The world needs mentors - you

Regardless of where you are in your career, you have something to contribute. Your experiences are valuable. Your caring is even more valuable. Your willingness to try? Priceless.

Benefits	Attributes	Outcomes
Considered best practice for career planning	Collaborative	A safe place for open and deep discussions
Opens endless doors to people, knowledge and networks	Relationship-based	Deliberate connecting and sharing
Stimulates new ideas	Candid and respectful	Challenges and questions assumptions
Ensures participants can find their areas of strength	Inclusive and focused	Personal satisfaction and recharged projects
Attracts high-potential individuals to sectors and/or opportunities that offer value beyond the traditional rewards	Authentic and growth-oriented	Option to make deliberate choices and changes

On #blackout Tuesday

I grew up in Quebec, during the FLQ and the PQ party rise and Expo 67 and the 76 Olympics. I grew up when girls took sewing/home ec classes and boys called each other "homo" thinking it referred to milk. I've been told I am not tall enough, pretty enough, quiet enough... I've been called bossy, feminist, trouble-maker... (and in this decade).

I have been sexually harassed and sexually abused. I've been paid 0.87 on the dollar. Passed over. Food insecure. I've been the only woman in the room. Told I ask too many questions. Told to tone down my natural red hair.

You get the idea.

Yet, I know that my skin colour, my educated speech and my degrees afford me privilege.

My experiences are horrible / sad / unfair. Acknowledging my privilege does not make them less awful. Acknowledging my privilege is necessary so I can learn how to share it or use it to create change.

Will writing a blog post change anything? Will a drop in the bucket add value? Those are not the correct questions. Withholding support until proof of success is offered is like refusing to vote until you know your candidate is elected.

The real question is what else can we do?

There are atrocities in this world today. Shameful, terrible atrocities in the system and in a few hearts.  Acknowledging them, standing up to bullies, changing what I can in my own circles is the least I can do.

Dear Dennie #5 - emotion in the workplace

 A monthly letter/column as written for & published also by Women in Transportation Services

Dear Dennie,

How should I respond when I hear people say that women are too emotional in the workplace?

Professional to my core

Dear PC,

Emotion is a strength.

Emotion is critical to decision-making. 

A great strength that women often feel more comfortable exploring is emotion. Emotion often implies vulnerability. In a work context, this can mean a willingness to change, to share or to sit back and listen instead of drive. 

Telling me to not make "an emotional decision" drives me crazier that the issue itself. Just because I'm showing emotion does Not mean my brains fell out my butt.

A debate I've been reading around critical vs. creative thinking is missing the fact that emotion colours both approaches. Regardless of the side of the brain you favour, pretending the final output is not coloured by emotion is naive.

Emotion is a strength. Emotion has a place in every corner of our lives. Emotion is not drama - emotion is its own truth. We cannot build a community for ourselves at work or home without emotion.

Now, ask me anything.... :-)

dennie