Category Archives: Rants and reflections

Rants and reflections, Working life

The bittersweet reunion with my former colleagues

In the world of IT consulting, the group of people that you work with generally change every 6 to 12 months, as a project and/or your role on that project has a finite start and end date. Often when a person’s role on the project ends, there is a roll-off party held for her as she “rolls-off” the project. It’s one small way to recognize and thank that person for their contributions to the project. Several weeks ago, I was invited to a roll-off party for a friend who was also leaving the company. I was excited to see some of my friends and colleagues who, uncharacteristically for IT consulting, I had worked with through many years. It ended up being a somewhat bittersweet reunion with my former colleagues.

The Bitter

There was laughter at the table as they shared another story about another crisis that occurred and how they managed to right the ship. It was the same type of stories we’ve been swapping for years, populated with a cast of the same colleague and client personalities. The issues, while different, are bound in their similarity by occurring in the same or similar complex landscape. Multiple business units coexisting with different business rules. The many different client team members in different functions working in these business units, often with competing interests. Vast amounts of operational data required to enable their business to function. A complex spaghetti of back end technical infrastructure as a result of mergers, history, and business growth. And the multi-year IT program we were part of to implement and integrate their IT systems. It was not unlike being on a Tolkien quest to deliver “the one ring to bind them all”.

In short: it’s hard work. You are placed in teams for a relatively short amount of time, and disbanded after the project is done. Continue reading The bittersweet reunion with my former colleagues →

Celebrations, Working life

My 3-month anniversary at my new job at GrantBook

Last week was my three-month anniversary with my new company, GrantBook. This is significant since 6 months ago I wasn’t even sure if I’d be returning to the workforce. I was in a limbo land, trying to decide between life as a stay-at-home mom (aka SAHM) and that as a working mom.

For a while in the fall of 2014 I entertained the plan of going into the field of mediation. An information session I attended quickly gave me a dose of reality that it would likely take me 5 years and more schooling for it to become a viable career. Without a background in law, counselling or social services, I would be facing a credibility gap once I finished the mandated mediation training and internship hours. Unless you are able to secure a position with a mediation firm, mediators are essentially self-employed entrepreneurs. I recognize that having a credibility gap would make it difficult to recruit business.

And so that plan faded away.

Continue reading My 3-month anniversary at my new job at GrantBook →

Celebrations

Happy 148th Birthday, Canada!

Happy Canada Day, everyone. I do really love this holiday to be unabashedly patriotic, to reflect on the great country it is, and to envision the greater one it could be in the future.

It is by no means a perfect country: the issues facing many of our aboriginal brothers and sisters are chronic, neglected and ignored; the wealth disparity is growing, putting more of our population in dire circumstances; our inaction on environmental issues is frustrating; many public attitudes and government policies are increasingly fear-based; the list can go on for quite a bit further. But let’s leave that to another day to discuss.

I celebrate that our institutions and most of the population recognize that love is love. Even those that don’t personally agree or condone at least refrain from making it a divisive political issue.

I celebrate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and acknowledge important role the courts play in establishing what the Charter means in a practical sense. It is a long, evolving, strenuous process . I’m also thankful for our strong civil service institutions that is the backbone that enables the government to run. It’s boring, and I take it for granted, until I see what happens in other countries where this is not the case.

I celebrate that we’ve decided as a nation that healthcare should be universally available regardless of ability to pay. The model does mean certain individuals need to sacrifice some convenience or exhaustiveness in care, but I’m glad that the majority of us agree that triaging care based on need, and not pay, is the right thing to do.

I love watching a good hockey game. The speed of action and flow of play is so exciting.

I admit feeling a burst of pride every time I find out about a contribution of note that was done by a Canadian.

I love many of the stereotypically Canadian foods: poutine, Caesar drinks, Tim Hortons coffee for long drives, Coffee Crisps, Swiss Chalet, butter tarts, Montreal bagels. I also love that here in multicultural Greater Toronto Area, I have access to authentic foods from all over the world.

Most of all, today I want to celebrate that it doesn’t matter if you’re born a boy or a girl, you have the same opportunities to pursue an education, any career in any field, to have the sole agency to make decisions about your body, to vote and hold property…in general, to have the freedom to make choices. I look at the bright eyes of my two daughters and I’m just so thankful that in this country, they have the privilege, opportunity and resources to pursue whatever ambitions they have.

Happy Canada Day.

Rants and reflections

Psst, happy belated father’s day!

Psst, hey Dad–I know Father’s day for this year has already passed, but I wanted to say a few things in tribute anyway.

Thanks for being giving of your love, thoughtful guidance, and just your continued presence in my life. I’ve always felt loved and cherished. And trusted. There’s a vague conversation I recall that we had in my early teens where you conveyed you had a base level of trust in me due to how you and mom raised me in the 13 years prior. It was now up to my actions  whether I continue to build on that trust and enjoy the privileges that holds, or not. Of course wanting to be a good, responsible daughter, I was happy to oblige along the path of good, responsible behaviour, and get access to the car when I got my license at age 16. 🙂

My earliest memories of you ask have to do with you playing joyfully with us. Unlike a lot of men of your generation, I think you really enjoyed interacting with me and my brother as children, something I see echoing now when you are with my daughters, your grandchildren. From the day they were born you had such an ease with them, even as tiny infants. With your playfulness, they always greet your arrival with glee. However, you are just as firm in your disciplinary principles with them as you were with me. If they are behaving badly, you let them know what is expected of them and follow up with discipline if they still persist. I appreciate that consistency, as opposed to totally spoiling the grandchildren as many grandparents are aught to do.

I know you are not a man entirely comfortable with talk and banter; you hate being on the phone, and no one will ever accuse you of talking their ear off. But you do occasionally serve me some well-thought out words. I have a vivid memory of the advice/parting words you had for me when you dropped me off at university, a province away from home.

One day you will look back on this time and realize it’s the best time of your life. You may not have much money. No car. No good food. You will be far from your family, home and all your current friends. Your school work is going to be harder than you’ve ever had to work for and you might be stressed about that and exams. But it will be one of the best times of your life, so enjoy it while it is happening. ~my dad, on the pathway leading to the earth sciences building at the University of Waterloo, September 1996

How right you were, dad.

Without really realizing it or intending to, I now realize that T has many of the same qualities that you have. You set the bar of how a man, husband and father should act. Through your actions, support of my ventures and attitudes towards my achievements, I believe you to be a quiet feminist. (you do joke that you were trained so by your sisters) T meets that standard head on, and I thank my lucky stars every night when I retire to bed that I have his hand to hold onto. (Psst, T,  I’ll write your Father’s Day tribute next year. *smirk*)

And even though I may laugh now at how you and mom have turned into hippies now in your retirement, instead of with the times in your youth, I always deeply respect you.

Thanks Dad for being a wonderful Dad. I love you very much.

~Jen

Celebrations

Little joys: May 2015

I think I need a little reminder of some the little joys I’ve experienced this month. More than just the smiles and amusements from things in my FB feed. It’s a balm against the negative news, fear and frustrating experiences I’ve encountered in the last few weeks. It’s something Janice had me do during our sessions together, to just explicitly and deliberately recognize the good things in life. It’s a habit I’m trying to get ingrained into doing, instead of always focusing on trying to fix the negative and problems at hand. So here goes. Continue reading Little joys: May 2015 →

Parenting, Rants and reflections

Sex ed in Ontario, Part 2

In my previous post, I tried to keep my cool as I explained why I support the curriculum updates. Trying to catch anti-curriculum-changers with honey, rather than vinegar, as it were. To be honest though, my initial reactions upon hearing the reasoning coming from those against the curriculum update were decidedly more vinegary. “Incredulous” would be a better word, and what I wrote below is actually what I wrote first in a fury. I know pieces like this and this have done a great job at countering many of the concerns that have been raised against it, but I just needed to vent!

But now it’s more than a week later and I still haven’t gotten this finished and polished up enough to my standards. Instead of letting it languish in “draft” purgatory and eventually dying a forgotten death, I’m just going to publish it as it is, so I can have a record of the frustration I feel.  Continue reading Sex ed in Ontario, Part 2 →

Parenting, Rants and reflections

Why I support the update to the sex ed curriculum in Ontario

So the topic of sex ed has been blowing up in the news again this week, as Ontario parents against the curriculum changes banded together to take their kids out of class for the week in a “strike” protest. I gather that they believe that the content and schedule of curriculum delivery is harmful to their children.

I get it. As parents, we all want the best for our children. We want them to grow up to be healthy, happy, connected and loved individuals, and to protect them from harm where we can. But these adjectives are pretty vague in terms of specific goals and ambitions, driving the IT delivery manager in me to distraction. I decided to take a step back to look at what specific goals I want for my daughters. (taking from Stephen Covey, “Begin with the goal in mind”) Continue reading Why I support the update to the sex ed curriculum in Ontario →

Parenting, Rants and reflections

Parenting is hard: sibling jealousy

I’ve been noticing in the last few months that E1 has been taunting her sister more and more, or doing things just to bother her. Putting her foot on E2’s chair. Purposefully taking up more space so there is no room for E2. Belittling things or accomplishments that E2 wanted to share with the family. They still had lots of moments where they got along great and have fun together, but the ratio was starting to to the other way.

I decided to address it at our family meeting this week. Continue reading Parenting is hard: sibling jealousy →

Parenting, Rants and reflections

Parenting is hard: sex talks

“Mommy, how does your body know when you are married so you can make a baby?”

This is the question posed to me last night by my elder daughter, E1.

Me: “Um, that’s not how a baby gets made.”

E1: (still continuing on the train of thought that babies are spontaneously made in mommy’s belly upon marriage) “And then how does the baby get parts of the Daddy in it? Like some of his looks, or personality?” Her face was pondering this question. Continue reading Parenting is hard: sex talks →