One job is demanding enough for most women but not all. The reasons are many: Foremost is that the first job doesn`t pay enough. Sometimes a second job makes possible saving for a down payment on a home, buying a car, paying for college or taking a dream vacation.
Exploring a new profession is another motive: A woman can test the waters without giving up a secure job. It`s also a good transition while starting a new business. In both instances, a woman can gain experience by working in the new career part-time.
Coupled with the responsibilities of home and family, working at more than one job requires commitment and vast energy.
Lori Krycka
Age 26, coordinating cashier, Talman Home Mortgage Corp., Norridge;
waitress, Elmwood Park
”I was working part-time as a waitress before I got a full-time job at the bank, and I just kept it,” says Krycka. She is married to Ziggy Krycka, a truck driver, and has a daughter, Nicole, 7.
”I like working both jobs and really need the money. We own a two-flat now with my brother-in-law and want to get our own nice big house by ourselves. That`s what we`re saving for.” The extra income also helps pay her daughter`s school tuition.
Krycka says her future is at Talman, where she manages a staff of 11 and
”fixes any mistakes that may happen.” She works there from 8:45 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. On Saturday and Sunday she waits tables from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. There`s also housework and the care of her child.
”Physically; the two jobs wear me out,” she says. ”I`m tired during the week because when I get home, I spend time with my daughter and make dinner. When she goes to bed, I stay up and do housework, washing and ironing. I have to do it during the week because I can`t to it on weekends.”
By Sunday nights ”all I want to do when I come home is go to bed.” Her only regret is lost time with her daughter. ”Otherwise, I have no regrets. I`ve been doing it for three years and I`m not dead yet.”
Jennifer Hunt
Age 40, general education development teacher, Olive-Harvey College;
restaurant hostess; Refrigerette
”I`m a registered psychologist and for years I worked in only one job, as a full-time pharmaceutical sales representative,” says Hunt, who earned her master`s degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology.
”I worked long hours, but in the business world you`re expected to sit and hold down a chair for nine hours a day and not budge. It`s punitive. It doesn`t allow a person to grow. It stifles. No one will allow you to have flextime to pursue other interests.”
Her interest in becoming a full-time entertainer led her to quit the full-time job two years ago and take three part-time ones.
”I work 40 to 50 hours a week,” she says. ”My teaching job is from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday through Thursday. I host from 5 p.m. to midnight. The rest of the time I`m an actress and comedienne.”
She became a Refrigerette in 1985 and also has a one-woman comedy act.
”I have to work part-time in other jobs to get where I want to be in acting. I`m going to be a star. I`m fat. I weigh 187 pounds. That`s not much, but it is for (someone) 5-feet-2!”
Show business ”is a disease,” she quips, ”and the only cure is success. I`m not waiting to be discovered; I`m waiting to be paid.”
Terry J. Ensign
Age 31, franchise owner, business consultant, teacher, career consultant and fundraiser, Wheaton
”I`ve always had two jobs or more at one time,” says Ensign. Currently she`s a part-time marketing and promotion consultant for a retail business and is establishing her own employment franchise service.
”From 1977 to 1981 I worked as a college residence hall director and coordinator of career counseling; at the same time I was teaching. I had a master`s degree in counseling.
”I felt it was important for me to get more life experience. My students and my colleagues were 10 to 20 years older. Working at other jobs, I decided, was also an opportunity to boost my credibility, to make me more marketable
–and a way to earn more than $10,000 a year.”
From 1981 to 1983 Ensign, who has taught at the College of Du Page and Illinois Benedictine College, added fundraising to her duties. Next she went to work full-time at an accounting firm, doing research and development training. At the same time, she worked part-time as a college residential hall counselor. To save money to buy a home, he also worked part-time as a live-in caretaker for a senior citizen and full-time as a sales manager of a film processing company.
”My jobs have given me the independence to experiment with different business and educational strategies,” says Ensign, who is single. ”But having more than one job cuts into your social life.”
Jan Hobson
Age 37, vice president of corporate affairs, Continental Illinois National Bank & Trust Co. of Chicago; nightclub owner; singer
”I have a degree in communications from Northwestern University,” says Hobson. ”I`ve been in advertising and communications all of my professional career and was recently promoted from bank advertising manager to manager of creative services.” She has been at the bank eight years.
But seven years ago, when she turned 30, Hobson decided to become a singer. ”I started taking voice lessons and started performing within six months.”
She formed her own group, Jan Hobson and Her Bad Review, a `30s musical comedy act.
She puts in 40 hours a week at her bank job and performs at the Raccoon Club every Saturday night.
”I built the club two years ago because I wanted a place for our act to perform,” Hobson says. ”I`ve been busy managing the club and performing, but recently my life has changed: I married Bill van Straaten, a Chicago art gallery owner, and he`s now the business manaager. I still co-manage, I don`t have to be there as much.”
She says at the bank she`s conservative and businesslike, at the club flamboyant. ”It looks as if I`m running myself ragged, but I don`t feel that way. I`m only doing things I like to do, and I like to be busy all the time.”
