"Shoot for success with the hockey stick principle"/ Maryse Belanger

Oct. 2, 2017 "Shoot for success with the hockey stick principle": Today I found this article by Harvey Schachter in the Globe and Mail:

Many Canadians know how to wield a hockey stick from an early age.

Hockey stick growth is more elusive – the path for new businesses, starting with slow growth, as if along the blade of a stick on the ice, and then, if they are lucky, the exponential development that shoots up, as if along the handle.

Bobby Martin, a Raleigh, N.C., entrepreneur who has co-founded two startups dealing with industry research, sets out four stages to be prepared for when starting a business.

First is tinkering, which the illustration in his book The Hockey Stick Principles shows as coming even before the actual blade.

You don't want to leave your regular job while playing with the startup concept; indeed, for 173 successful startups he studied, this period took 10.6 months.

Next is the all-important blade years, when you set the foundation for the growth you hope to see by learning about your product and, more importantly, the market you may serve.

This will take longer than you expect, usually three or four years, and often the big problem becomes the founder's salary: There is not enough money to pay adequate compensation and after a long period of little remuneration he or she throws in the towel.

In better situations, a growth inflection point is hit, the curve of the stick, the critical time just before the business takes off, and you can shoot up the handle with the final stage: surging growth.

Along the way, he has delineated 90 principles – mostly counterintuitive – you should heed. They include:

• You don’t need a good idea: There is far too much emphasis on concocting a brilliant idea but he says good entrepreneurs often have many ideas that could work. The key is whether you have the skill and determination to help one find the right market.
• He notes that billionaire Wayne Huizenga had three arguably bad ideas: Go up against governments with his waste-management business, move into fast-growing video rentals with Blockbuster, and try a chain of used-car dealerships when the market seemed saturated. But he attained surging growth for each.
• Starting with a business plan is self-deception: The bank may require a formal business plan, forcing you to write one. But don’t believe it yourself. The key is finding your market, which will always be unexpected – not what you had originally thought.
• The plan for his first business, he says in an interview, “wasn’t close to accurate. You should research. But don’t put time and money into making it pretty or supposedly accurate.”
• It’s not what you know that matters; it’s what you learn: In his study the average age of the entrepreneurs was 29. Those under age 30 tended to be more successful as they were more open-minded than the older entrepreneurs, who knew too much and weren’t as willing to learn, he believes.
• Accurate predictions of costs and revenue are not possible; plan to spend more than you think you’ll need and to earn little to nothing: You need to cut your personal and family expenses for about four years with a startup. Don’t expect money to come quicker than that. Too often people can’t hold out for a sufficient length of time.
• Don’t invest any money you aren’t prepared to lose: Entrepreneurs get deep into their effort, are sure success is around the corner, and start investing their retirement funds in the business. Fine, if you can afford to lose it. Otherwise, don’t.
• Raise the minimum amount you need to get to launch: The myth is that you should raise as much as you can up front. But he says “the most successful entrepreneurs in the blade years are scrappy entrepreneurs that keep a low cost structure. Instead of spending rainy day money, they are trying to figure out the business model.” They don’t need massive production runs and big investments in facilities; they need to test the market – find the market, as he puts it.
• Equity is worth incalculably more than its current value: Bill Gates and Paul Allen knew this when they founded Microsoft, not giving up equity at the start for investment, but saving it for themselves.
• You can’t build it and expect a market to come; you have to build your market as you build your product: Identifying a market that will be enthusiastic about your business offering is far harder than identifying a product. “To do that you need to sell face-to-face, talk to people, and learn what they think and if it’s the right product,” he says.

Try it. You might score.

https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/management/how-to-shoot-for-success-when-starting-your-own-business/article36435248/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&

RMcMurphy

21 hours ago

How to succeed when starting your own business? Don't open it in Canada...

My opinion: I'm rereading this article before I post it, and these are all really good tips to open a business.

The Ladder: Maryse Belanger: Today I found this article in the Globe and Mail: 

Maryse Belanger, 56, is a geologist and chief operating officer at Atlantic Gold Corp., responsible for strategic development, overall operational and technical management; currently managing construction and commissioning projects in Nova Scotia.

I was born in Chicoutimi, Que. When I was a teenager, I wanted to study French literature – I wanted to be a writer. A sister's boyfriend and a friend studied geology and said I should do it. So, I did a BSc in Geological Engineering at Université du Québec à Chicoutimi – loved it!

Then I went to France for postgraduate studies in geostatistics. My first real job was on Vancouver Island for Westmin Resources, then Echo Bay Mines that had great technical people. In Edmonton, I had this epiphany, "this is it – when I'm grown up and a seasoned professional I want to be a vice-president of technical services."

Young people should understand everybody needs a mentor. George Woollett was mine, but a lot of what I learned about dealing with boards, presentations and executives – professional behaviour – I learned from him. He was the biggest influence in my professional life. A few years ago, I called to see if he could meet. We had a four-hour lunch – he was shocked at the things I could quote he'd said over the years.

When the gold industry started going down, I decided I should become a copper expert and learn Spanish. Fluor Corp. sent me to Santiago, Chile. I spent a year working on some of the largest copper projects in the world. Back in Vancouver, I consulted for Echo Bay on projects in West Africa and met (my husband) on an Ivory Coast beach.

We eventually moved to South Africa. After our second daughter was born, he finished his work there, two years. I was back in Toronto with our daughters. I told my VP I needed a change, having a mid-life crisis working in Siberia. He asked what I wanted to do; I said, "go to South America." We all moved to Santiago, a great adventure. Late 2009, I was headhunted for Goldcorp to build their technical-services group – full circle from my 1988 dream.

The first time we moved to Brazil, we decided it would be good for our girls to have their dad at home – those were fun years. Our oldest daughter didn't go to an English school until Grade 9.

Wherever we are, there's an invisible line in the kitchen, I do not touch anything. I can only do three things; I make tea, coffee and reservations.

Gold was dormant, in this region mined as early as the 1840s. Everybody focused on underground mining, sampling selectively. We went to the old drill holes to sample top to bottom. The genius of Atlantic Gold is that on top of quartz veins with gold, there's also disseminated gold, mined open pit.

I like a football-field analogy, three storeys high filled with Raisin Bran cereal – single scoop – find the raisins. Our costs here are reasonable because we don't have a camp, everybody goes home that day; 98 per cent are originally from Nova Scotia. Many never had opportunities in the province.

My chief engineer, she flew into Northern Ontario for seven years. My chief metallurgist, from Waverly, worked five years in the Dominican Republic and a Surinam jungle. Everybody has a story like that; it was a pleasure to offer people great opportunities here. So far, we've invested approximately $170-million; next year, we hope to file Environmental Impact Statements on two projects. Combining our four projects, it's potentially $400-million in total investment, with 400 to 450 positions.

I've been on five boards. I'm doing the Institute of Corporate Directors course, the term "pale, male and stale" from a lawyer, about diversity. There's a business case for diversity – if you want to find the best solutions, why would you forget about 50 per cent of the brains? With cultural diversity, different ways to solve problems get better solutions.

For me, the world is divided in two – makes sense, doesn't make sense; there's no in between. More important than anything is accountability – everyone having the clarity of their responsibility and understanding their span of control.

If you want a career, be flexible and go where the work is, take risks, go on an adventure, learn new things and new languages.

I'm fluent in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese. The trick is to never stop learning. Take on new challenges. Advice I share is about professional behaviour: The standard is, be willing to stand up in front of a panel of peers and defend your work.

As told to Cynthia Martin. This interview has been edited and condensed.

https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/maryse-belanger-for-me-the-world-is-divided-in-two-makes-sense-doesnt-make-sense/article36433972/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&

skyofblue

19 hours ago

This interview has been edited and condensed...maybe thats why this makes no sense:

" When I was a teenager, I wanted to study French literature – I wanted to be a writer. A sister's boyfriend and a friend studied geology and said I should do it. So, I did..."

Is something missing, or was she really just that easily influenced...?

"Employee engagement is a two-way street"/ continuous learning

Oct. 14, 2017 "Employee engagement is a two- way street": Today I found this article by Eileen Dooley in the Globe and Mail:

Calgary-based Eileen Dooley, vice-president of VF Career Management, is a career-transition specialist.

Employee engagement has been a buzzword for the past few years now. The biggest problem with the concept, however, is determining whose responsibility it is to get employees engaged, and what this truly means from a head, heart and hands perspective.

Too often, there is a misconception that it is solely up to the employer to engage employees.

While there are many things an employer can, and should, do to help make employees feel engaged in the work of the business, there is an equal – and perhaps greater – role for employees to be actively seeking opportunities to learn and develop on their own.

Indeed, employees with interests beyond the business is a win-win for both sides. Employers benefit from people who think across disciplines and have a wider spectrum of perspectives, and employees can better see the fit between their work and the wider world when they actively look for connections to things that interest them.

Offer community, not just learning

In cost-constrained times, fewer employers have the latitude to send employees off to interesting conferences and seminars. The response often is to cut external training entirely, or to emphasize Web-based learning that helps meet the knowledge requirements of employees.

But it does little to engage the all-important social side of learning, which serves to improve both retention and better application of the learning being done.

Fortunately, there are several low-cost ways for employers to stimulate the creation of learning communities within the business. Higher-potential employees are often champing at the bit to help engage others and spread knowledge and can feel empowered to do so on their own initiative when employers send the signal that this is valued, and give employees time within their day to pursue such options.

A blending of Web-based and classroom instruction combined with employee-initiated learning communities can focus on key business questions that employers want employees to be engaged in, but don't know how – such as product or service improvements, or developing new lines of business.

Employees often have powerful perspectives on these issues, but no employer-sanctioned place to share their ideas apart from quarterly town halls that don't give adequate time and scope to go deeper.

Employees need to take control

Even with the best of employers, an employee needs to remember that your career is yours to manage. This principle extends to continual learning. Lifelong learning, however, is not only about employer-supported conferences or enrolling in an MBA program. Instead, continual learning can be very simple, cost-effective [even free] and, importantly, time-effective.

Starting with the formal route, most local universities, technical institutes and colleges offer adult-learning programs for a wide range of subjects. The advantage of this route is that individual courses and programs can be taken for educational credit and certificates, which demonstrate a personal commitment to self-development. Increasingly, some institutions offer online versions of their programs that combine occasional learning days with online study.

For those seeking the flexibility of online study with the structure and depth of a traditional course, there are many organizations offering Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs, offering access to literally thousands of quality courses from universities across the globe.

Any course may have thousands of students, allowing for rich interactions with different viewpoints. For a modest fee, some offer the option of doing additional marked assignments to qualify for a course certificate and academic credit. Many professional bodies in various fields also offer courses through these routes, or through their own systems.

If you're looking for opportunities to network as well as learn, consider local events such as TEDx talks, which are conducted in almost every major Canadian city and many small ones.

These talks offer multidisciplinary content such as the online TED videos, combined with the opportunity to interact with others. Similarly, many local universities and colleges now offer talk series to showcase their faculty members.

Ultimately, the message is to take control. Lifelong learners demonstrate a wider set of perspectives and have the skill to strike up interesting conversations based on the experiences they have engaged in. Never depend on your employer to give you learning opportunities. Find your own, or create them.

https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/management/employee-engagement-is-a-two-way-street/article36587227/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&

"How to integrate continuous learning into your job": Today I found this article by Michael Litt in Globe and Mail:

I'm not a great CEO.

Yet.

I'm a little inexperienced. A little overwhelmed, at times. And for the past few months, I've occasionally felt slow and anxious – second-guessing certain decisions and sometimes leaving work feeling like an imposter.

This confused me. After leaving school with an engineering degree seven years ago, I'd helped grow Vidyard from a team of two guys working in a garage to a transnational organization of 200-plus and the leading video platform for business. As everything changed around me, I felt like I'd stayed true to myself: I hadn't really changed my vision or my leadership style.

Of course, that was the problem. I hadn't learned to learn on the job.

Continuous learning is increasingly seen as a requisite job skill – and that applies whether you're a CEO or customer service rep. As technological change in the workplace outpaces education, there's a dawning understanding that our know-how needs to be upgraded, faster and more efficiently than ever before. Traditional roles are being redefined, sometimes overnight.

In extreme cases, entire professions are on the chopping block owing to artificial intelligence. More than half of working Americans now think it will be essential to master a brand new skill at some point in their working lives.

The problem is, how do you pull it off?

Having wrestled with this dilemma, I realize there are no easy answers. But I hope that by sharing some of my personal observations, I can help kick-start the conversation for other CEOs, as well as for professionals trying to balance the art of building for the future, while you're struggling to just get by in the present.

Accepting that it's not going to come to you

The challenge, especially inside startups, is that there are always a million fires burning. Personally, I don't have one day (or even one night) a week to spend at a management seminar. On-demand learning sites like Lynda (now LinkedIn Learning) can be great, but who has the luxury to wade through online courses, at least while they're at work?

Not to mention, formally retrofitting your education can be as costly as it is time-consuming. Intensive coding curriculums, for example, run around $10,000-to-$20,000. A typical grad school degree starts at $40,000.

nd, for better or worse, the days of employers paying for education are on the decline: In the U.S., the share of workers receiving paid-for or on-the-job training has fallen steadily (and precipitously) since 1996.

That's why I think one key to continuous learning is finding ways to integrate the acquisition of new skills into your day-to-day job – rather than thinking of it as a separate activity. This sounds painfully obvious. But it's often overlooked. And it's actually pretty darn hard to do.

Learning to love what you're bad at

A first step is recognizing the holes in your skill-set – both the urgent ones that need fixing now and the ones that will open up in the years ahead. This is easier said than done. Recruiting sites – from Monster to LinkedIn – regularly publish lists of the most in-demand skills. But I think the process is more personal than that.

Interestingly, it's often the stuff you're good at – indeed, that you love doing – that you have to be most careful of. I'm a doer: I like to have my hands on the work I produce. When Vidyard was in its startup phase, I was able to improvise and troubleshoot – whether that be supporting engineering, sales or customer service – and that made me a really strong team member.

But as time went by, and we were able to hire more brilliant, qualified people, this actually became a liability.

My business didn't need another doer. It needed a CEO – someone who could help plan and execute a long-range strategy, who could look at a thousand moving parts and step back to see the bigger picture. This was never my forte and it didn't come naturally. But I'm learning that being bad at something means I am figuring out how to be good at it. At times, this feels terrible. But it's necessary.

Leveraging the collective intelligence around you

Once you've recognized what's missing, the next step is to begin to fill those gaps. Often, a first impulse is to think in terms of formal coursework or training. But there may well be better (not to mention, free) resources closer at hand to accelerate your learning – if you're willing to take the initiative to find them.

To fill my own leadership gap as CEO, I started by tapping the collective intelligence of my own team – smarter and more experienced people than me who had run successful companies. My COO, for instance, has taken other startups from conception to billion-dollar valuations. Needless to say, I've started spending an awful lot of time with him.

This approach applies regardless of where you sit on the organizational chart. Actively seeking out senior people inside your company and volunteering for projects outside your comfort zone is a sure way to integrate continuous learning into the job. But this doesn't "just happen" – you have to aggressively hunt down these opportunities.

Looking further afield is also critical. I've started cold calling, in essence, professionals who are a few steps further along in my career track. Some snub my advances. But I've also seen an exceptional amount of collegiality – busy, successful people who make time for a coffee or even a regular chat. By the same token, peer and professional groups can be an overlooked resource.

For founders and entrepreneurs, these include traditional organizations like YPO and EO, as well as more tech- and startup-focused groups like 10X CEO (more or less a boot-camp for venture-backed CEOs). Talking with colleagues who have walked in my shoes has given me a much clearer idea of the path forward.

I can't say I've mastered the art of continuous learning yet. Some days still feel like an uphill climb. But I've realized that growth starts out feeling that way – with a commitment to stalk your shortcomings, rather than ignoring them or covering them up with distractions. You lose that reassuring hit of dopamine from doing something you're great at. But you gain a foothold on a new skill.

What's abundantly clear is that as technology accelerates the pace of change at work, this ability to see holes in your own skill-set and hack together a plan to fix them is only going to get more important. It's comforting to think that government or corporate sponsors will step in to fill the gaps. But ultimately, the onus for continuous learning might just be on us.

https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/leadership-lab/how-to-integrate-continuous-learning-into-your-job/article36459971/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&

BERNIE600

4 days ago

HI:"But ultimately, the onus for continuous learning might just be on us."

So true.

When you are at school(college/university) you are TOLD what you need to know but when you are working you SEE what you need to know.

All my post grad was done after joining the work fore.

"Getting over getting dumped"/ Hart Denton

Oct. 6, 2016 "Getting over getting dumped": Yesterday I found this article by Liz Nicholls in the Edmonton Journal:

Getting dumped. Can there possibly be anyone in the world who doesn’t have first-hand experience in this field — and the scars to prove it? 

Ah, but then what? The show that opens Thursday in the Citadel Club addresses the universal challenge of getting over getting dumped. Ain’t no mountain high enough.

One way — complicated if highly consoling — is to create a hit Canadian musical with your best friends, based on your own experiences and the experiences of, well, everyone you run into (and their relatives, friends, acquaintances, perfect strangers on the Metro).   

That’s what the riotous trio of Toronto theatre artists who created Bittergirl the Musical did. And they did it the multi-disciplinary way: Bittergirl was a play before it was a book before it was a musical. “We’ve had some adventures together!” laughs Mary Francis Moore, to vigorous assent from Annabel Fitzsimmons and Alison Lawrence. 

Adventures, in the last 16 years, have taken Bittergirl to productions in New York and London, to film options, book tours, the Today show. They devised the show in Thursday morning meetups in a Toronto café. The characters, A, B, and C, were based on themselves.

“”I was single and dating; I’d just come out of series of failed relationships,” says Fitzsimmons cheerfully. “I was living with my boyfriend, and I could see the writing on the wall,” says Moore of an ex, now referred to, onstage and off, as The Coward. “I could feel it coming on.” Which it did, the night before Bittergirl rehearsals started.

Lawrence was “a broken-down single mom” — with a car. The indie producers would load all their stuff, their set and props in Rubbermaid bins in the back of her hatchback, along with little Emma “and our bitterboy du jour,” laughs Moore of the only guy in the show. “We’d do the show in bars, changing in the storage room where the canned olives were kept.”

They’d first tried out their creation at Toronto’s Buddies In Bad Times Rhubarb Festival in 1999, before two sold-out runs at Second City the next year. The design concept? “Black evening gowns throughout,” grins Moore, who remembers changing in the Buddies washroom and a drag queen popping her head over the cubicle: “Honey, I love your dress!”

“Everything we did in the show was an add-on,” says Fitzsimmons. “When Mary Francis was cleaning, she’d add rubber gloves; for the elliptical scene, she’d add running shoes,” says Lawrence. “We had no budget!”

Meanwhile, as the bittergirls gathered a following, they were also gathering a bottomless repository of terrible getting-dumped stories.“People would stop us in grocery store lineups, at the doctor’s office.”

Life has ironies that art would reject as too preposterous. At a New York showcase for an interested producer, he told them afterward “I don’t get your play.” They were baffled. “He was holding hands with his wife, this timid little woman, and said ‘we’ve been in love since we were 14. Neither of us has ever been dumped’.” Moore and her cohorts roll their eyes. “We’re in New York, the big city, and we get the only two people who’ve never been dumped!”

Back in Toronto, “weirdly galvanized by this experience,” the Bittergirls brought showbiz to the funky second floor of the Pilot Tavern. A six-month run made it the longest-running non-commercial show in the 2004 Toronto season.

“We’d made it our goal to get a book deal,” says Moore. And one day it happened. Their imaginary chapter headings on poster board did the trick — Drinking and Dialling, Warning Signs, Re-Navigating Your Life, Choosing Your Team among them — caught the eye of a literary agent. They got lunched on Valentine’s Day, 2004. A book was born, modelled after 12-step programs. 

“People were always asking us for advice,” says Lawrence. CBC Toronto’s morning show had us on whenever celebrities broke up. When Belinda Stronach dumped Peter MacKay, there we were, right after the political panel!”

On the U.S. book tour, the Oprah people called. But Hurricane Katrina intervened, and the bittergirls went with NBC’s Today show instead. So it came to pass that three Canadian indie actors emerged from an NBC car to a paparazzi outburst one morning — and sighs of disappointment from the crowd. “We were on the show with Martha Stewart, who’d just gotten out of jail, and Jennifer Lopez.”

“The head producer came over and held our hands in the green room and said ‘I can’t tell my staff, but my husband left me on the weekend. And I’d really like to talk to you’,” says Fitzsimmons. “Everyone has a story.”

“We gave a little cheer when Brangelina broke up,” grins Moore. “Even Brad gets dumped!” Also, “there was a time, when he was with Jennifer Aniston, that their film company was looking at our script. When they broke up, it cost us our movie …. But, hey, it nearly got us on Oprah.” (laughter).

So what happens at 8:30 a.m. in New York when you’ve just been on the Today show, smiled a lot, heard everyone’s breakup stories, and you’re in high heels and more makeup than you’ve ever worn? Moore grins. “We drank mimosas at the top of the Hudson Hotel.”

“And suddenly, I’m back in Toronto, at my day job teaching University of Toronto medical students how to do exams,” says Lawrence, a playwright and the only bittergirl who’s ever been in Edmonton (her solo show BIFF ran at the Fringe many summers ago). “I was back teaching yoga, and two weeks later I was getting married, and thinking ‘did that just happen’?” says Fitzsimmons, a versatile writer who runs a yoga/Pilates business in addition to her theatre life.

As for Moore, whose theatre career divides between acting and directing, “I was trying to plug in my breast pump in the bathroom at La Guardia because I had a baby. And it wasn’t working and I was in tears.”

As the trio explains, Bittergirl’s evolution into a musical, peppered with ‘60s and ’70s girl group numbers (I Will Survive, I Hear A Symphony, Walk On By), wasn’t an outlandish transformation. The segues and underscoring for Michael Waller’s première production of the play were from that repertoire anyway. “And we already looked like a girl group ready to burst into song, in our gowns,” says Fitzsimmons.

It premièred at the Charlottetown Festival last season; Adam Brazier, bitterboy designate till he landed the artistic director’s job, directs the Edmonton production.

Fitzsimmons, Lawrence and Moore have written new material, and rejigged the old for the musical, in which they’ve never appeared. But the Bittergirl heart has remained the same.

“Once you can tell your story and make people laugh, then you get yourself back. It becomes a funny story you can tell at a cocktail party, then you win. It’s your story, and you’re in charge of it, not a victim.”

“In the end, “ says Lawrence, “it wasn’t so much getting over This Guy and finding That Guy, it was about finding each other, the power of our friendship and creating something together …. I’ve been with you guys longer than I’ve been with my husband.”

Getting over getting dumped: Bittergirl The Musical knows how

Getting over getting dumped: Bittergirl...

Jan. 5, 2017 Bad date news: First dates can go one of two ways – you either have the time of the life with your future bae or it crashes and burns awkwardly.

Sadly for one guy who was hoping to meet the girl of his dreams, his first date ended in the most spectacularly brutal fashion.

It all seemed to start OK for Twitter user ‘Trouble’, who took the object of his affections to see Rogue One.

However, it went tragically downhill the second the mystery woman went to the toilet.

It turns out she didn’t go to the toilet at all – she was doing a runner and she sent a text message that made Trouble feel even worse than he already did.

She signed off saying that Trouble had a good heart but he was no doubt thinking about the heavy insult before that.

He posted the offending text to Twitter, where it has been retweeted over 30,000 times.

https://ca.yahoo.com/news/girl-dumps-guy-during-their-first-date-by-sending-him-the-harshest-text-ever-150733064.html

Sept. 4, 2017 "Being put in the friend zone by a former flame": Today I found this dating advice column by David Eddie in the Globe and Mail:

I’m in my mid-20s. My girlfriend – well, exgirlfriend now – who I went out with for two years, broke up with me a year ago. But then, she turned around and wanted to be “friends.” We go to movies, have drinks, dinner, sit on her patio and talk.

The problem is, I still find her very attractive, still want to sleep with her and am probably a little bit in love with her. The other problem is that recently she started dating a close friend of mine. It’s torture to me to see them together. What can I do? I feel like I’m in hell!

THE ANSWER

Well, purgatory, certainly, at the very least.

I’ve been in that shadowy netherworld myself. When I was in my mid-20s, I dated a 19-year-old waitress/bartender. She was voluptuous and sexy. I don’t know if we had a lot in common intellectually, but I really had the hots for her.

Our relationship only lasted a few months. But the post relationship relationship lasted a full two years. She teased me, she tortured me to the brink of madness with the casual sadism of a teen.

She would change in front of me. “Oooh, it’s time to go to work, I better change.” Suddenly she’d be in bra and underwear in my apartment. Sometimes she’d be “too drunk to go home” and stay over in my queen-sized bed.

And sometimes, she’d throw this dog a bone, thus ensuring I stayed on a very short leash, following her around town like a panting puppy, hoping for my reward.

Who knows why people do this? Good for their self-esteem, I suppose.

But the problem with these kinds of arrangements is that the amount it boosts their selfesteem is commensurate with the extent it erodes yours.

As to your friend, he is in violation of what we called in bachelor days the Five Year/Foreign Country clause of the Friend Code: “Though shalt not date a close friend’s ex until a period of five years hath elapsed, or you encounter her/ him in a foreign country.”

Draconian, perhaps, but the Friend Code was and is aimed at preserving friendships. And this is the type of situation that can cause them to implode.

What I would do in your boots: First of all, never, ever, hang out with them as a couple. That is, to use a couple of newage neologisms, “self-harming” behaviour. And you want to practise “self-care.”

Personally, I would avoid your friend for now, too. I’m not saying turn your back on him. Just put him in “the penalty box” for a while. Partly for violating the Friend Code, partly because he’s bound to remind you of your ex. At least for now.

You need a complete media blackout on your ex, so you can begin to forget about her. They say “absence makes the heart grow fonder,” but I don’t agree. “Out of sight out of mind:” That’s the cliché that will set you free. (In my case, my ex thankfully relocated to Los Angeles to become a writer/ actress.)

Now, I could speculate that in your heart of hearts you hope to win your ex back. I would let that go. I’ve seen that these break-up-date-someone-else-getback-together arrangements can work – for a while. But the second iteration never seems to work out in the long run.

It’s telling, I think, that you called her your “girlfriend” at first, then corrected yourself. You have to let go.

It’s not just a question of selfesteem. Being hooked on an ex – the dopamine shot you get when you see her – it’s like any other drug.

It can ruin your career, even your health … (My ex used to get off work at 2 a.m. – then want to begin her evening, partying with all the other restaurant workers. I’d go with her. I had to be at work at 8 a.m.!)

You want someone who will love you for you, who will know you and understand you down to the ground and love you anyway.

The sooner you put this relationship with your ex in the rear view, the better for everyone.

The Friend Code was and is aimed at preserving friendships. And this is the type of situation that can cause them to implode.

https://www.pressreader.com/canada/the-globe-and-mail-alberta-edition/20170904/281938838061501

My opinion: David Eddie's ex sounds terrible. 

I do agree with his advice as in stay away from your ex, your friend, and both when they're together.

My week:

Jan. 13, 2018 The Caregiver's Club: One of my friends emailed me saying that one of her sisters has dementia.  I told her I was sorry.  I then found this article "Powerful portraits of faith and humour" by John Doyle in the Globe and Mail: 

The Caregivers Club (Sunday, CBC, 9 p.m. on CBC Docs POV) is another poignant and rewarding experience and not entirely distant from Crashing. The Full title is The Caregivers Club: The Private Lives of Dementia Caregivers. Love, Loss and Letting Go. Written and directed by Cynthia Banks, the documentary chronicles the situation of three families dealing with the pain, anger, frustration and rewards of caring for someone suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's disease. It's a series of intimate portraits, often painfully raw.

Karen takes care of her husband, Jack, and lovingly so, but has the bruises to indicate that he sometimes becomes violent. "I've made those wedding vows and I'm keeping them," she says. Dominic cares for his wife, Rafaella, reversing the caregiving role that she had for so long, in taking care of him and supporting him in his job. Barbara is taking care of her mother who has Alzheimer's. For Barbara the circumstance changes everything and has an impact on her husband and children. She is under constant strain and, she says, she worries she too will suffer from the disease, and in distress she says, "I'm next and who is going to caregive for me?"

We're told that 80 per cent of caregivers suffer from depression. And a perspective on the circumstance of caregivers is offered by occupational therapist Nira Rittenberg who provides advice and support, and consolation. When she compiles a list of all the obstacles the caregivers face, it is very, very long. This is a powerful documentary, unyielding in its focus on those who care, just as they must be unyielding in their devotion, no matter how much they carry.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/television/crashing-powerful-portraits-of-faith-and-humour/article37591816/

Jan. 16, 2018 CanadaHelps:

Canadians donated $154,667,048 to charities using CanadaHelps in 2017!

We’re so grateful and inspired each and every day by generous Canadians like you. Thank you for all that you do to support Canadian charities.

In 2017, 417,321 Canadians donated to 21,591 charities using CanadaHelps. Your support touches the lives of millions, providing food, shelter, emergency relief, and compassionate support. You helped fund literacy programs, medical research, and the arts, and you even helped to protect animals, our natural environment, and people at-risk, in addition to so much more!

Find out more about what donors and charities accomplished last year on CanadaHelps.

_{^{https://www.canadahelps.org/en/giving-life/community-happenings/thank-you-for-a-phenomenal-2017/?utm_source=ch-supporters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2017Year-Review-Sunday&utm_content=2017+Results++English++Sunday&vsmaid=1080&vcid=754563}}

"Treat addiction with empathy": Today I found this article by Marc and Craig Kielburger in the Edmonton Journal: 

Ruston Baldwin took his first drink when he was two years old. His father was an angry man and a drinker himself. He raised Baldwin on beer.

When Baldwin was seven, his mother was diagnosed with a severe case of scleroderma, an autoimmune disorder. Every year, doctors would amputate parts of her hands and feet as her blood stopped circulating.

While his mother wasted away and his father drank, Baldwin found comfort in one substance after another, eventually turning to cocaine and heroin.

As fentanyl claims lives on city streets and in suburbs alike, and as governments turn to supervised injection sites to protect their citizens, Baldwin’s experiences speak to the conversation Canada needs to have, one that substitutes compassion and care for derision and detention.

“I did it all,” the sober 50-year-old Baldwin says unflinchingly of a lifetime of addiction stemming from early experiences of abuse and neglect.

Now a peer support worker for others struggling with mental health and addiction, his story illustrates the undeniable connection between trauma, mental health and dependence that is too often ignored in favour of judgment or contempt.

My opinion: This reminds me of my friend Trayton who said if we should legalize illegal drugs like heroin because they are addicts and not criminals.  I was against it, but supported safe injection sites.

http://www.timescolonist.com/life/global-voices-treat-addiction-with-empathy-1.23143999

Timothee Chalamet donates:

Golden Globe nominee Timothée Chalamet says he will donate his salary for an upcoming Woody Allen film to charities fighting sexual harassment and abuse.

The breakout star of Call Me By Your Name announced the donations on his Instagram account, becoming the latest actor to distance himself from Allen.

Chalamet said he didn’t want to profit from his work in the director’s A Rainy Day in New York out of solidarity with other artists “fighting for all people to be treated with the respect and dignity they deserve.”

My opinion: The Hollywood sexual harassment scandals are everywhere.  I haven't really been writing about it.  However, this is also about charity too.

Jan. 17, 2018 Job interviews:

Cafeteria job: Last week I did a job interview at this restaurant in a cafeteria.

Pros:

1. The pay was min. wage with tips.

2. There is free food.

3. It was close by in downtown.

4. I can do the job.  I have done the job and it was like the Soup place.

Cons: None.

My opinion: I would work there if I got hired.  A week later, I even called them to see if they made a decision yet.

Jan. 15, 2018 Daycare job interview: It was for a cook position.

Pros:

1. It was kind of far.  It was 2 buses to get there, but they come often.

2. The hours were alright with it being 3 days and it was in daytime.

3. I can do the job by making snacks for these kids.

Cons: 

1. When I got there, it was so loud with all these kids.  I remember talking to this taxi driver and he said he used to be a school bus driver and quit because it was too much of "a headache."

My opinion: If I got hired, I would work there.  However, I really didn't want to work there.  She said they were going to hire fast and call the next day if I got hired.  I'm glad I didn't get hired.

I can handle kids at my restaurant, because the parents are there watching them.  It gets loud in the morning, but in the afternoon, not a lot of kids come.

Jan. 16, 2018 Fruit Place job interview: I worked there before in Dec. 2011 for a temp holiday job.  I didn't really like it at that time.

Pros:

1. It was close by.

2. The pay was average.

3. I can do the job, and I have.

Cons: None.

My opinion: When I got there, the boss S was there and we recognized each other though we haven't seen each other in years. They are hiring 1 or 2 people for each location.  It was temp, but maybe a few permanent positions available.  I would work there if I got hired.

Job: In the morning, my boss called me to ask if I can come in a cover for a few hours in another department.  I did.  Fortunately, the worker W came later and helped me when I needed to use the computer.

Jan. 18, 2018 Law firm job interview: I went to this one last week.

Pros:

1. It was in downtown.

2. It paid well with benefits.

3. I can do the job with mainly phones and switchboard.

Cons:

1. It may seem kind of hard with lots of work.  Opening files and closing them like scanning, saving, shredding.

My opinion: I would work there if I got hired.  I got to give the company points that he called me last night to say I didn't get hired.  They hired someone with more receptionist experience.

Eye clinic: I did this job interview last week.  It was the one that lasted 3 min.

Pros:

1. It was part-time.  8am-4:30pm, 2-3 days a week.

2. It paid well with benefits.

3. It was 1 bus to get there.

4. I can do the job with answering phones, making appointments and confirming appointments.

Cons: None.

My opinion: The interview was average.  I got there at 8am because it was to start at 8:10am.  It started at 8:30am.  I read in the waiting room.

The highlight of the week: I went to the staff Christmas party.  The buffet was really good with the roast beef, mashed potatoes, salmon, naan bread, and butter chicken.  I also had Ceaser salad.

Hart Denton: The best part of the week was I found this actor who plays Chic, Betty's long lost brother on Riverdale,  His character is dark.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm7843299/?ref_=nv_sr_1

https://twitter.com/hartdenton

Jan. 20, 2018: I did 5 job interviews in 5 days.  One Mon-Fri.