suck at both work and home, running here and there getting their job half-done at both places. And to be honest, I do feel that way often when I hear what other full-time moms are doing for their kids, it feels like what I am doing for my kids is the minimum meanwhile others are doing a lot more.
However, I am pretty sure my kids would want to see their mom happy and busy, than me being around there all the time but unhappy.
So yeah, Confio is the best place to work so far in my life, I guarantee you as a happy working mom.
