Lise's Ramblings

Statistics Canada reports that Canadian commuters spend an average of 52 minutes daily traveling roundtrip to work. In major centres such as Montreal and Toronto, more than a quarter of Canadians spend at least 1.5 hours commuting back and forth every weekday. Ugh. Commute times grow when you add one or more of the following: construction, bad weather, police spot-checks, a sinkhole, an accident or long-weekend crowds.  Any wonder the international Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) rates shorter commute times as a key variable in studies of health and quality of life.  There just aren't many upsides to long commutes, apart from time to listen to podcasts, music or audio books. Sure, dozing, reading, writing and other activities are possible when public transportation is available, but still you aren't spared from delays and lengthy travel times.  I'm grateful for my short d...

Tailspins from global financial woes have countries struggling to regain stable economic footings. Full recovery is far off and requires varied steps, but early moves involve industries and governments alike searching for efficiencies, paring budgets, dropping services and product lines, and cutting jobs. At times like these, you’ll find employees react by evolving into one of the following four characters: the ostrich – those who adopt this head-in-the-sand response believe that as long as they ignore the situation it doesn’t really exist Chicken Little – apart from spreading rumours and cynicism in a sky-is-falling way, poultry tend to accomplish little more than dampen morale and play the martyr    the fairy-tale villain – colleagues who never pulled their weight before suddenly seem busy and engaged, but then their self-protectionism becomes obvious as they kiss butt, throw adversaries (anyone at all) under the proverbial bus, manipulate people and situati...