Weddingbee Blog

I blogged about my role as our family’s CFO, so I thought it only fair to tell you about my guy’s role: CEO (that’s Chief Executive Officer). I’ll admit, I paused for a second before declaring him CEO; I like to think that I run things around here, ya know? But after full consideration of his talents and duties, I’m fully confident that he will successfully carry out his roles and responsibilities.

The CEO — according to me, anyway — is responsible for balancing long-term goals and short-term execution. He or she keeps an eye on the big picture, never allowing themselves to freak out or lose sight of the goal. (S)he is also responsible for drumming up new business and ideas while meeting current commitments.

I pretty much lost that gig on “never allowing themselves to freak out or lose sight of the goal.” Oh, yea, and “short-term execution”.

Unlike my bi-monthly financial summaries, he doesn’t need a scheduled time to do his CEO job. Every time he asks me for my thoughts before tearing something apart, he’s doing it. When he reminds me to call the cable company, he’s doing it. Every minute spent quietly stroking our scaredy cat to improve feline-human relations, he’s doing it. He may not have a full grasp of the financial impact of his ideas — hello, unplanned rental of a Ditch Witch, fifth trip to Home Depot, emergency hiring of a professional siding guy — but that’s okay, that’s why we have me. And if it’s common knowledge that 90% of our projects would never get started because one of us is too busy blogging (*cough*), that’s okay too… that’s why we have him.

The idea of two people balancing each other is one I have learned with difficulty.

In the past, I have wanted to be everything all by my very own self. I didn’t just respect my first husband, I wanted to BE him, to take all of his positives and suck them into my soul so that I didn’t need him anymore. Needing someone is tough and feels uncomfortable, so I remind myself that I don’t expect to be everything at work, nor do I expect anyone on my team to excel at everything.

Personal life meet professional perspective.

So he’s the CEO and I’m the CFO. Eventually, we’ll be somewhat responsible to the Board of Directors (ya know, kids, although you could argue that we answer to the fur-family already*) and we’ll need to take on additional responsibilities, like HR (kids) and operations (a family schedule).

For now, I’m relieved to have a framework that allows for a little bit of shit-losing on my part and overlooking of costs on his. Did anyone else out there figure out the professional before the personal, or was it vice versa for you? Does your family have a corporate (or academic or governmental or whatever) org structure?

*Oh, yea, we’re beholden to them, as I am reminded when I’m crazy enough to show my face in the house after we’ve run out of cat food.