Coffee Time Archive

Some of you may have seen these items in years gone by - who can follow the vagaries of viral forwarding? - but oldies are goodies, and I hope in the helter skelter rush to Christmas you will find a few moments to kick back and enjoy these bits of humour.

And, yes, I know the title says "A Laugh a Month", implying twelve items, but I’ve gone for quality over quantity (as the bishop said to the actress).

Here they are:

January-February: two school science exam answers
March-April: when swine flu came to the Hundred Acre Wood
May-June: From Galia's seemingly endless supply of great Jewish jokes comes this selection from the Jewish Catskill comics of Vaudeville days. Funny and clean!
July-August: how to make a man enjoy talking to you - He said, She said
September-October: David Thorne and the client from hell (the pie charts email) Warning: contains rude words - and so much funny stuff you may never return to this site. Which would be a shame because then you would miss out on our final irreverent offering:
November-December: A collection of the worst modern romance book covers, with commentary. No spoofs, these were all actually published. Would-be authors, beware!

santa

It's Fun to Have Fun

(but you have to know how!)

By Galia BarHava-Monteith

10th October 2009

Gosh, it's getting busy out there. The economic indicators have been signalling the end of the recession, and we are certainly feeling it ourselves in Professionelle. All of a sudden, we seem to be flat out and somewhat breathless. So when we were approached by a well known wine company to explore the topic of fun on our site, I was delighted – no better time to talk about fun than when you are really, really busy I say!

In two and a half years at Professionelle, we have written about such a wide range of topics from the obvious – women in leadership, work life balance, flexibility in the work place – to the more eccentric...

like my own passion for fashion...

and Sarah’s slight obsession with Colin Firth...

and yet, is it a coincidence that not once have we written about that other F word – FUN?

I think not.

Time for fun?

Let’s be honest here, and I apologise in advance if any of you take offence (please don’t), but professional women and having fun are two concepts that don’t exactly roll off the tongue together. When I hear of a professional woman, the image I conjure up is one of an articulate, smart, successful, ambitious and hard working woman. ‘Fun’ doesn’t exactly come into it, but hard working definitely is a key feature. The professional women I know are dedicated and, yes, extremely professional. When you ask them to do something they will most certainly do it; they take care of everyone around them; they are reliable and trustworthy. But fun? Who has time for fun?

At first I thought this might have something to do with the old ‘Protestant work ethic’. However, as I am Jewish and not exactly a barrel of laughs myself, (some have described me on occasion as ‘intensely serious’) that hypothesis doesn’t quite work!

So why is it? Why is Fun a topic we haven’t covered yet – despite our efforts to look at all areas of our lives? Well, the great philosopher, Dr Seuss, phrased this conundrum much better than I will ever be able to at the end of one of my all time favourite meditations on having fun – The Cat in the Hat:

It’s fun to have fun but you have to know how!

How very true, I think to myself every time I read the book to my kids. What is it about having fun that is so elusive for many of us, serious, intelligent professional women? And what is “fun”?

What is Fun?

Like most things in life, it’s much easier to articulate what having fun is NOT. It’s not about ‘work life balance’ or relaxation techniques. It’s not about taking care of yourself (although it is an element of it). And to me, it’s not necessarily about ‘partying’.

So I went exploring in the dictionary:

Fun (noun):

something that provides mirth or amusement: A picnic would be fun.
enjoyment or playfulness: She's full of fun.

So there you have it, for us organised, focused lot – how do you schedule or plan for mirth or amusement? How do you organise playfulness? My husband is fond of saying that his dear wife loves to be spontaneous, as long as he gives her sufficient advance warning..!

I am now really appreciating my instincts not to have written about Fun before, and am beginning to regret undertaking to do so now…

Letting Go

Fun is so elusive. I love having fun, but fun is about letting yourself go a bit, to be in the moment, to let loose and be able to really laugh out loud and potentially make a fool of yourself in the process. And that is hard, really, really hard for me. Having fun involves taking risks – a bit like telling a good joke, you take a risk that you’re going to screw it up - if it succeeds, everyone laughs and it is fun, but if it fails, you can end up looking like an idiot.

Is it a wonder then, that we professional woman who have trained ourselves, and have been trained by others our entire careers to be in control, to carefully manage both our image and our interactions find it difficult to ‘let loose’?

I am now well and truly outside my own comfort zone.

How do we have fun?

This whole article was triggered by the approach from a wine company, so of course, I have had to ponder alcohol.

A Drink

It took me many years to really understand the important part social drinking plays in the New Zealand psyche. Having been brought up in a completely different cultural context where it is much more socially acceptable to speak your mind, even if it leads to an all-out yelling match, that everyone quickly gets over, I didn’t really understand the role alcohol plays in helping kiwis let loose.

Consequently, I have to admit I was quite judgmental of social drinking in those early days, something my husband found most frustrating. But after so many years of living here I truly do understand social drinking now: to have fun we need to let loose, and alcohol certainly helps that. In fact, I have been known to tell some of my more highly-strung girlfriends to ‘have a glass of wine and chill’ on the odd occasions!

But alcohol has to be just a part of it (I can hear some of you say that it is a BIG part of it!) or otherwise we’d be advocating alcoholism… what are the other key elements that make having fun possible?

How Else to Have Fun?

Having fun is sooo important to our lives; I think we all know it. Heck, I still tell my husband I only married him 'cos he made me laugh. Luckily he still does, so we are still married… At times like these last few weeks when everyone seems to just have become so crazy busy, having fun has to become a priority – but how do you achieve fun if you can’t schedule for it? I ask this being a poster girl for the ENTJ Myers Briggs personalty type.

You schedule and create opportunities to hang out with great friends with whom you feel safe, with whom you can make a fool of yourself and who won’t judge you, answers the positive psychologist. Yes, I do at times experience a split personality moment!

It’s all about relationships. To be able to let go, to be able to take risks and be in the moment, we have to feel safe. That’s why relationships and friendships are so important to us. With my kids, I now know that really taking the time to be able to be in the moment with them and hang out is when we have fun together. Now, I make sure we have these opportunities. It certainly isn’t fun to be with the kids when I am trying to do my supermarket shopping and having to field questions from clients on the phone while arguing with the kids about which cereal they can have!

With our partners, as life gets busy, it isn’t fun when all we do is arrange and do chores. So now I schedule dates and trips away with my husband, so that we can just hang out and create the time and the space to have fun. At first it did feel a bit awkward to have to do that, but without the time to really be with each other, how can we have fun together?

Friendship

I can’t write about fun without writing about friendships. I now know who the friends are that I can really let loose with, and who won’t judge me. These are the friends I truly have fun with. When our lives are so busy, I think it is extremely important to make sure we spend our social time with people with whom we feel we can be ourselves and just relax and have fun. I think you all agree; I don’t think it’s a coincidence we’ve had so many comments and feedback on the articles I’ve written on friendship.

Of course, I couldn’t write about letting our hair down and having fun without a special mention of the ‘girls’. Those mythological creatures in any woman’s life which are immortalized in TV programmes like ‘Sex in the City’ and ‘Desperate Housewives.’ Having fun with the girls, well, there really isn’t anything like it.

I guess you can schedule for fun, by making sure you have the right environment with the right people and just let it happen. I know there will be those of you who will say that you can have fun on your own – do you? Do tell me how. But to me it inevitably comes down to making sure I have great relationships in my life with people I love and who love me, with whom I feel I can just be.

So, to indulge the ENTJ part of me, I create the opportunities, the dinner parties, the BBQ’s, the bush walks, the beach outings. Then all I need to do is just be in the moment, take it easy, have a glass of wine, chill and have fun! I am proud to say I am getting quite good at it.

What about you?

Your Feedback

Oh Sarah, this newsletter did make me smile – I was just thinking on the way into yet another production day that the fun had disappeared from the office. Some of that has to do with having my 9 year old asleep on the spare chair in my office, running a high temperature! Aaarrrgggghhhh – what is it they say on Twitter? #superwoman fail

Having Fun, indeed sometimes on the bottom of the list, or should I say, doing fun things or just something for yourself WITHOUT feeling guilty about it, is very much hiding in the pile of work on the desk. Do as I say, not as I do, often applied when it comes to "taking time out" "smelling the roses" and that Erma Bombeck theme of "darn it, life’s too short".

I do my best to have fun, we laugh a lot at work, I have a great circle of friends that indeed I do not see enough of (note to self....), and the juggles of work life balance is a regular theme with my business coach, and other close business friends. It is often in one’s mind that it is "ok" to have a business function/ lunch/ drink/ bite, but not "ok" to just take time out of the busy day to read a book, a blog, do a puzzle/game on computer, call a friend/sister etc, duh me.

Priorities, difficult things. The commitment one puts towards one’s clients often is such a strong burden or drive that the rest is put aside for "I will get to it", that list, as you mentioned before.... BUT I too am working on it, as I do so know that after a good book, walk, read, break, relax, and most importantly LAUGH one does feel so much better. The mountains shrink back to molehills and the job is much more fun and less of a drag. So, indeed, note to self, go do more of that, as life is too short, it is not a dress rehearsal, and if you run out of steam, nobody benefits from that at all, least of all oneself. Happy fun seeking!

Galia, the INTPs out here will tell you that you absolutely CAN have fun on your own. Reading a funny book with laugh out loud moments (Janet Evanovich and PG Wodehouse immediately come to mind) is a delicious solo activity that will always "lift the pall from our dark spirits".

Reading your article on fun was fabulous and scarily accurate!

Like you, I have way too much work on at the moment, even having turned down several pieces of work recently, still more keeps coming (good challenge I know). But am realising that fun is definitely slipping away. Even though I am an ENTP (albeit a Playful P), this pressure-prompted stuff is getting a bit on the uncomfortable side.

Last week, I took the children to my parents for a 5 days holiday. At one stage, my daughter got stuck into me when yet again I was on my phone answering emails and phone calls. She wanted to know why I was always working and reminded me that I was supposed to be on holiday. Of course I guiltily rationalised why, while the coach in me realised I was truly busted!

We are off tomorrow for a long weekend, and I am going to make sure I don’t look at my phone until at least midday Monday (realistically I know I can’t not look for the whole day – especially as I am out with a client as well next week). Is that rationalisation again?

Anyway, loved the article, it stimulated some great thinking for me (as always).

I agree with you Galia and find myself also ‘scheduling’ fun in – if it’s not scheduled, then it’s too easy to let something else take priority! Having fun for me is definitely about being surrounded by people you trust and giving yourself permission to let yourself relax and enjoy the moment. When I recount my most funniest moments or experiences, ‘spontaneity’ almost always features– especially if something totally unexpected happens, resulting in the biggest laugh-out-loud belly laugh! Interestingly enough, I have found that when planning for kids to have fun is often an opportunity to bank some ‘fun credits’ and indulge those childhood fun moments e.g skipping down the street holding hands, rolling down sandhills together, stepping on a crack and marrying a rat, spinning round and round on a swivel chair until you get dizzy, jumping on a bed – all good belly laugh stuff if you give yourself permission and get involved.

Thanks for this, it’s really made me think about how and when I have fun. I do get a lot of pleasure and enjoyment out of taking some time out to read a book or do a crossword, but for me fun is about being relaxed and comfortable with friends and family where you feel "safe" enough to be myself (not my work version of me) - even when that does involve, as you say, making a fool of yourself.

Thanks, Galia, for a timely reminder that it’s important to make time for fun in our lives. On the strength of your article I have just blocked out a day’s leave to spend time with the kids....doing nothing but having fun! Can’t wait!

I’ve just got back from spending a week in a "war room" on a merger & acquisition with finance guys, men from business development, chaps from strategy and the boys from the investment bank - I was the only one there with XX chromosomes! But we laughed over and over again, and not just because net present value is inherently hilarious! I think we often forget that it’s OK for work to be fun, it’s OK to make our clients laugh and it’s OK to love what we do. Thanks for a great feature, Galia!

Your fabulous article reminded me of a poster my dad gave me for my bedroom when I was younger "don’t take life too seriously, it’'s only a temporary situation!"...I’m off to work out how to have fun today - thank you for reminding me!

Thanks Galia, for a number of inspirational thoughts. I enjoyed your examples very much and related easily to them being an ENTJ myself. It strikes me that there are two elements necessary for fun at the workplace. The planning for it, creating space what I call the "do" and then the "be", having the attitude which means wearing the "humour"-spectacles to watch the world and enjoying the ride. So, let’s put it into action!

Girls Just Want To Have Fun

A short story by Sarah Wilshaw-Sparkes

12 October 2009

It was one more miracle in a week of small miracles.

Elsa looked at the filled seats – six altogether – crowded around the red-checked tablecloth in the busy suburban bistro. She shook her head in wonder.

An elbow in a formal black work jacket nudged her own plain sleeve. The jog made the pale straw Sauvignon Blanc in her glass splash over the rim.

coffee_heart

“Amazing, hey?” Marie, the lawyer, said. “All of us together for the first time in… how long?”

“Too long,” said Elsa firmly, licking the wine drops off her knuckles.

“You’re normally the one missing,” pointed out Julie from Elsa’s other side. “Last time you were stuck in Wellington because of that storm.” She pushed at the frizzy strands that had escaped her many hairpins. As an office manager, she strove for a sleek look, but her hair rarely co-operated.

“I recall the time before, Elsa. You arrived as the kitchen was closing.” Phyl’s deep voice, ideal for carrying across university lecture halls, boomed across the table. “We saw you for a scant ten minutes before we all had to start leaving for babysitters and last trains.”

“And even then your ghastly boss was still trying to get hold of you!”

“It’s a real shame,” added Susannah, dragging her attention away from the baby photos Amy was proudly sharing. “You’re the glue that keeps us together, Elsa. You always organise these evenings, but then some client or travel drama keeps you away.”

Elsa shrugged. It was all true. Investment banking hours and socialising with the friends she loved mixed like oil and water. But girls,” she leaned forward and smiled. “Things are going to change. From tonight in fact! I’m going to attend every get-together we have. I’ve decided the time has come for fun.”

“Oh, Elsa, don’t promise that,” said Amy. “You’ll only stress yourself trying to make it happen. If you want more fun alongside your job, surely you have to pick something where the timing’s flexible and doesn’t involve lots of other people.”

“It’s not fun if it doesn’t involve other people,” Elsa objected. The bistro’s bustle, the chatter and clatter of plates always soothed her, and her girlfriends gathered around made it perfect.

“What about a spa for some pampering occasionally?” asked Marie. “Honestly, some days I fantasise about that. No phones, no meetings, just me, and lots of soothing fingers and creams.”

“Or soaking in the bath?” suggested Susannah. Ever the marketer, she began counting off benefits on her fingers. “Very cheap, entirely flexible timing, add salts and scents of your own choosing, uninterrupted time to enjoy a great book - and no-one to see how much chocolate you gobble up in there!”

“Or wine!” added Julie, reaching over to top up Susannah’s glass and then her own.

“I know what I fantasise about and it’s definitely something to be done alone,” laughed Amy, pointing with both forefingers to the dark circles under her eyes. “Sleep, and no baby waking me up!”

“That’s what comes of doing the Other Thing before going to sleep,” teased Julie, and raised her brimming glass in acknowledgement as Amy stuck out her tongue in reply.

“But Elsa here never has time to find a man,” Phyl declared. Her words, loud as always, dropped into a brief lull in the general hubbub and several diners turned from their meals to look for the loveless woman.

While her friends tried to swallow their giggles, and Susannah jabbed Phyl in the ribs, Elsa’s gaze searched out Serge, the bistro’s manager. He towered over a group near the door, deftly collecting menus and sharing his lazy smile. If he hadn’t heard Phyl’s pronouncement it would be another little miracle. She might not have a man, but she didn’t need any male, especially one as easy on the eye as Serge, thinking she was desperate.

“I’m sorry, Elsa,” said Phyl, speaking as quietly as she could. “You must agree though, that while we are all career women, you’re the one who’s most married to her job.”

“Phyl’s right,” said Marie. “You work even more hours than I do, plus you’re in six different cities and three different time zones every month. Of course, you’re getting closer to that corner office than any of us, which is great… but you’ve never found someone special to share the journey with.”

“Except us, ” Julie pointed out, pushing the frizzy ends off her forehead again. “And we’re not husband material.”

“So what do you all recommend for your poor, sad friend?” asked Elsa, enjoying both the attention and the genuine caring that she knew fed it.

“Shopping!” said Susannah.

Elsa snorted. “I may be out of touch, but last I heard they weren’t stocking men in retail stores.”

“Which is why you need to shop till you drop. Convert all that pent-up need into fabulous new outfits.” Susannah screwed up her eyes as she conjured up a mental image.

“A new come-hither look,” agreed Julie. “Let’s drink to that.” She drained the last of the Sauvignon into the glasses nearest her and waved the empty bottle above her head. Serge, ever-efficient, caught the motion and smoothly altered course to pass their table and pluck the bottle away.

“Same again, mesdames?” His blue gaze focused on Elsa for a heartbeat - long enough to see her hand discreeetly flash the ‘five minutes’ signal they’d agreed – before he nodded to the others.

“Lovely,” said Julie swivelling her head to see him, too. “Thanks, Serge, you’re a girl’s best friend.”

He sketched a short, comic bow before striding away. Elsa’s eyes followed him, but Susannah tapped her hand to bring her back to business.

“Listen, this is important. We need to plan your shopping. I’m talking outfits that are one hundred per cent right for intimate evenings.”

“Something full of colour,” suggested Marie. “We’ve all seen enough black to last a lifetime.” She tugged at her own sleeve in mild disgust.

“And showing lots of skin,” added Amy. “I seem to have lost my waist since Billy was born, but you’ve got such a lovely figure. You should flaunt it..”

Elsa knew she wouldn’t get a more opportune moment. Serge had disappeared into the kitchen, but he’d soon be back. She held the gaze of each of her companions in turn as she unzipped her long, plain jacket and shrugged it free of her shoulders.

“Something, maybe, like this?”

The jacket fell away to reveal a strapless bodice, in a shade of deep orange perfectly judged to highlight the tanned tones of her skin. Low cut, it made the most of her curves before plunging down to the black velvet skirt below.

A collective gasp rewarded her for the hours she’d spent hunting for the ensemble. Her smile grew as wide as her friends’ eyes.

“This, girls, is the new me. I told you: the time has come for fun. No more dark clothes. No more crazy hours or foreign clients.” She paused. “No more targeting the corner office either.”

Five jaws dropped.

“What are you saying, Elsa?” boomed Phyl, and then clapped her hand over her mouth as the words rang out.

Elsa waved the implicit apology away. “You can shout about this to everyone, Phyl, as loud as you like. I bought a half share in this bistro from Lucy on Monday. I resigned from the bank on Tuesday. I know business and Lucy knows food. She wants to expand and I want to be part of something I can help grow.“

Julie’s wits returned first. She snapped her jaw shut and slapped the table. “Where’s Serge? Never mind the Sauvignon, this calls for a special toast.”

“So that’s why you said you’d always be here for our meetings from now on,” said Amy in wonderment.

“But your career,” moaned Marie. “You’ve worked so hard!”

“And I’ve missed so much. You’ve all been telling me so. I’ve missed all of you, I’ve missed romance, I’ve missed life. But now I’m back, so watch out!”

She glanced towards the kitchen. With impeccable timing, Serge was weaving his way towards her through the tables, glass flutes sparkling between the fingers of one hand and two bottles of her specially chosen champagne in the other. His eyes bulged gratifyingly as he took in the bodice she’d revealed. That triggered laughter around the table and her girlfriends all leaped up to kiss and congratulate her, to marvel and exclaim.

As soon as Phyl grasped her flute of bubbles she turned to the bistro’s other diners, by now all staring curiously at their happy group. In her resonant tones, she announced a toast to the new co-owner. The warmth of the immediate cheers and whoops that filled the room, merging with those of her dear friends, made Elsa’s eyes prick.

Leaving her corporate career behind hadn’t been a quick or easy decision, but, since she’d made it, a long-dormant sense of anticipation had started to blossom. Now, seeing so many happy faces through her unshed tears, she was certain she’d find enough compensations in her new life.

Serge reached across to pour her champagne. The heavy bottle made the sinews in his wrist stand out and she caught the faint lemony scent of his cologne.

More than enough compensations, she decided.

And more than a little fun.

THE END

Your Feedback

A fabulously delicious story, Sarah, well done!

Yahoo Sarah, what a wonderful read. For the hard working, bogged down women in the world, this is the dream. Having fun, friends,wine, and doing something you will enjoy, PLUS earn an income, is the dream we all have. well, back the grind, but thanks for a great read, I am looking forward to a personalised autographed book on my shelves to show off! and look forward to the next episode, or story.

Really enjoyed that - a FUN break from my work!

Yes - certainly. More adventures involving Elsa and her pals called for! Great "read" to break from work - and remind us of those things we often miss out on if we are not careful!!

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Unexpected Learning - or Why I Like My Many Hats

By Sarah Wilshaw-Sparkes

A Diversity of Hats

Diversity is a hot topic in today’s management literature and research. It interests us at Professionelle, too, because professional women are such a large, readily-tapped source of diversity in organisations. Its benefits needn’t be limited to organisations, though. Galia wrote last year about networking as a source of diversity in our personal lives, with a corresponding lift in social capital and resilience.

In this article I want to explore the idea that we stand to gain a great deal if we seek out a range of roles and pursuits in our lives. Galia and I both wear a number of hats, as we’ve blogged about recently. With each hat, we don’t just gain from new people that we meet, valuable though that can be. We also markedly increase our opportunities to learn, and we can then transfer those new insights across into other parts of our lives.

If I stopped learning, I think I’d wither away. At the same time, there are never enough hours in the day so it’s a real bonus if what I learn in one part of my life can in some way be leveraged into other areas. To that end, I’ve been reflecting on the key lessons I’ve gained from each of the different hats I’ve worn over the years and the extent to which the lessons apply beyond the activity that taught me them. I’d be very interested to know if any of them resonate with you, and what your own experiences have been of this “trans-hat” learning.

Rowing

About a million years ago, I rowed for Cambridge University’s first ever Women’s Lightweight crew after serving my apprenticeship in my college first boat.

Two lessons here. First, I discovered through rowing that I was competitive, and that I liked it! Before, I’d been deeply influenced by my father who saw no point to competitive sport. But rowing in fours and eights showed me the joys of teamwork and the deep satisfaction of winning. The implications for my later life as a professional working woman are pretty clear.

The other powerful lesson was that discovering my limits was a road to happiness, not regret. After we raced Oxford and won. Competitive, moi?, our crew was invited to try out for the UK squad. I knew in my heart that it would stop being fun at that level and so I turned the opportunity down. I still treasure memories of my great crew and of our success. It really is OK not to pursue every opportunity you’re offered. You can say no and never regret it!

Consulting

Very early on in Professionelle, I wrote about my biggest insight from work. Despite my rowing lesson about recognising limits, sometimes I’ve had to learn things twice! You can read about it here but the gist of it was: don’t sell your soul to the firm. You have to keep a bit of it back for yourself.

Having Children

If the experience of motherhood didn’t help women learn new things, to say nothing of practising a host of useful skills, would Unilever have ever launched the Mum’s CV? Would John Palmer, Chairman of Air New Zealand, have been so keen, in an interview on this site to see women return to work after their children? Becoming a parent is simply rife with learning. I could write a whole article on it. Maybe I should!

What lesson to pick? My children have undoubtedly expanded my emotional range and endurance. Two children was, for me, a geometric, not arithmetic, increase on the emotional demands of one. I discovered that nothing at work could touch the stress of both of them in a needy mood on a wet winter’s afternoon. Having plumbed those depths, work became far more pleasant! By the same token, nothing I create at work or in my writing comes near to the throat-choking pride I experience when they do something that amazes me.

Another surprise has been the way they both arrived with their personalities and tendencies essentially set from day one. At best, as a parent, I feel I’ve managed to influence 10% - smoothing off a couple of rough corners in the areas of manners and personal hygiene. The lesson is: if that’s the extent of my influence on my children, I should never expect to change anyone I meet in other areas of my life…

Not for Profit Boards

I’ve been deeply involved with my children’s education: I drove a Montessori primary unit start-up and sat on its Managing Committee for seven years, and also sat on the host school’s board. Becoming personally involved in governance was new to me, but the hardest won lessons came from the administrative work.

One lesson concerned recruiting. I’ve learned the hard way that:

you must, must, must check references
if a referee makes even a slightly negative comment, listen very carefully and multiply that feedback by ten. Could you live with the result?

My other big learning from the Montessori Unit was that you can’t please all the customers all the time and that you can burn yourself out trying. We women do tend to take so much onto ourselves! It was actually OK for people to say ‘this isn’t for me’ or ‘it’s not working for my child.’ It didn’t mean I was failing as Trust President, or that I had to beat myself up. In fact, doing that was a huge waste of my emotional energy and expending it never changed a single outcome.

Fiction writing

I do, I confess, have a whole article on the lessons a consultant can learn from romantic fiction writing but for now, I’ll pick just one aspect: Don’t Pen Parve!

Parve (“par-vay”), Galia says, is part of keeping kosher. Specifically, it’s the kind of food that can be paired with meat or with milk. In the Gentile idiom, it’s neither fish nor fowl. It’s average, bland, designed to avoid offence.

You don’t win writing competitions by writing parve. Three judges typically read each submission but only the highest two scores are used Therefore, you only (only!) need to wow two of them – and that usually means taking some risks. It can be scary, and there’s no guarantee of success. But I’ve learned it’s better to see wild disparity in my scores and know I pushed readers’ buttons, for better or worse, than to earn three tepid grades.

There are obvious lessons here for brands, whether it’s a consumer product brand, a personal brand or your organisation’s brand. Better to have a few passionate advocates for that brand, than a host of shoulder shruggers.

So: those are my hats, some of the key lessons and the ways they have fed into other parts of my life. Perhaps because my career has been monolithic, rather than a wide-ranging portfolio, I find these opportunities to learn so valuable.

Lastly, realising that I’m likely to pick up useful things from my “hats” and hobbies helps lessen a little of the inevitable guilt of the time away from home and work…

Long live diversity in all its guises!

Your Thoughts?

How about you – have you learned ever learned valuable things in unexpected places? Have you been able to use this knowledge in other parts of your life? I’d love to hear about your experiences!

Is Your Career Waiting for Prince Charming?

By Galia Barhava-Monteith

The traditional tale

Once upon a time, all a girl had to do was be kind, beautiful and helpless – preferably while locked in a tower, or lying in a glass coffin, or being subjected to domestic abuse. But as long as she waited patiently (while looking beautiful and being kind) her Prince Charming was bound to find her, kiss her, and voila! They’d live happily ever after and all her troubles would be over.

The underlying messages from these tales have found their way into the psyche of our mothers and grandmothers, into how society saw women, how they have seen themselves and how they were expected to behave. These legends and myths have also influenced women’s ideas about how they should approach their future: they were to adopt a passive manner, never ‘claiming’ their place in the world. Those few women who didn’t wait patiently and who took control of their own destinies were labelled as… well, I’ll leave it for you to fill in the dots.

Then came the F revolution and it all changed. We professional working women now scoff at these myths and prejudices; we create our own destinies; we craft our own futures. We buy our daughters the post-modern renditions of those fairy stories. You know the ones - where Princess Smarty-Pants gets rid of her unwanted and unwelcome admirers to live on her own happily ever after.

We have well and truly let go of this Prince Charming myth. Right? Wrong!

The modern tale

Sure, it is now completely socially unacceptable for a self-respecting, intelligent, professional working woman to voice out loud that she is planning to make herself look beautiful and to behave kindly, while she passively waits for her Prince Charming to find her and marry her and thus sort her life out for ever more.

However, for some reason, many of us seem to think it is completely acceptable to treat our career in this way!

Surely not! I hear you gasp in horror. Well, ladies (and the few wonderful gentleman that read Professionelle regularly), let me paint you a picture of the archetypal, bright, young, professional woman I come across.

Our modern heroine is very determined and a hard worker. She achieved top marks in her university courses and landed an excellent first job as a graduate. She worked really hard on all her assignments/cases/projects, diligently putting in the hours and patiently delivering excellent results. She has been careful not to shout her achievements from the rooftops as she is quite averse to self-promotion. And anyway, she believes that she should be noticed for all her hard work she’s put in, and for the results she’s delivered.

Her thinking goes like this: someone (in a position of power) will notice me and that’s how I’ll get my next career break!

Is this beginning to sound familiar? It took me a while to realise it, but this is how my early career looked. And it’s how the careers of many other bright young women I meet and talk with look, too. But this passive Prince Charming-driven approach to careers is, like its fairy tale ancestor, an illusion.

No successful professional working woman I have ever come across in person, or in my research, ever got to where she wanted to be by waiting to be noticed by her career Prince (or Princess) Charming. They all took control of their professional futures, mostly very early on.

Just recently, I had a coffee with an incredibly bright young thing to talk, in part, about her career. She is so talented and hard working and, yes, modest. When once again, I heard her say that she ‘doesn’t have any real career plans but she just thinks that her hard work on this project she’s currently doing will get her the next project’ I decided I had to write about it. Of course, when I pointed out to her how similar her approach was to the old ‘be beautiful, kind and passive and your Prince will find you’ approach, she was horrified.

And the moral of this story is…

We can drive our careers and we can make our own rules – and we can do these things and still be feminine. But we can only do so by taking control. We can also carefully and thoughtfully communicate our worth to others, and do it in a way that is consistent with our personal values and feels right to us. But we need to find that way. None of us, no matter how young we are, should ever leave our careers to be taken care of by someone other than ourselves!

I, too, waited for Prince Charming. Like others, I thought that my hard work and the results I delivered would get me noticed and that ‘someone’ (a powerful, senior, and, yes, male figure) would give me my next career break. And it did work like that, but only up to a point.

Finally, I realised that in order for me to have the kind of work I wanted, doing the thing I love, in a way that works for me, I had to actually take control of my own professional future. And I never looked back.

Your Feedback

Very true! Early on in my career I noticed the difference between men and women in promotion. A male colleague of mine was asked a question which I knew he had no clue as to the answer. He calmly stated that this was a controversial topic and that he would get back to him with his view once he’d canvassed the matter with a few colleagues. I thought of how different my approach would have been - honest and along the lines of we don’t know but we’ll find out! It would have created quite a different impression. I still struggle to promote myself at work. Some tips on this would be great!

On Toxic Friendships

By Galia Barhava-Monteith

A very special friend of mine (I’ll call her Sally) was recently tracked down by a childhood friend of hers who was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. This friend (I’ll call her Brenda) felt that the only person she could trust was Sally, she’d only agree to see mental health professionals if Sally accompanied her, and she only trusted Sally to make the right decisions for her. All this despite the fact Brenda’s married and has a family that lives near by! Sally, feeling like she was obliged to care for Brenda, has put her life on hold and proceeded to take her in, and basically handle her care completely.

Brenda is not a close friend of Sally’s these days and they hardly ever talk much, but they go back a long way, and when it came to this crisis, she wanted Sally there. Now, Sally’s everyone’s ideal mum (and she has her own two beautiful children), she’s warm, reliable and extremely resourceful. She is a wonderful friend who I love and value and I count myself blessed to have her in my own life.

On the face of it, being held in such huge esteem, so much so that Brenda turned to her in her greatest hour of need, is a great compliment and endorsement. But is it good for Sally?

Sally is a single mother of two who works full time. It occurred to me, that if Sally is so special to Brenda, perhaps Brenda should have made more of an effort when she herself was well and had the chance to be a good friend to Sally in her time of need - a chance that Brenda let slip by.

This saga and many others which I have gone through, as well as experiences of some of my friends, led me to think about toxic friendships and that it is perhaps something we should be more aware of and open about. It also occurred to me that it would be a great topic for Professionelle and that I’d love to hear your feedback and thoughts.

What are toxic friendships?

I’ve read many different definitions but basically, a toxic friend is someone that makes you feel worse rather than better. These are the friends who, after you have spent time with them, leave you feeling drained rather than energised. You regularly end up feeling hurt or upset.

I think most people have had their share of toxic friendships, as have I. One friend was always late and everything was about her. Her life was full of huge dramas and busy action, all of which required lots of my support and understanding. She felt very comfortable asking me for ‘favours’, but if I asked for her help more often than not she had excuses as to why she couldn’t help me - usually involving the dramas.

But, she appeared very supportive in times of need and stress, in fact when I was down or weak she was ALWAYS there, asking me all about how I felt and wanting the details of my crisis. However, what eventually hurt me badly was that I felt she wasn’t happy for me when I was happy and doing well. She was envious of my achievements. I realised that she was readily supportive when I was down and weak perhaps because I was worse off than her, and through helping me she felt better. But when I was doing well, she felt insecure and envious and became dismissive or manipulative.

You might ask why did I stay friends with her in the first place? Well, I didn’t realise how toxic she was because we had been friends for a very long time and I felt very loyal to her.

It turns out that I’m not alone. Many women (yes, this is especially relevant to women) find themselves in similar situations. Often, a friend isn’t toxic to begin with, as was the case with my friend. But over time, for whatever reason, they might become this way. The difficulty is to recognise it, because we’re caught up in the relationship and we feel loyal. We might also feel it’s our fault or simply we brush it aside as ‘a passing thing’. Sometime, it is a passing thing. Sometimes, friends go through tough times and end up taking it on us. Hey, isn’t that what friendships are for? Support and companionship in the good times and the bad? Yes, I think they are, but there comes a point when the cost is simply too high.

How do you recognise a toxic friend?

In my case, it was a combination of other peoples’ perspectives and a case of one too many incidents. On occasion, I’d tell my husband and other close friends about what this woman had said or done in relation to me, and eventually they started pointing out to me what was going on - that after I spent time with her I was irritable and quick to anger and that the things she was saying and doing were just not on.

I did try to rescue the friendship, but wasn’t successful. Some experts advise us to ‘talk about it’. As a consequence of my reading widely in Positive Psychology, personally I am no longer an advocate of always talking about things. I don’t think that woman was morally bad, or being toxic on purpose, I think she has her own issues.But the revelation for me was that I am NOT her therapist to solve them for her.

Ultimately, toxic friendships are in the eye of the beholder. It was toxic to me. I don’t think she even realises how she made me feel.

What are the signs of toxic friendships?

My personal view is that the key sign of a toxic friendship is that after you spend time with that friend you consistently feel drained, used and sometimes even abused.

In line with my Positive Psychology approach, I figured that rather than spending too much time thinking about toxic friendships, I am better off thinking about great friendships. I wanted to be clear in my own mind about what good friendships should look like. It might sound simple, but it isn’t. You should try it; ask yourself what you think a great friendship is about.

For me it turns out that a great friendship is one that energises me. A great friend is someone that after I spend time with them I feel energised and supported. That’s not to say that I don’t want to support my friends in their time of need. I absolutely do. But some people seem to thrive on drama and are constantly and consistently in need of your support. To me a great friendship is one that feels reciprocal where I can turn to them and they to me and it isn’t lop-sided. It also occurred to me that, for me, boundaries are important, especially now I am a wife and a working mother. So a great friendship is one where the boundaries are clear and everyone knows where the lines are.

Finally, I realised that I like my friendships to be EASY, where you just stream along. You don’t have to constantly worry about what they’re thinking/feeling/doing, you hang out, you have fun, you disclose what needs to be disclosed and there isn’t much drama!

Back to Sally

I haven’t told Sally all that, I might do so. I think Sally is an amazing friend whose friendship I cherish and consider myself very lucky to have her in my life. I also think Sally should ask herself who are the friends that support her and energise her and who are the ones who just keep on taking and taking because she has so much to give.

In any case, I’d love your thoughts on this subject!

If this piece got you thinking and you’d like to read more you can try the following links:

For an interesting article on toxic friends try this website dedicated to women’s health issues.

You can read about the six types of toxic friends and also read extracts from the book ‘When Friendship Hurts: How to Deal With Friends Who Betray, Abandon, or Wound You’

This health site has another excellent article about recognising the signs of a toxic friends and how to subtly sever relationships with them

And I found this blog of an author and cancer survivor that tells her personal account of a toxic friendship. Well worth reading.

Your Feedback

"Hi Galia, I have experienced this type of friendship 2 or 3 times over the last few years and have come away from catch ups with these friends feeling very drained and just wishing that just once for one particular friend we could have a positive coffee not a negative one. I would love to be able to get her to see things more regularly from a positive perspective as I think it would make a huge difference in her whole life. I can’t permanently walk away from her but I do have to limit the amount of time I spend with her."

"Hi Galia, I too have, in the past, suffered from a toxic friendship. The particular friend had great delight in putting other people down just so she could feel better about herself. I think the main trap those of us who have had (or still have) a toxic friendship fall into is feeling guilty about disassociating ourselves from the toxic friend. I can\'t stress enough how important it is to take this brave step and put distance between yourselves. Even, eventually, like I did cutting this person off altogether."

"This was a great article. I think it is important to recognise that people with 100% good intentions toward each other can also end up having a toxic friendship. They are just not compatible. People can assume that dark motives lie behind the toxicity, and this isn\'t always the case.

"This article struck a real chord with me. It took me nearly 5 years to break off a toxic friendship that saw me running around on errands for my "toxic" friend, constantly having to explain my every comment and to justify my every feelings to her. The final straw came when illness struck my family and I found that my "toxic friend" was still wanting to be the centre of attention with constant phone calls and comments of "I’m so worried", "I couldn’t sleepquot;,"I’m so upset" - not one word of concern for the person who was ill. I think that many "toxic" friends are just seeking to be the centre of attention all the time. It wasn’t worth the emotional effort of keeping this friend."

"I had a toxic friend too many years ago. She wanted all of my undivided attention and needed hours of one-on-one talks. Other people told me it wasn’t healthy but it took me a while to realise that caring for another person didn’t need to be so intense. In fact, I was feeding her insecurity and not helping her in the long run. It was really difficult to pull back and finally I had to make a complete break with her. There were fireworks! Three years later, she told me she understood why I did that and thanked me."

"I had a toxic friend during university, and I think the concept of feeling "drained" is a good one to help determine whether it is toxic or not. Dramas, and bad experiences turned into competitions for her. Everytime I mentioned something bad happening to me, she had had a "worse" experience, and turned the conversation back to her. Whenever something positive was happening to me, she could never celebrate it, but would attribute it to some force of nature, not me! She’s out of my life now and I really don’t miss her!"

The Pragmatic Girl's Fashion Tips

by Galia BarHava-Monteith

A Little Froth

I’ve been thinking for a little while now that we needed something a bit ‘lighter’ on Professionelle. What with all the weighty topics we've been convering, like Positive Psychology, the Impostor Syndrome and a raft of advice pieces, we thought it was time we injected a little light entertainment!

Fashion, for example...

Let's face it, I DO like my fashion, as those of you who read my Red Boots, No Suits will know. I spend a not inconsequential amount of time debating the merits of various outfits and places to shop with the girlfriends. So all I needed was for Sarah also to voice it was time for something a bit frothier to prompt me into action!

A Little Frugality

So what’s brought these recent fashion thoughts on, you ask? Well, the family is about to leave on a huge family holiday to an exotic location that has many fabulous shopping opportunities. In the run-up of getting organised and panicking about funds, I decided that we should put a moratorium on shopping from January (barring necessities and underwear…) to help build the momentum and excitement and of course to save so that we can spend with impunity) when we finally get there…

For me that meant wearing everything I had in my wardrobe and making the most of it by using many different combination, including ones I would not have ordinarily have thought of - anything to break the boredom. What it also meant was that, given I was wearing the same things over and over again, I could see what people commented on the most! Lo and behold, I discovered a new secret to working out what works best when it comes to fashion and how to developing the best personal style with minimum spend and maximum insight!

A Little Insight

After about two months of not buying a thing and wearing my same old wardrobe in different combinations, I started noticing a trend (yes, once a strategic consultant, always one, forever looking for trends in everything). I noticed that the same type of items generated the most comments. It wasn't necessarily my most expensive or most ‘designed’ outfits, but outfits that had the same things in common. Basically it was my structured, pinafore type dresses made of firmer materials and anything with an interesting collar! Without fail, every time I wore something that had a dollop of the above, at least one person would comment!

The other thing that I discovered was accessories. I used to thumb my nose at the various style gurus who advocated accessories as a way to lift outfits. I guess I was just really being lazy as the easiest way to lift an outfit is to buy a new one! Well, with my self-imposed shopping moratorium, I did make an exception for belts (which I had hardly any of). And yep, you guessed it, accessories DO lift outfits. Remarkably so.

A Little Game

I must say I actually ended up really enjoying this little exercise and almost turned it into a game of trying to see what unique combination I could create with my existing wardrobe every day. (Could this be my using my signature strength of creativity, ingenuity and originality???). Given that I’ve always considered myself a confident dresser, I was surprised to find that after the first four months I have become that much more confident in mixing and matching things I would never have considered before. It's all down to knowing my wardrobe so much better and, more importantly, knowing what really works!

So now I know not to get sucked into buying things that might initially appeal to me through their designer lines and price tags, but whicg experience has taught me don’t necessarily work for me. If you are thinking about your style, let me recommend this to you - stop shopping! Take a couple of months out to really thrash your wardrobe and see what works for you - what people respond to the most and what you just really love wearing. You can even keep a diary – what you were wearing and how many comments you got and for what. Your confidence in trying new combinations will increase, you’ll save money and when it eventually come to shopping you’ll have a much better clue about what to go for!

Do let me know how it works for you!

Your Feedback

Oh, I loved your article!! Anything to do with fashion, I just LOVE! Many people think that I have this enormous wardrobe and must spend an absolute fortune! I do have an enormous wardrobe....only because I haven’t thrown anything out since the mid 90s. I don’t believe in the statement of fashion consultants saying: "if you haven’t worn it for 2 years, get rid of it." To me that is SHEER extravagance!!

If it’s a good style, cut, fabric and colour and your body shape hasn’t changed, why discard? If you are sick of it, then pack it away for a season or two. That is what I do and then rediscover it later in a suitcase amd start wearing it again and it feels you have been on a shopping spree! Well-designed clothes are always WELL DESIGNED GEAR and will always look flattering. Also, some of my vintage clothes....that were my grandmother’s, (she died in the 80s) I get the most comments on purely because I think they are different from the norm.

Accessories are key also. They make or break and I believe, buy what you LOVE....fashion is so varied nowadays and you can still look fashionable without having to buy into that whole consumer marketing message of spend,spend, spend.

Couple of final thoughts. As with other goals and ambitions, financially with mortgages, they have become much more of a priority and my level of awareness of what I spend on clothes becomes more acute, this is what I’ve learnt. This has been a 3 year habit, of trying to change bad spending habits that were not in line with my goals....and boy...it has been hard! My business coach has been a godsend for giving me the tools to faciliate the change.

If you are not averse to second hand shops...there are some fantastic ones around. Dressmart in Onehunga can be incredible, paticularly at their sale times. Savemart, red and white signs, all over Ak can be great, but you need to be very careful as to the wear on the clothes. Friends and family, I have quite a few people who now give me their castoffs that I either give away to other friends or keep myself. It all goes around!

Outlet shops, all over Auckland, are great fun and when I do have a spend, I save the dockets, work out what I paid and what I would have paid for the same items FULL RETAIL. You will be shocked at what you can save!! Set a spending plan, an amount that you can spend fortnightly, so when you spend that money, it is a reward...not that horrible feeling of guilt...thinking "I shouldn’t be spending this money." (I agreed with my business coach to do this....and it was extremely interesting becoming aware of my thought processes when I was purchasing clothes) Favorite designers...get on their mailing list, wait for their sales and go towards the end of sale when they have marked down even more. If I go in at the beginning, there are always clothes that I want to buy....if you go at the end....you don’t know what was there, so you don’t feel that you have missed out. For me...Fashion was always meant to be fun...not a hassle or crippling event financially. Hope you have got some great tips! Bridgette

Our First Birthday Event!

To those of you who persevered through the traffic and parking hassles to make it to the event, we truly appreciated your taking the time to join us to mark a significant milestone for Professionelle. We had a room full of positive, thoughtful and engaging women who were easy to talk to, and from what we could tell were having in-depth conversations and making real connections. We had a blast, and we hope you did, too!

Judging from the photos Gretchen kindly took, it certainly looks like you did...

The Sanderson Art Gallery on Parnell Road made a lovely, bright space. Its three interconnecting areas worked perfectly when Hannah Ockelford, Professionelle member and TV One reporter, turned up with her cameraman, as arranged. Hannah was able to set up in the far space and conduct one-on-one interviews with members who wanted to contribute thoughts on women and flexibility at work.

Hannah is working on a story about women's approach to their careers and has already interviewed Galia. Our event was a great opportunity for her to fill out the story. We will let you know when the story screens.

One of the distinctive things about Professionelle is you - the mix of interesting and positive women who make up our members. The event was a microcosm of our membership (795 of you as we write, by the way). The two groups photographed below make the point:

Here we have, in no particular order:

a barrister
an academic
an executive search consultant and
a Liontamer! (aka a lawyer working for a fund manager of capital-protected investments).

And this group contains another interesting mix of:

a senior HR professional from the public sector
a private banker
an IT consultant (originally from Israel)
another senior HR professional, this time from the private sector.

Of course we took the opportunity to say a few words. Kerri, the gallery representative (see below), kicked us off with a brief introduction to Jane Mitchell, the artist whose work is currently being featured at Sanderson. Sarah then gave a short retrospective on how Professionelle had come to be, the highlights of our first year and some of the biggest lessons we've learned along the way. Those ranged from networking to optimism to the way Google rankings and keywords work. Speaking of which, we're #1 on page 1 for "professional women" in Google's global pages, an achievement we're very chuffed about!

Galia followed on next, drawing a picture of our plans and next steps, in particular the ways we are trying to make a difference to professional working women in New Zealand. Our plans include a book, in-depth research on what works, corporate work and specialised workshops for our many members who are self-employed or work in small organisations.

Galia also thanked the many people who have supported us this year, including our clients, and those who've given us access to new networks, and to the latest research materials.

After we'd spoken, we felt we could get into chatting, working through the mounds of fresh sushi, and relaxing properly with wine in hand! (See right for Galia doing just that...). There was also the seriously chocolately birthday cake to pass around!

We were thrilled the next day to receive wonderful feedback from our guests telling us how much they had enjoyed the evening. The following message especially touched us:

Galia, Sarah, congratulations!

Last night was extraordinary!

And I will tell you why:

Because of the people,
interesting, positive, professional women.
It was so easy to start a conversation.
One of the great things was that these were all individuals that you have some connection to. So it really felt like an evening in your living room, rather than an organised networking event.
It's actually great that you don't work through corporates who send groups of women to the event, but rather have individual women who are there because being there means something to them.

Because of the environment,
Not a convention hall in a hotel, not a bar. An art gallery. And active participation from the gallery representative.

Because of the spirit,
Your energy and entrepreneurship are inspiring.
I know, the word inspiring is overused. But still, there is something about meeting people who have a certain flair about them, and when you spend time around them, some of it sticks to you and makes a little change in your thoughts. Isn't that inspiration? You both have it, and you definitely have it as a team.

Thanks to you both, and don't stop!

We don't intend to!

Thanks again to all of you who came to share the evening. We hope you'll find the going-home presents useful and, for those who took away slices of chocolate cake, we hope partners, children and flatmates all helped you share the calorific load!

Sarah and Galia

Success in the 2008 Coast to Coast

At Professionelle we celebrate professional women and their achievements. We also believe in a holistic approach and as such we want to celebrate all your achievements. We know many of you enjoy sport and thought you would appreciate this news.

Rachel Ockelford, one of our mad keen sportswomen members, came second in the Coast-to-Coast two day event in early February! Some of you might have read Rachel’s review of Alpe D'Huez's sports gear late last year.

As soon as we found out, we asked if she'd write about her experience to share it with all of you.

Read on and be inspired!

Galia

Rachel tells her story:

I got roped into this multisport thing a few years back when I was thinking of doing Ironman. A friend put me in a kayak, took me on a few off-road runs and I was easily persuaded out of the pool and off the pavement!

My first Coast to Coast (Individual 2 Day race) was in 2006. It was great! I finished in 14h 30 min, and really enjoyed myself. I went back again in 2007 to do the Longest Day, and hated it – 16h 25 min, long and tough. It took me a good three months to get my head back into the right space and start training again...

I had promised myself I wasn’t going to do Coast this year, but my partner was planning on doing it, and after getting back into training, I figured if I was going to be there over Xmas training etc I might as well do it again… but differently. My goals were to have fun, and to push myself hard – I have a tendency to finish a race feeling like I still have quite a lot in the tank. I also decided to do the 2 Day again…

Preparation

Had the usual struggles fitting in training with working and Wellington weather. Also added to it by buying a house in December but the preparation was going reasonably and, with a couple of good training weeks over Xmas, I was looking forward to a couple more weeks training and starting to rest as I returned to work.

Unfortunately my body didn’t quite agree… I was diagnosed as anaemic (through iron deficiency) in early January and all plans were a bit up in the air. Interesting sensation: a week after doing five hour runs through Goat Pass I could barely walk up the stairs at work without collapsing! My iron levels came up slowly and at the end of January, ten days before the Coast event, were just within normal limits so I decided I would compete.

It was an odd, but in some ways very relaxing, way to head to the race – no expectations on performance and having had a lot of time off in January I wasn’t anywhere near as mentally tired of training as usual.

The 2008 Race, Day One

run2

The first day, a Friday, is a quick 3km sprint off the beach, a 55km cycle and the run – 33km through river beds and over a mountain pass. I felt good on the initial run for the first time ever. I had a nice quick transition onto the bike, and jumped in behind a couple of team riders and let them pull me up to the bunch ahead. About an hour in, I overheard some guys talking who said there were only a few team riders ahead of us – but I only semi believed them. No way I could be in the front bunch!

I came flying into transition about ten minutes earlier than I had expected and saw another girl heading out on the run, but focused on getting my stuff and heading out. I hate that first 20 minutes or so; the transition to running is never pleasant. As I started up the river bed I had someone running in front of me videoing me... all a bit odd! It wasn't until that afternoon I found out I'd been the lead individual girl (the other one in transition was part of a team).

About 35min into the run the first two individual girls caught me, as expected. I'm not a runner! I stayed with them for about ten minutes but they were moving quicker than me. I kept my head down and tried to keep moving steadily through the stream and boulders. To my amazement, I reached the top of Goat Pass about twenty minutes ahead of schedule! One other girl past me in the last few kilometres and I finished about forty sec behind her, in 4th place, in 4h 38min for the run and just under 6h 30min for the day. I’d taken 30 minutes off my previous best time over the run. It made a great start to the race!

Day Two

Day Two consists of a 15km cycle, 69km paddle and further 70km bike. We line up at the start in groups of ten, based on our race number. This makes it all a bit confusing as you don't know where you are relative to the people you are racing against.

kayak1

I didn't feel great in the boat from the start. The river was very low, and it felt like a lot of work. It should have been easier for me, given I was in a narrower boat than most, but I really didn't feel on top of things. I had a few issues with my drinking systems and eating which had been fine without a bib on, didn't work with it on, my arms went all shaky and I was struggling to hold the boat upright – fortunately the river was low and easy otherwise there would have been some swimming! As it was I got a number of lines wrong and lost a good 5-10 minutes getting turned in three eddies… Despite all this, I got through it in five hours, enough to give me the second fastest girls’ paddle time.

I got lots of encouragement in transition (though my support crew did later say I looked like death warmed up and they were a bit worried about me!), and headed out, the third individual girl on the road at that stage.

I felt a heap better once on the bike and put in a bit of effort to catch the guy ahead of me. This turned out to be worthwhile as we caught another three riders up the road including one of the girls. The bike went well, it was very comfy for the first forty minutes or so, then a couple of faster guys caught us and I had to put more effort in.

The Finish

Finishing was great. I came across the line shattered again, and really happy to have achieved my goal of pushing myself hard in the race. I couldn't have gone any faster than I did! As it turned out it was a good enough effort for second overall in the 2 day event, about 14 minutes behind the lead girl and a similar amount back to third.

It was a great year to be part of as well – there were a record number of female participants (203) and 59 entries in my grade.

It’s interesting reflecting back now – what went better this year than others? I think I had more fun, I was a lot better rested than usual, and I put a lot less pressure on myself than usual. Now the question is how to replicate that…There’s still lots of potential to improve – skills, course choice etc… It won’t be my last Coast I’m pretty sure of that! Although I may take next year off to do some of the other great races around NZ…

So, I hope you enjoyed the read – while it may seem extreme, I assure you anyone can finish Coast if they want to. It does require commitment and effort but it’s an amazing experience – the people you meet, the places you get to go. It’s definitely become a lifestyle for me now. If anyone is keen to get into it and wants some advice, drop me a line.

Mocha Man

by Sarah Wilshaw-Sparkes

This story came first in a competition sponsored by Rosy Glow Chocolates and organised by the Nelson chapter of Romance Writers of New Zealand. Entries had to be 500 words long and contain the words "a rosy glow". My prize was 2.25kg of handmade boutique chocolates and RWNZ membership for a year - perfect!

coffee_heart

Day Two, Treatment Three. Lily lay on fluffy, white towels, an eyepatch blacking out the afternoon sun. Cutting out sight was meant to help empty the mind. Perhaps it was working. Unlike her last frantic days at the ad agency, Lily now had only one thought circling under her brunette curls: I’m glad I’m not paying for this rubbish.

The door opened and she heard the rustle of a crisply-starched tunic. Was it Frieda, whose French manicure had had Lily stealthily curling her chewed nails into her palms; or Bea, all tight control, every hair scraped back into submission?

“Hello, Lily. I’m Ben.”His voice was dark mocha, its mellow timbre oozing into her muscles, coaxing them to loosen. “Let’s have some music.”

A moment later, the inevitable, breathy notes of a pan pipe began, and an Amazonian bird chirruped in counterpoint. Lily sighed. Pink Floyd would have been her pick for relaxation. That, or more of Ben’s voice.

A stool creaked beside her and wide inches of warm, dry palm covered her right hand. Her muscles melted a little further. This man must be the spa’s secret weapon, only dispatched when algal body scrubs and chakra balancing failed.

“Now, Lily, today we’re going to weave a powerful, personal visualisation for you. I want you to tell me the things that make you happy.”

One word came to her. “Chocolate.”

Soon, she’d be launching her homemade chocolate business. The agency had dispensed with her services and this spa weekend was a farewell gift, assuaging her managers’ guilt that she’d left with so little fuss. In truth, she’d been grateful for the push.

“Chocolate,” he repeated. “Excellent. What else, Lily?”

Her mind went blank. After chocolate, there wasn’t much. “Things that bring you a rosy glow,” Ben encouraged.

What were the favourite things Julie Andrews had sung about all those years ago? “Raindrops on r-” she caught herself. “Er, on roofs. Tin roofs,” she recovered.

“Marvellous sound, isn’t it?” he agreed. His hand squeezed hers gently. A tiny crick dissolved in her neck. “We can really work with that.”

Yes, please.

“I like kittens,” she offered.

“Great.”

“And well-polished pans.”

“Bright copper, I suppose.”

Was he onto her?

“Copper-bottomed,” she answered firmly. “And on a cold day, I like toasty hands.”

“In warm, woollen mittens?”

Busted.

She felt a grin take over her face. “Have I mentioned crisp apple strudels?”

“No, but I’m betting there’ll be schnitzel with noodles.” The smile in his words was like the promise of Cointreau hidden in a liqueur centre.

Lily ripped off the eyepatch and sat up. Ooh, his skin and eyes were both cocoa-dark.

“We haven’t done the visualisation yet,” he objected.

“But I have. I’m visualising you, me, white chocolate, a fine sherry, Mission Bay.”

“So the chocolate bit was genuine?”

“Ben, I never joke about chocolate.”

“What time then?”

“How about tomorrow at sunset, since you’re into rosy glows?”

“I am,” he laughed. “I’ll be there.”

THE END

Red Boots, But No Suits

by Galia BarHava-Monteith

No more corporate dressing for me!

boots

That’s it. There are no more suits in my wardrobe. I have to confess that I haven’t actually worn a suit in ahem, over six years… ever since I got pregnant with Tal, my first. I got extremely big very quickly and opted for a more comfortable variety of clothes. After I had him, I found that I didn’t actually need to wear a power suit to be taken seriously. So I discovered that I could still be effective while being able to dress in comfort and express my individual style.

But I held on to the very expensive suits ‘just in case’. The little voice in my head kept telling me that the time would come again when I’d need them to be taken seriously.

That time never came.

Finally, my husband pointed out that there was really no reason for me to hold on to them anymore now that I’m in the ‘online’ world, where - presumably - corporate dress doesn’t matter. And that got me thinking about how my choice of corporate dress has reflected stages in my career

I am a self confessed lover of clothes. I do try to keep my slight obsession at bay and, with two young and very messy children, my investing in designer clothing might not always be the wisest choice. But I still buy them! And I put them on for those special occasions when I actually interact with people in person, and then quickly slip back out of them before the chocolate /play-dough /yoghurt covered hand reaches me.

So do I think corporate dressing is an important and worthwhile topic to think and write about? ABSOLUTELY. People do make first impression judgments that are very hard to break, and clothes play a big part in those first impressions. .

As Sarah and I talked about this piece, she told me how she still remembers me on my first day at work, with my very grey suit and the little French Connection silk scarf around my neck. I remember it too, and then as now, I really don’t much like scarves around my neck. But the difference is that when I started out I thought that was how I OUGHT to dress as a young professional, much like I felt I OUGHT to behave in certain ways that might not have been who I actually was.

At the Boston Consulting Group at the time, there wasn’t much choice in the matter, so I kept wearing those power suits (and scarves!),even though I didn’t like them and didn’t think they suited me much. Once I left and started working on the merger that created Fonterra, I opted out of suits and spent most of the time in comfortable clothes due to that aforementioned pregnancy. But once I’d had Tal, I re-thought the whole dress thing and decided I could get away without suits and could express my own individuality in the clothes I wore.

Was I working in such a different environment? Yes, partially. But I also had more confidence to be who I was and to wear what I liked. Very quickly, I realised that as long as I was comfortable with who I was and with what I wore, no-one was going to make a big deal of it. I must add that I don’t think I ever wore inappropriate clothes, but I would describe them as definitely more ‘individual’.

In retrospect, the road from feeling comfortable to wearing things I actually LIKED to work, to experimenting and strategising with clothes depending on the situation I was in, was a very quick (and perhaps slippery) one.

What do I mean by ‘strategising’ with clothes?

Say I was about to have a difficult meeting which I knew would inevitably involve a partial or full confrontation about a topic, I’d put my ‘especially purchased for the situation’ very red and very high heeled ankle length boots. I’m relatively tall, and with these boots on I probably topped 180cm. I’d only ever wear these boots under pants so that they barely showed, but being that tall and with red boots always gave me the extra courage I needed to have the ‘face off’. It got to a stage where my closer work mates would comment, “See you’ve got those boots on again, having a difficult meeting today?”

I even started wearing pink to work! I never ever used to wear pink, not through my adolescence, uni or nor early work years. I felt that as a young, assertive, and opinionated woman it was an incredibly inappropriate colour to wear. But having facilitated a fair few intense workshops with mainly dark-suited men, I decided I’d experiment with colour and it might as well be pink. So I wore pink. No one commented and if nothing else, at least it made me stand out of the crowd as the facilitator! Again, it made me feel I was being truer to who I was and that I wasn't trying to pretend I was something I’m not. And maybe, I was making my own statement about not being afraid to stand out of the crowd.

Looking around, I see many senior women who seem to follow that path… women who choose to express their individuality in their clothes even if their attire doesn’t fit the ‘what you’d expect’ style of dress. I do, however, think that it is that much easier to dress in a way that expresses individuality when you are a taller - and I must add ‘experienced’ (OK, you can think older) - looking woman. As I said before, first impressions count. If you’re in a man’s world, and you’re slender and young looking, you might not be taken seriously if you don’t dress the part.

Those are my musings on corporate fashion now I’m not in the corporate world any more. I’m sure you have your own views on this, and I’d love to hear them so go ahead and post them on our bulletin board!

On Balance

By Sarah Wilshaw-Sparkes

Yes, that title is the name of a North American blog we recommend on our Resources page as a good read, but that’s not what this article’s about.

I’ve been noticing recently what it takes for me to actively appreciate things in my life, and I thought I’d share it with you.

Heartfelt Appreciation

Let me start by posing a question: how much do you appreciate modern plumbing? If your key reference point is Granddad telling you about outdoor school lavatories in the 1940s then your sense of appreciation will probably be largely abstract. If, instead, you remember a holiday you once took in the Greek islands, where the toilet waste pipe was too narrow to cope with both effluvia and loo paper, so that an open waste paper basket was provided to hold the latter, once used, then your appreciation may be more lively and personal.

But to truly value hot flowing water and full flushes, shoot off right now for a few nights under canvas on the most remote banks of Lake Waikaremoana. After a week of plumbing entirely au naturel, perhaps enlivened by a DoC officer arriving unexpectedly by launch to give your DIY-short-drop marks out of ten, you will return to the comparative civilisation of the campsite by the main road and close the cubicle door in the draughty wash block. And then – bliss beyond bliss – you will sit…

Frumps And Frocks

Of course, there are parallels with work. For weeks, you’re head down in the office, all the time wearing suits or other formal clothes. You’re sure that if you could get a day in jeans and a sweater you’d be at least 10% more productive, just by feeling more comfortable and relaxed – and you’re almost certainly right. The pleasure of doing something different, almost a treat, would put you in a better frame of mind.

When you get to wear jeans every day, though, the effect does wear off. With launching Professionelle, I’ve had a chunk of time out of the office. Not only have I found jeans no guarantee of productivity, I now actively look forward to a reason to dress up nicely and go into the city! The Liontamer ladies we recently interviewed were the same – enjoying the change from slightly frumpy to smart frocks on the days they had face-to-face meetings.

Light And Shade

What I’m realising is probably pretty obvious. Without contrast, it’s hard to value a better state of existence. Cicero put his finger on it: hunger is the best seasoning. In the same vein, the best part of a day-long tramp (for me) is the hot bath afterwards. And the worst day at work, when everyone’s losing it, is a breeze compared to a wet Wednesday at home with two cranky children under three. To grasp that, of course, I had to endure the rain and the crankiness!

Logically, where this leads is that you can have too much of a good thing. Imagine your life included non-stop holidays, excellent health, regular Lotto wins and a lifetime’s free supply of top-notch chocolate. How long till the apparent dream-come-true became merely mundane? No wonder the rich and famous seem to be forever doing stupid things, their psyches must be desperate for contrast.

You Can Never Have Too Much...

There’s only one good thing I reckon I could never have too much of and that’s… balance. It doesn’t have to be a balance between the good and the bad, or happy and sad, either. In fact I’d rather it wasn’t! The sort I want is between different spheres of my life, and different parts of who I am. I want work-life balance, family-own time balance, frump-frocks balance, long days-short days balance.

And when I can’t achieve those kinds of balance, I settle for their poor relation: lack of routine. It's one of the very best things about the consultant’s lifestyle. Diamonds one day, diapers the next. But, on balance, I’d rather have balance!

With Both Barrels

By Sarah Wilshaw-Sparkes

At Professionelle, we spend time thinking about issues that affect women in particular. One aspect I hadn’t considered for a while was what a woman does about her surname on marriage, but my twentieth wedding anniversary and a recent chance remark by a Professionelle member made me reflect on it. Not too seriously, though!

The name-change business does still tend to be a one-way street, doesn’t it? Few men sit down to ponder their options on this one. Not even my dear husband, who double-barrelled his name to match mine on our first joint bank account, but then somehow ‘forgot’ to repeat this when we moved to NZ…

One Barrel or Two?

I chose the Double-Barrelled route because the thought of losing my maiden name literally terrified me (yes, I had some Issues!). Needless to say, in public I justified it simply by claiming impatience with patriarchal traditions, which was true enough. At the same time, western norms mean families usually share a name and in that spirit I tacked my husband’s name on. This double surname was a first in both our families. My parents took it onboard very quickly. My husband was also very supportive, but parts of his family took a little longer to accept my decision.

Barrelling Along

Being Double-Barrelled does mean there’s very little chance of anyone else having your surname. You’d have to be in Infinite Improbability Drive to find another BarHava-Monteith, for example. In a world of 6 billion and counting that’s a nice thought. This point doesn’t apply as strongly to the Smith-Joneses, of course, but doubling up reduces even their cohort from the millions to the hundreds.

Double-Barrellers have a much higher incidence of typos in their surnames, of course. I’ve built up a nice collection over the years. I’ve always liked the logical effort by a secretary somewhere, who turned Wilshaw-Sparkes into Wilkshire-Sharp (and a damn fine brand of knife visited her boss’s office that day). The Bad Phone Line prize went to whoever sent a fax to Ms Willshin-Starks, and the surrealism award to the Melbourne hotel that welcomed me as Sarah Wilshaw-Sparkels.

Over A Barrel

The disadvantages are obvious. I often make restaurant reservations in the name of Brown – wouldn’t you? However, the most tedious time came early in my working career in New Zealand, when The Boston Consulting Group took over the consulting company I had joined. The local partners opted for a twin branding strategy during the transition phase. Double-barrelled met double-branded and for twelve tortuous months I had to answer my phone as, “Sarah Wilshaw-Sparkes, The Boston Consulting Group – Pappas Carter Evans & Koop”. Needless to say, half the callers fell asleep before I could finish that mouthful.

Talking of infinite improbability drive as I was above, I did come close to it once. What, do you suppose, are the chances of a consulting company having among its 200 odd consultants two Sarahs with double surnames, who moreover shared a surname initial?! And then sending these Sarahs to work on the same module for the same project, back to back? The client managers couldn't believe they were being hit with first Sarah V-W and then Sarah W-S and resorted, in rabbit-with-bulging-eyes-frozen-in-headlights mode to simply calling me "Sarah Double-Barrelled." Poor loves, I couldn’t blame them.

People ask me what my double-barrelled children will do name-wise if they marry. That’s one aspect that doesn’t worry me. I know they’re smart enough to figure out their own solution!

I’m not sure I would I double-up again if I knew then what I know now. The hassle of the spelling and the introductions can grow a bit tedious. I notice that out of our 200 or so members only five, excluding Galia and me, have double-barrelled surnames…which I suspect says something.

Other Approaches

The other typical options available are the Traditional where you lose your name, the Modern where you keep your name, and the Split Personality where you use your maiden name at work and your husband’s elsewhere. And let’s not forget the option of avoiding the issue altogether by not getting married at all !

It’s a tough question, actually. I wish the Icelandic model were more prevalent, instead of being limited to a population the size of Christchurch’s, huddled on a cold rock in the North Sea. In Iceland, the patronymic system means your surname is a function of your father’s name (infrequently mother’s) and your gender. A family of Mum and Dad and a son and daughter will have four different surnames:

Dad is called FirstName HisDad’sFirstName-son eg Bjorn Hagarson
Mum is called FirstName HerDad’sFirstName-dottir eg Anna Johansdottir
Son is called FirstName Bjornsson
Daughter is called FirstName Bjornsdottir

And they make it work! Maybe family unity doesn't stand or fall on sharing one surname...

I was still mulling it over when one of our rare Double-Barrelled members told me how she and her second husband had sorted it out. It sounded uniquely creative.

One Out of the Box

It seems neither of them liked their surname. She was keen to lose her first husband’s name (even though it was a nice, simple one) and he was fed up with having to repeat and respell his short, but confusing, surname. They agreed to create a new one. He dug into his family tree and found the names of two female ancestors that he liked the sound of. Put together, they made a new identity for the new marriage. Yes, the misspellings that inevitably arise are an annoyance, but, to me, the notion of creating something new by resurrecting ‘lost’ maiden names really appealed.

There’s only one thing I’d change about their approach. I’d want to bring in a name from my tree to match with one from my husband’s. Of course, I’d have to wait for him to get used to the idea, which could take another twenty years… Back to Top

Beauty and the Bikini

by Sarah Wilshaw-Sparkes

I have to believe I’m not the only woman who stands in front of the bathroom mirror in the first days of January and says to herself, “I really need to do something about that...and that...and that...” I bet a lot of us do it. A couple of items on my list have been there for years and others are newer arrivals as pregnancy, nature and lifestyle have taken their toll.

Last year, I decided that instead of beating myself up and making resolutions about impossibly high exercise frequency and impossibly low alcohol consumption, I would actual tackle one of the issues that has troubled me for nearly thirty years. It was one with knock-on benefits of making it more pleasant to get into a swimsuit, and therefore, ultimately to exercise. No, not liposuction, not game for that yet! I’m talking hair removal. Or “permanent hair reduction” as I was to discover the clinics carefully define it.

Before I tell you how I researched and chose a clinic, I’ll cut to the chase.

It’s brilliant. It works. I wish I’d had it done years ago. If my daughter develops the same way as me, I’ll pay for her to get it done so she can enjoy her prime swimsuit years with greater self confidence.

How did I go from sprouting to smooth? Three steps: online research, shopping around and about seven visits. The whole process has taken me nearly a year. If that sounds horrendously long, then go back and read the previous paragraph again. It was worth it.

Online research

I didn’t know anyone who’d had something similar done (or at least, anyone who’d talked about it!) so I headed to the Internet. Techniques and technologies in beauty treatments appear to me to evolve steadily, so I think I’d have done online research in any case.

First, I tried to work out what the different treatment approaches were - bleaching, waxing, electrolysis, lasers to name the common ones. I looked into how permanent their effects were said to be, what skin and hair types they were suitable for, and what technology they use. Next, I cruised bulletin boards looking for horror stories of treatments gone wrong with those particular technologies. Found very few, I’m glad to say! Eventually, I reached a stage where I’d decided laser treatment sounded OK.

Finally, I delved into what was available in Auckland among clinics that had websites. I narrowed the field to three clinics. I liked the ones that

gave me a rough indication of prices
showed some before and after photos
indicated they had a doctor supervising registered nurses, rather than graduates of a beauty course doing their own thing (my own prejudice).

Shopping Around

Don’t skip this part of the process. You wouldn’t BELIEVE the differences in the prices I was quoted by these three clinics for the same (or very similar) technology and for the same number of sessions. The price difference between the most expensive and the cheapest was not twenty percent or even fifty per cent but two hundred per cent. Yes, three fold! In this case, it represented a gap of over a thousand dollars.

I was so amazed I actually emailed the more expensive ones later, pointing out the price discrepancy. One ignored me and the other sent me a note with a brochure of some special offers. As if I’d believe the offer’s value after the pricing I’d experienced!

I went to visit each clinic in person, making it clear that, because this was a whole new area for me, I was looking around before deciding. Each consultation was free. The nurses all wanted to look at the area in question before quoting. That was of course embarrassing, but none of them fainted.

In retrospect, there was little to differentiate them in pleasantness of surroundings, thoroughness of briefing about laser hair reduction and its risks, and the professionalism of staff. One clinic was much further from home; that was the one I went with, though. A thousand dollars buys plenty of petrol even at today’s prices.

The Treatments

For what I was having done, you need between five and seven treatments spaced six to eight weeks apart. That’s why it takes so long.

I began to see a noticeable improvement after the second visit. It takes about half an hour in the early sessions and then falls to about fifteen minutes in later visits.

Does it hurt? Yes. A lot? Not really. My two tips are:

Take the ice pack they offer to numb things down before they begin.
Time of the month makes a difference. Don’t go the week before you’re due to start. It hurt twice as much and the nurse told me many women experience this.

Where did I go in the end? Laser@Ponsonby. Parking has always been surprisingly easy on the main road outside. Tell them I sent you and I’ll get something off my next treatment...whatever that might be...Excuse me, I need to go and stand in front of that bathroom mirror again!

The Best Advice I Ever Received: Don’t baulk at small talk!

by Galia

Starting my professional working life as a junior strategic consultant was up there with some of the most stressful times in my life. I constantly felt inadequate and that I was going to be ‘found out’ at any moment.

So, to over compensate, I adopted the ‘no-nonsense-straight-to-the-point-totally-focused’ persona. Partly because I felt that it was how young professionals should conduct themselves, and partly because I really was loathe to waste managers’ time.

In every meeting I had with my managers, I would dive straight into the issue at hand, rattling through my facts and figures and findings in the most time-efficient, no-nonsense way possible.

About six months in, a very wise, highly respected manager stopped me in my tracks and said, “Before you launch in, just take a breath. Ask me how my weekend was, how my family is, just indulge in some small talk.”

In amazement I asked, “But wouldn’t that waste your time?”

And he said something that has always stayed with me, “You would do well to treat people as a whole and take the courtesy to show some interest in them as individuals not just as work colleagues.”

To this day, I go over my e-mails to soften my straight-to-the point introductions and show that courtesy.

The Best Advice I Ever Gave Myself: Don’t Sell Your Soul

by Sarah

Years ago, before children, and in the days when I was aiming on moving up the ranks in the consulting company I worked for, I had a big a-ha moment.

It was 1992. I have a huge capacity for work and that year I put work, and the needs of the company, first. Every day, every week. If they said jump, I did. If they needed volunteers, I stepped up. I worked weekends, I missed social events. You get the idea. I could not, simply could not, have been more dedicated.

At the end of year came a review with one of the partners. He said to me, “Well, we’re not sure how committed you really are to this firm and to your career.”

I must have goggled at him because he went on, “Someone who was in that late night team meeting you guys had on Project X said you wished you were out in the fresh air, gardening.”

You know how emotion can fix a scene in your mind? I can still see that busy sushi restaurant in a Sydney street, the hard chairs and the carafe of water on the table. I let him have it with both barrels in a way I never have with a senior person before or since. My disappointment at a colleague running telling tales about a moment’s escapist fantasy was nothing compared to my outrage that after all I had done and given - and given up - this was the response. This was how much anyone had noticed or valued the huge efforts I had made.

The moral of the story, folks, is: don’t sell your soul to the firm. The firm will take all you have and still expect more. It’s a hill without a summit.

So, that day in December 1992, I resolved never to give that much again. I would push back, I would keep something of me, for me. And that’s what I did. You want to know what happened?

They promoted me.

First Buy An Octopus

Sarah has never forgotten this article since first seeing it shortly after having her first child - by which time its excellent advice was manifestly too late! It appeared in a June 1996 copy of the National Child Trust’s magazine (Chiswick branch), ©Colin Bowles. It now appears, unattributed, in numerous places on the internet. Colin Bowles writes as Colin Falconer, under which pseudonym he has published numerous novels.

Preparation for parenthood is not just a matter of reading books and decorating the nursery. Here are twelve simple tests for expectant parents to take to prepare themselves for the real-life experience of being a mother or father.

Women: to prepare for maternity, put on a dressing gown and stick a beanbag down the front. Leave it there for 9 months. After 9 months, take out ten percent of the beans. Men: to prepare for paternity, go to the local chemist, tip the contents of your wallet on the counter, and tell the pharmacist to help himself. Then go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office. Go home. Pick up the paper. Read it for the last time.
Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who are already parents and berate them about their methods of discipline, lack of patience, appallingly low tolerance levels, and how they have allowed their children to run riot. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall behaviour. Enjoy it - it'll be the last time in your life that you will have all the answers.
To discover how the nights will feel, walk around the living room from 5pm to 10pm carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 lbs. At 10pm put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, till 1am. Put the alarm on for 3 am. As you can't get back to sleep get up at 2am and make a drink. Go to bed at 2.45am. Get up again at 3am when the alarm goes off. Sing songs in the dark until 4am. Put the alarm on for 5am. Get up. Make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful.
Can you stand the mess children make? To find out, smear Marmite onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains. Hide a fish finger behind the stereo and leave it there all summer. Stick your fingers in the flowerbeds then rub them on the clean walls. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?
Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems: first buy an octopus and a string bag. Attempt to put the octopus into the string bag so that none of the arms hang out. Time allowed for this - all morning.
Take an egg carton. Using a pair of scissors and a pot of paint turn it into an alligator. Now take a toilet tube. Using only sellotape and a piece of foil, turn it into a Christmas cracker. Last, take a milk container, a ping pong ball, and an empty packet of Coco Pops and make an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower. Congratulations. You have just qualified for a place on the playgroup committee.
Forget the MX5 and buy a station wagon. And don't think you can leave it out in the driveway, spotless and shining. Family cars don't look like that. Buy a chocolate ice cream bar and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there. Get a twenty cent piece. Stick it in the cassette player. Take a family-size packet of chocolate biscuits. Mash them down the back seats. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There. Perfect.
Get ready to go out. Wait outside the loo for half an hour. Go out the front door. Come in again. Go out. Come back in. Go out again. Walk down the front path. Walk back up it. Walk down it again. Walk very slowly down the road for 5 minutes. Stop to inspect minutely every cigarette end, piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue and dead insect along the way. Retrace your steps. Scream that you've had as much as you can stand, until the neighbors come out and stare at you. Give up and go back into the house. You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk
Always repeat everything you say at least five times.
Go to your local supermarket. Take with you the nearest thing you can find to a pre-school child - a fully grown goat is excellent. If you intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat. Buy your week's groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Pay for everything the goats eat or destroy. Until you can easily accomplish this do not even contemplate having children.
Hollow out a melon. Make a small hole in the side. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side. Now get a bowl of soggy Weetbix and attempt to spoon it into the swaying melon by pretending to be an aeroplane. Continue until half the Weetbix is gone. Tip the rest into your lap, making sure that a lot of it falls on the floor. You are now ready to feed a 12-month old baby.
Learn the names of every character from Postman Pat, Fireman Sam and Bob The Builder. When you find yourself singing "Postman Pat" at work, you finally qualify as a parent.