I started a PhD in 2008. A year later I quit, but that’s not what this post is about. This post is about women, work, and career advancement. It’s about what I see happening again and again in workplaces. Where women overwork in the hope they will have career success. Where women are often chewed up and spat out by the places for which they work. Where women of a certain age can’t get work. Where women have to hide their age on paper to even get a look-in for work. This post is about that, which, coincidentally, was also
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My lovely friend Karen Willis from Sharing Bali and Beyond (I met her when I did a writer’s retreat in Bali a couple of years ago) issued her end-of-year newsletter (you should subscribe because it’s gorgeous and full of inspiration about travel and health and wellness) and something she said struck me.
Continue reading...Regular readers will know that my relationship with my mother was fraught, to say the least. It was characterised by restriction and control and violence. And fear. An overwhelming fear that I was not safe, would never be safe. And that I was not enough. Would never be enough. Of course, this is was from the perspective of a child but some 50 years later, I still bear the scars — scars that still weep with blood and tears in the right situation, which — usually and invariably — involves a man because attachment.
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This is the 11th essay in the #26essays2017 challenge that I’ve set for myself this year. I’m doing this because I’m the first to admit I’ve become a lazy writer: allowing guest posts and series and cross-posting to make up the bulk of content on The Diane Lee Project across 2016. The brave, fearless writing that readers admired and respected me for has all but disappeared. This year—2017—will be different. I’m reclaiming my voice—my write like a motherfucker voice! Opportunity (noun) – a set of circumstances that makes it possible to do anything. A few weeks back, I wrote about opportunity in Australia… and how
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This is the 7th essay in the #26essays2017 challenge that I’ve set for myself this year. I’m doing this because I’m the first to admit I’ve become a lazy writer: allowing guest posts and series and cross-posting to make up the bulk of content on The Diane Lee Project across 2016. The brave, fearless writing that readers admired and respected me for has all but disappeared. This year—2017—will be different. I’m reclaiming my voice—my write like a motherfucker voice! Opportunity (noun) – a set of circumstances that makes it possible to do anything. In Australian workplaces, there exists a strange, mythological beast. This beast is
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This post was originally posted on WFA.Life. The Freedom Road series documents my transition to a more freelance, less corporate working life. It’s been a while since my last post. Two months, in fact. (Sorry, Andy.) But I haven’t resting on my laurels, licking my wounds, thinking woe is me. I’ve been taking action, and making decisions, and damn it feels good. Two months ago, I applied to volunteer at KOTO in Hanoi, Vietnam. Within a week, I had my response. They wanted me. To say it was one of the happiest pieces of news I’d received in a long time
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This post was originally posted on WFA.Life. The Freedom Road series documents my transition to a more freelance, less corporate working life. Message received loud and clear In the last month, I’ve taken stock again. How many more times do I need to do this until it sinks in? I’ve got the message loud and clear now. Finally. This life, this working current life, is not for me. It’s stagnant, stultifying and deeply unsatisfactory. The message I received—loud and clear—is that I’m not stuck. I have options. And I need to take them, before I die a slow, agonising death
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This post was originally posted on WFA.Life. The Freedom Road series documents my transition to a more freelance, less corporate working life. When I first agreed to write for WFA.Life, I was very excited. I was chuffed to be asked by Andy to document my journey and share it with y’all. After all, what better way to be accountable than to be public in my declarations of moving forward? If I said it here, in this space, in this forum, I had to do it, right? I admit that I’m a little bit stuck. In my last post, I berated
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This post was originally posted on WFA.Life. The Freedom Road series documents my transition to a more freelance, less corporate working life. I made a couple of rookie errors… I got it wrong. So very, very wrong. And I’m paying for my mistakes. In more ways than one. How could I—a seasoned war horse—make a number of embarrassing rookie errors? Things seemed perfect… I have always wanted to pare back my working hours, but I didn’t have the level of income to allow me to do that. Not until 2012, when I landed a plum role as a training consultant
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How can you fix your organisational culture? It’s the age-old question that just about everyone asks at some point in their working lives: how do you fix a workplace culture that’s dysfunctional and toxic? The short answer is: you can’t. Sorry about that. The long answer is you can, but it takes a significant amount of energy, time and (probably) money. And in an age where most organisations want a quick fix, most organisational culture projects are doomed to failure because they are long tail. And these projects fail not because of systems, frameworks, project plans, policies, procedures, processes, guidelines or communication, although these all
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This post was originally posted on WFA.Life. The Freedom Road series documents my transition to a more freelance, less corporate working life. The freedom to choose… I’ve got a confession to make. I’m 52 years old and I’m sick of working. Actually, that’s not quite right. I’m 52 years old and I’m sick of working for other people in a job. I’m sick of the 9-5 grind, the having to be at my workplace because someone has decided that “being there” constitutes productivity. I’m over being told what to work on and what to do by “leaders” whose only real claim to
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Fuck It Right Off. After a year of wandering around in a work desert, with a brief respite in only one or two oases, I’m checking out. And by checking out, I mean checking in. For the last three months, I’ve been back in a marketing communications role. Finally, after close to nine months, I thought I’d found my home. That I could relax. Nothing could be further from the truth. After working my butt off for the last three months, putting my hand up to help out my immediate team (who by the way, are wonderful and I respect
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