Epigram

Thought Processing

2010-02-28T12:26:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I spent the day in the Emergency ward at a hospital. I was really scared. I didn't know what was not functioning properly with me, nor did the doctors. They finally gave me what they thought the problem was, and sent me for more tests to confirm it. When the test results came back, they told me that there was actually no problem at all. Of course, all this took hours upon hours to figure out. In the meanwhile, I was either sitting waiting for a test, sitting waiting for the doctor, or sitting in the waiting room trying to calm my nerves of not knowing what was going on.

All of this has taught me many things. One of the most immediate lessons is always take magnesium and if you run out, buy more. Another is never take your family for advantage. They will do anything for you.

Other lessons are less obvious to me just now other than the most evident which is that I need to stress less over things. "Don't sweat the same stuff, and it's all small stuff" kinda thing. The details of implementing this plan are not completely clear to me just now. All I know is that I need to change. My body told me so yesterday. Physically I am okay, apparently. Psychologically, I have been really shaken up.

I need to have more fun. Take less responsibility for everything and throw a little caution to the wind sometimes. I need to make this change internally before I can do anything else. I need to understand that I am confident and capable of doing anything. I love life and don't want to lose it. I shouldn't love the stress that I feel everyday, as a constant presence in the background of my everyday activities. I should love living. I want to do things that are fun and actually enjoy them. I want to worry less. I want to change. I know that that will be hard work and I know that I will need help. I also know that at this point, it's not worth carrying on as I once did.

There needs to be something better to do than worry all the time. I want to find out what that is and do it.

Musings

2010-02-19T17:54:00.002-05:00

Okay so it's official. I don't blog nearly enough. Oh well. Having said that, I was inspired this evening to put into words a few of my thoughts from the bus ride home.

As I embark on my current career path into human resources and labour relations I am aware of many things. For instance, I am aware that no matter what, there are always two sides to every story. I'm also aware of the fact that you should ask lots of questions before coming to any recommendations or conclusions. These are some of the things I am learning and starting to practice.

I am also aware that I feel a kind of internal friction acting on the management side of the table. This could be because of my inexperience in the industry and/or because I don't have enough knowledge of both sides. I feel that in dealing with employee accommodation issues especially, management should really put in all that it possibly can to support their people. For instance, if an employee feels that she is being harrassed by a male manager the employer needs to recognize that it is not the intent with which the harrassment is conducted that counts in front of the Tribunal, rather the impact of the actions or behaviour. This means that instead of relying on the manager to provide testimony in determing whether there was harrassment, the burden of proof shifts to the employee to demonstrate that she felt she was being harrassed.

While I cannot suggest a better system for this procedure at this particular time, I'm not sure I feel comfortable with this. I guess what makes me feel uncomfortable about it is that the employee who has already suffered what she feels is an injustice is then burdened with the additional technicality of demonstrating to complete strangers (thereby broadcasting her private situation to outsiders) in objective terms that she has experienced harrassment. When this happens in an employment context, it is all too often not taken seriously. Part of this has to do with the fact that there is, and always has been, an inherent power inbalance between employer and employee. Further to the point, 'harrassment' as defined in legisation and common law in Ontario must comprise of "... a course of vexatious behaviour ..." therefore the employee will be seen as without merit if she brings forward a complaint after only one incident of such misconduct.

For me, this is not quite right. I am not saying in this respect that I condemn all employers for their practices in accommodation because that would be brutally unfair. Many employers, if not all in Ontario, have robust anti-harrassment and anti-discrimination policies. Many employers also take these issues quite seriously, as so they should. I guess I just feel uncomfortable with the few employers that don't. It scares me really, because what is law in this great land of ours is not always what is practiced.

With that, I would encourage any of you out there in cyber-land to comment and share your own feelings. I know that I will certainly strive throughout my career to be a more responsible and 'accommodation-conscious' professional.

Will you be paying in Male Dollars or Female Dollars?

2008-08-26T20:55:00.001-04:00

I recently read a Conference Board of Canada Report titled, “Women’s Leadership: Revitalizing Women’s Initiatives”. The report is written by Toddi Gutner and it describes both how women’s awareness and promotion has plateaued in corporate America, and how different companies are working to achieve gender and pay equity. I found the report to be particularly well written. It ignited within me a sense of desire to do something more, especially given the fact that every person can make a difference.

The conundrum is that as long as companies continue to exclude women from the upper echelons of management, no one will ever know what we are capable of doing. Gutner caught up with Jeffrey Maslow, Managing Director of Investment Banking Services at Goldman Sachs to record these few statements of his,

“We began to realize that there were very successful women with phenomenal results who brought profit to Goldman Sachs … that encouraged us to foster the development of most senior women at the firm”.

I applaud Goldman Sachs for making this realization and acting upon it, as in 2007 they won The Catalyst Award. I encourage the hundreds of other Canadian companies to go out and do the same. Think of what positive benefits we can affect for individuals in our workforce also known as friends, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, nieces, and mothers.

Here’s another way of putting it: women still get paid $0.72 on the dollar. Yes, that is in Canada as of 2008. Women have been underpaid for work of equal value for decades. In fact, if one were to examine the past 10 years of this inequity and study its financial impact on Canadian families and the economy, I expect that the results would be flabbergasting.

I’d like to conduct my own simple experiment here – the operative word being simple. Consider the case of a brother and sister who each perform work that is valued at $70,000 per annum in base salary. Let’s assume their salaries remain constant for 10 years starting in January 1998. Due to pay inequity in Canada, the sister is only getting paid $50,400 per annum because the company simply does not value her work as highly as it does her brother’s. That means that without considering inflation, raises, or the time effect on money, by January 2008 she does not have the benefit of the additional $19,600 that her brother does. If the brother had decided to invest his additional funds in a mutual fund earning the average 10% return over the ten years he would have an additional $343,611. I would demand a change if I were her.

Gutner identifies the success factors of women’s initiatives and promotion within businesses as the successful integration of these initiatives into the company’s business plan, operating women’s networking groups as business units, and engaging men in the equity issue. While I believe that there are other critical success factors in addition to the three listed by Gutner, but I also know that essentially, she’s on the right track. As simple as these statements are they have not yet been taken seriously. What more can be done to achieve this goal? We have passed legislation prohibiting gendered pay discrimination, we have innumerable corporate policies that reflect these sentiments, and we even have Pay Equity Officers in our businesses. Is it possible to make change?

I believe it is. I will fight for this right. I want my full pay-cheque this month and so should you.

There are Two Wolves Inside Each of Us

2008-01-13T23:30:00.000-05:00

Inspired by Thomas King’s lecture, “The Amazing Race”

On September 20th, 2007 I attended a lecture given by Thomas King at York University with a friend. What I heard at this lecture brought things to my attention that have changed lifestyle. It has even changed the way I think about things to a certain extent, although, probably not enough.

In high school I read two of Mr. King’s novels, Truth and Bright Water and Medicine River. Needless to say, when my friend invited me to attend this lecture I jumped at the opportunity. Thomas King is a great story-teller. His stories are both light and remarkably true to human nature.

That night in September he started off by telling the audience that every person has within them two wolves. One wolf represents the good in the world and the potential for good within each person, while the other symbolizes the evil. These wolves fight daily for supremacy – one gaining incrementally whenever the other loses. I will not deign to put into words what is so lovingly preserved in oral tradition. I will tell you, however, that what Thomas King said that night about sustainability is sure to stay with me for years yet to come.

King spoke about many topics that night, ranging from house construction to social responsibility to bottled water. To take the latter as an example, King raised my awareness of the symbolism of bottled water in today’s society. “No one will ever go broke in North America by selling convenience”, quoth he. King went on to point out that first and foremost the dwellers of many first world countries are driven by the need for convenience, which is not political, economic, or social in nature. A need, King also mentions, which has been invented so that others can profit from it.

You know, to be perfectly honest with you, I have bought two bottles of water since September. I suppose that just goes to show you that I still buy into this fabricated need for convenience, literally. What I have also done, however, is picked up on one of his ideas to stop this market and discourage these sellers of convenience.

Anyone who knows me well – I mean really well – will know Raoul. Raoul is the name of my water bottle. Here, let me explain: Thomas King issued a challenge to all present at that lecture to go out and make even one difference in the world. Instead of buying extra plastic every time you want water, buy a bottle in which you can carry your own water. You are saving bottles upon bottles of plastic by doing this. His suggestion was to have a little fun while being environmentally friendly – invite your friends to buy bottles, and then give your bottles names and have bottle parties! Thank you Thomas King. I now carry Raoul with me practically every where I go.

The other point that King made that I want to bring to the attention of my readers was a particularly frightening statement. That night he remarked that we are often not interested or scared enough to make large-scale changes that will benefit our environment. He went on to say that we have pushed the earth right to the very edge of a cliff, yet we still seem content to stand by at the railing and take pictures as we watch Her fall a height which we know She will not survive. Think about that – this author has put into imagery what we are doing in reality. Perhaps the slope is not as steep as it as long and treacherous, or perhaps it really is a sheer drop. When I think about this I am deeply disturbed by the idea. I have had nightmares about this and what lies ahead for me, my children and my grand-children. What really makes me ashamed is that I have participated in the pushing of the earth towards the cliff and I still do. I am there too, at the railing with my camera ready. I am part of the destruction of my own planet. I am party to the destruction of every thing and body on this earth coming to an end because my species have torn the world apart with our ways.

I can only hope that I am also a part of some sort of environmentally conscientious movement and then act on it. As King said, stories won’t save us if we don’t have the will to act upon them. God grant me the will to act upon my plans and help others to act on theirs, too. I voted Green, so let me act like it. I pray and am inspired to encourage you to act on your plan, too.
What happens to the wolves, you may ask. Who wins in the end? As King recollects, the one that wins is the one you feed.

The Unseemliness of Empty-Headedness

2007-10-01T21:45:00.000-04:00

Some time ago, I met a gentleman at a convention who is visually impaired. He wears normal glasses and travels with a working dog. I have found him to be quite pleasant, even though I’ve just barely met him. I saw him the other day on the bus and learned that he is in fact a co-worker, as he works for the same employer in a different office.

After work today I boarded the bus to go to gym, as I usually do three times every week. I sat near the front of the bus where usually not many others choose to sit, although today I was joined by two women. They spoke to each very quietly and only shared fleeting bits of conversion. Just before the bus left the terminal, my visually impaired co-worker made his way onto the bus.

Now, I’m not sure how many of you are familiar with an ad series that the Canadian National Institute for the Blind has been playing on television lately, but if you are not, now is the time for you to learn. One ad in particular is relevant to my story. The ad portrays a gentleman standing at a street corner with dark shaded glasses and a white cane. He is waiting for the light to change and the pedestrian walking signal to allow him to cross the street safely. As he is standing waiting there, two teenaged boys arrive at the same street corner to wait for the same light to change. One of them turns to the “blind” man and, just for ‘fun’, decides to wave his heads mockingly in front of the visually impaired man’s face. After this first boy has satisfied his own perverse appetite for jocularity and turns away from the visually impaired man, the aforementioned man reacts in his own way. He shifts his cane so that it is held in place between his arm and body so that he may mimic the motions of the teenaged boy behind the boy’s back.

The point of the ad, just in case you haven’t caught it already, is not to assume that all people who look to be legally blind are. In fact, the script across the television screen at the end of the ad reads “9 out of 10 Canadians that the CNIB helps have some vision”. A message that speaks loud and clear to many who have a functioning brain …

Back to the bus today – these two woman see this man board the bus with his dog and realize very quickly that is visually impaired. They both scooch down one seat so that this man can sit on the seat nearest the front. He puts his hand out to feel for the actual seat. As he does this, the closest of the two women reaches her hand out to grab his and pulls it towards the seat, jerking the man a little off balance. Not a word was spoken by this woman mind you – she just grabbed and pulled. But wait, there’s more.

As my friend found his seat and settled in, his dog also re-arranged himself on the floor of the bus. When his dog finally settled, the woman seated nearest to this man started petting the dog. Perturbed a little too much to sit quietly while this continued, the man turned to her and subtly commented, “He’s a working dog”, to which the woman simply responded, “yeah” as if she stopped just short of, “so what?”. And now, for the finale.

Once the bus headed out on its route, this gentleman reached into his plastic bag containing various newspapers and sorted through them to take out his sudoku puzzle. As he adjusted his glasses and took out his pen, I couldn’t help but notice the women’s reactions. They both shot each other looks of shock, frustration, and of incredulity. They must have thought, “how could this man who would not have found his seat on the bus if it had not been for Saint (us) do a sudoku puzzle?”. One of them even started laughing and kept doing so, on-and-off until several stops after the man got off the bus.

I was furious! I was livid with their conduct and I felt that they had degraded this man’s worthiness as a human being by laughing amongst themselves at his vision. I did not know what to do. I went through a million things in my head, but none of them seemed right (ie. the first thing I thought of was getting up and smacking them both across the face then storming off the bus and walking to the gym). How dare they belittle another human being in such a way! They obviously have no respect for their fellow brother and obviously cannot seem to open their minds to others’ ways of life. I am certain that to them that ad sponsored by the CNIB means nothing. Perhaps the most they get out of it is that “blind” people must by psychic in order to know exactly what you’re doing, before flipping the channel just as the script appears across the screen.
If you are reading this and can identify with the two women of my story, please, please learn from this anecdote: be open-minded, don’t be judgmental, and be respectful of those around you. We are not here to make each other’s lives miserable, rather to help one another where needed and to treat each other with the same dignity with which we would like to be treated. If we could all just manage this simple task then I’m sure no one will ever have to express the sentiments I have recorded above, ever again …

Are You Biased in Favour of Animals?

2007-09-10T20:37:00.000-04:00

I have liked horses since kindergarten when I was given a red pencil-case with a blue band across the centre with pictures of horses printed on it. I still have that pencil-case today. The family, thanks to my Mother, has almost always had a cat living in the house. I feel comfortable enough around some breeds of dogs that I have walked them and taken care of them. Most of the animals I have encountered have been friendly enough that I have had a chance to get to know them. I must say, I quite enjoy the company of animals.

Before I go any further, I want to make it perfectly clear that I am not for a moment feigning to be the world’s greatest animal rights advocate. Nor am I innocent of all the cruel acts committed by my species towards fellow animals. I do not even think I could bring myself to keep a snake as a pet, as a friend of mine does. I do, however, love animals in my own way. You see, animals are in fact quite different from humans in multiple ways. Let me explain one of these ways.

It has been said that animals do not lie. From my personal experience in working, playing and living with animals, I have found this to be quite true. In this way, animals are quite different from humans. Homo sapiens can easily tell a falsehood or act in a misleading way and succeed at deceiving another. This can lead to superficiality, sarcasm and emotional pain. Animals, however, do not seem capable of such misgivings. In my experience with horses, for instance, they have never acted in any way but the one that is true to themselves.

I volunteer at a not-for-profit organization that facilitates the physical and social therapy of individuals with physical and/or mental disabilities by providing these individuals with the chance to ride horses. I have been volunteering with this organization for six full years. I may go out there again this autumn to get stepped on by one of my favourite horse pals, with hooves the size of dinner plates – oops. I may also get bitten by one of them while feeding him an apple – oh well. I understand that animals are animals and that they act primarily on animal instinct. Although I sincerely hope never to be seriously crippled by any of my horse friends, I understand that they are capable of doing so. This, however, is not my point. If an animal is upset with you or something around them, she/he will generally let you know. If, on the other hand, an animal is satisfied with her/his surroundings then she/he will also let you know. There is no veil of deception clouding the truth. There simply is what the animal feels.

Although this truth may seem painfully clear and make for a rather elementary topic on which to blog for some readers, it may be foreign to others. For the latter of the two, I wish to leave you with this: I truly believe that if an animal and a human are willing to make room for each other in their hearts then a meaningful and lasting bond can be forged. I have experienced such bonds in the past, I currently enjoy such relationships in the present, and I hope that I can look forward to such camaraderie in the future.

If you are lucky and open your heart to new opportunities, maybe you can too.

The Favouritism Test

2007-07-24T21:55:00.000-04:00

Self-seeking, fawning parasites, and how to avoid encouraging them in the workplace. An interesting read penned by Marshall Goldsmith of Booz Allen Hamilton Do companies really espouse such great values, but deliver so little by limiting the creativity and innovation of their human capital? Do the greatest money-making machines of today really continue to encourage the “derriere kissing” of ole by continuing to promote into the upper echelons those who flatters them most as peons? Marshall Goldsmith seems to think so, and I have reason to believe that the logic behind his argument may be true.

Goldsmith craftily used the simile of a dedicated and loving pet to prove his point. He suggests that there is one sure-fire way to decipher whether you are a sycophant yourself. If you are blessed with the presence of a pet in your place of dwelling, and even more blessed with family or close friends who also live with you, which of them do you automatically gravitate towards upon entry? Goldsmith also asks that if you answered your pet, then is it true that you love your pet more than your family or friends? Many of those administered the original test by Goldsmith responded by stating that they very deeply love their families, but that they share a special relationship with their pet. In his instance, the dog of the house never talks back, dotes upon his or her owner, and is always happy to see the owner back home from a hard day’s work – interesting analysis.

The author concludes that if we find ourselves surrounding by people who like us but do not contribute much to the outcome of the organization, then the organization as a whole suffers while our egos enjoy quite a pleasant boost. If however, we do not reward those who like us, then we are surely truncating our own praise but the sake of the betterment of the organization.

I agree with the sentiment and the logic behind this article. I would also like to look at it from a different perspective, or two. Consider organizations in various different regions of the world and their cultural orientations. Although the theory of cultural convergence may be gaining validity in many instances, there is still divergence enough to make the practice of cultural studies and comparisons worth while. An individual in a high power-distant and high collectivism culture such as might be found in some regions of South America would undoubtedly be hard-pressed to violate the North American practice of “derriere kissing” because the culture encourages adherence to the rules and to figures of authority. I am not trying to make blanket statements, and I apologize if I am. I feel that what we negatively label “but-kissing” may in some cultures be given a different judgmental value.

I daresay that most North Americans born and bred in the thriving metropolises of their home countries have learned the value in flattering their superiors for promotion and positive attention. I leave you with these questions to mull over until next we meet: ‘is the reason for engaging in such activity always driven by ulterior motives’, and ‘do you do it’?