Content warning: this essay talks about sexual assault. Mine. If you are triggered or need help, please contact a Sexual Assault Service. I’ve not thought about it often and when I do, it’s not for long, because I’ve buried it. And I want it to stay buried. But now, at this time in Australia, where women are railing against the government in angry protests about sexual assaults in Parliament House and wider society, where our Prime Minister says women should be grateful they aren’t shot for protesting, I’ve been triggered. The memory is haunting me. It scars my days. Permeates my nights. A naked man, penis erect, hand
Continue reading...
About six years ago, when I was desperately looking for work, I became so disenchanted with the recruitment process, I started a blog/website called Even It Up! in an attempt to even up the power imbalance between the jobseeker and recruiter. Here was I: a Masters student with a GPA so good I was awarded the academic prize for that year; was invited to be a PhD candidate; and had years of relevant work experience to boot, but I couldn’t nail a job for the life of me. So I got mad, and I got even, with Even It Up!. The
Continue reading...This is the next series of posts from hand-picked guest bloggers about power; they have also written about trust . The idea for this series was kicked off by me rewatching Game of Thrones and thinking about its twin themes of power and trust. My second guest blogger to write about power is Susan Cooper, who comes from the corporate world and who I first met on Triberr but is now a firm friend on Twitter. Her first guest post on trust is a wonderful read and can be accessed here if you haven’t read it. Susan is now very happy
Continue reading...
This is the next series of posts from hand-picked guest bloggers about power; they have also written about trust . The idea for this series was kicked off by me rewatching Game of Thrones and thinking about its twin themes of power and trust. The first to write about power for this series is Cullen Habel, who I know personally, but first met via Twitter. If you haven’t read it, his first post about trust was a fabulous, enlightening read. I have great respect for Cullen because he is a straight shooter and tells it like it is, and this
Continue reading...In the 21st century, the workforce of the western world is supposed to be forged around knowledge. You can see this trend very clearly, with the slow, strangled death of manufacturing (despite being propped up by handouts from the government) and the rise and rise of digital work. Who knew coding apps would have been a job five years ago? Ditto social media, and the multitudes of jobs that has been spawned around this hive of industry? The “supply and demand” of knowledge has had a major effect on our workplaces, particularly ones I have found myself in. I think
Continue reading...This is the fourth in a series of posts from hand-picked guest bloggers about trust. The idea was kicked off by me rewatching Game of Thrones and thinking about its twin themes of power and trust. My fourth guest blogger is Sukh Pabial, who I first met on Twitter when I was an L&D consultant. Sukh is a L&Der as well, and we have formed a collegiate friendship via Twitter. I have even guest blogged for him on his blog Thinking About Learning, and thought he was a perfect candidate for writing about trust. You can find Sukh on Twitter as
Continue reading...Earlier this week I explained why I thought Easter kicked Christmas’s butt. Today is Good Friday, and it has been a good day indeed. After going for a quick 3km run this morning (I wanted to run 5, but my knee played up at the 2km mark), I had @Boo_Squared over for lunch (I had promised her Nigella Lawson’s slut spaghetti), then settled in for an afternoon watching Game of Thrones (she had read the book and I told her she must watch the series). I first watched this series over Christmas in a TV binge. In two days, I had
Continue reading...
Bolshie – (more commonly) an adjective meaning that someone is very assertive in the pursuit of something and/or hostile to authoritarian manoeuvres by others. A bolshie person gets cross if confronted and is likely to say “what’s it to you?”, “mind your own business” and stuff like that a lot. Source: Urban Dictionary. In my adult life, I have always been a bit (actually a lot) of a rebel. This probably has something to do with the fact that I grew up in a quite dysfunctional household. As a child, I was a timid little mouse, because being otherwise wreaked havoc
Continue reading...