Sunday, March 13, 2005
Nothing but a bunch of dirty hippies
As I sit here writing my column for the week, I have just found out that one of my fellow treeplanters from Brinkman has been elected as the VP Finance and Operations for the student Management Society at McGill . Her name is Sharlene Quintal and she's one of the planters I got along with best last year. I remember her commenting that she would likely not be coming back planting in '05 because she needed to find work that she could put on her resume. Well, it appears that she has done so!
Eariler, I commented on how this year's treeplanting experience seemed to be quite different from that of my first year. First year was full of the traditional heavy pot-smoking philosophy majors that one would expect to find planting. This year, there seemed to be a really high number of business and commerce students from top Canadian Universities - McGill, Queen's, Western and the like. (Oh, and two sketchbags from Waterloo, but that's just a techie school, we don't worry about them). It was both a great contrast and a great lesson to see all these great business kids down and dirty each week - covered in mud, fending off blackflies, partying hard but remaining some of the most healthy people this side of the forty-ninth parallel line.
Challenging stereotypes has been to me one of the most healthy things I have done in my own professional life, and it was actually quite heartening to see that a little part of my interest in business spilled over into my planting world last year. Indeed, continually challenging perceptions of the world is a mark of a successful learning organization, one of the things I will surely write about soon.
Congratulations again to Sharlene! She has noted that "since I got elected, things have definitely picked up the pace for me!" Best of luck in your executive role, Shar, and if you ever head back to the block for a summer be sure to be in touch.
Eariler, I commented on how this year's treeplanting experience seemed to be quite different from that of my first year. First year was full of the traditional heavy pot-smoking philosophy majors that one would expect to find planting. This year, there seemed to be a really high number of business and commerce students from top Canadian Universities - McGill, Queen's, Western and the like. (Oh, and two sketchbags from Waterloo, but that's just a techie school, we don't worry about them). It was both a great contrast and a great lesson to see all these great business kids down and dirty each week - covered in mud, fending off blackflies, partying hard but remaining some of the most healthy people this side of the forty-ninth parallel line.
Challenging stereotypes has been to me one of the most healthy things I have done in my own professional life, and it was actually quite heartening to see that a little part of my interest in business spilled over into my planting world last year. Indeed, continually challenging perceptions of the world is a mark of a successful learning organization, one of the things I will surely write about soon.
Congratulations again to Sharlene! She has noted that "since I got elected, things have definitely picked up the pace for me!" Best of luck in your executive role, Shar, and if you ever head back to the block for a summer be sure to be in touch.
