Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
I'm a trained general nurse and worked for several years on a general medical/haematology ward.
I did love nursing but always felt dissatisfied with giving it less than 100% of my time and commitment. So when I married and we started a family I never went back.
Now I run an online fair trade retail business with my hubby and we're loving it. It's hard work, we make nothing at the moment but we get to know wonderful people both in the UK and all around the world and make a difference, however small, in the battle against 3rd world poverty :rockon:
That's very cool! You could contact Chris Martin, from the band Coldplay, to help you. He's a big supporter of Fair Trade, if you didn't already know. I just officially switched from big cosmetic corporations to The Body Shop for all toiletries. I stopped buying for a while because of the bad press they were getting but I looked into it more closely and went back to them. The press can be pretty cruel and terribly inaccurate sometimes.
I congratulate you, Sas! Well done!
Love,
Brigid
P.S. If there's anything I can do in Canada for you, just let me know. I'd be more than happy to volunteer.
I grew up in the flower business. My great great grandfather founded a flower shop and greenhouse operation after here came to Canada from Ireland during the Famine in '47. I worked my way up to designer and did that for about 18 years.
I worked for Greenpeace, fundraising, not parachuting off smokestacks.
I worked for a children's festival, and fundraised for charities like The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
I worked in the kitchen of a small hospital as a Dietary Aide, fancy title, back breaking job.
I worked for Cingular Wireless as a Customer Care Rep so if any of you ever have problems with your wireless company, PM me and I'll give you some inside info.
When I was younger I was a cocktail waitress and bartender. That was the dirtiest job I ever held and I'd rather be homeless than go back to doing that.
Now I'm disabled and rely on the government and my employer's insurance company for a small income. I live with my parents, thankfully, because I wouldn't be able to do this on my own.
Above all else I wish to become ordained and devote myself to the Dharma at a monastery called Gampo Abbey, in Nova Scotia. I'm not physically able to yet so I'm living as close as I can to the precepts and immersing myself in study and practice everyday.
I just officially switched from big cosmetic corporations to The Body Shop for all toiletries. I stopped buying for a while because of the bad press they were getting but I looked into it more closely and went back to them. The press can be pretty cruel and terribly inaccurate sometimes.
Thanks Brigid.
As it happens, Body Shop have today announced that the business has been sold (out?:-/ ) to L'Oreal!
Yep L'Oreal of all F**king companies. What a sellout. What a disgrace. Annita Ruddock you are an absolute disgrace.
At least we can all be clear that Body Shop will be testing on Monkey's and Rabbits.
The thing that makes me evil is the mark up in store such as ASDA (Walmart), Tesco and Sainsbury's on fair trade products.
I had the good fortune to meet a Banana farmer from St Kitts last week. He was doing a tour a explained what profit those bastards put on his banana's.
Fact, fair trade product are of highest quality. The quality it ensured because they are grow or producted by small enterprises. Not big exploitive companies that treat their workers like animals.
Fair trade products are the coolest thing. Mrs Karmadillo may I wish you the very best in your enterprise and I think Brian should give you a free add. I mean it.
I'm so angry about this I could just spit.
I read through all the information that was available to the public and it's all a load.
What a horribly shameful thing to have done and I don't care how much pressure she was under. She's publicly talking about "shared vision" BS and she couldn't have sold out any bigger. Shame on you, Anita Roddick!! Shame!!
The thing that makes me evil is the mark up in store such as ASDA (Walmart), Tesco and Sainsbury's on fair trade products.
I had the good fortune to meet a Banana farmer from St Kitts last week. He was doing a tour a explained what profit those bastards put on his banana's.
Fact, fair trade product are of highest quality. The quality it ensured because they are grow or producted by small enterprises. Not big exploitive companies that treat their workers like animals.
Fair trade products are the coolest thing. Mrs Karmadillo may I wish you the very best in your enterprise and I think Brian should give you a free add. I mean it.
I'm so angry about this I could just spit.
I read through all the information that was available to the public and it's all a load.
What a horribly shameful thing to have done and I don't care how much pressure she was under. She's publicly talking about "shared vision" BS and she couldn't have sold out any bigger. Shame on you, Anita Roddick!! Shame!!
Oooooo don't get me started or HH will start looking like Larry the Lamb
Getting the corporations to embrace fair trade, organic and all other things ethical is good... but it so grates, especially when companies like Body Shop, Pret-a-Manger (sold to McDonalds?!), Green & Blacks (fairtrade/organic choc. company sold to Cadburys) sell out. The big corporations and high street shops are starting to cotton on to the fact that consumers want ethical products. Nescafe have a fairtrade coffee now. OK Good they're making an effort, but what about the way they trade the majority of their coffee - not to mention all the other stuff Nestle gets up to!? Marks & Spencers have introduced a new range of fair trade clothing....... but what about the rest of their products??!!
And I agree HH, this is something that annoys us - we don't sell food products, we sell clothing and jewellery and homewares etc. We see the true costs of our products at producer level and sometimes, where we have to use wholesalers, their markups are decidedly dodgy.
ermmmm I'd better shush now because I could go on and on and on and on..........:ot:
Ive got a masters degree in accounting, and when I return to South Africa in a month time I will finish my doctorate, Ive worked with the red cross, build churches in africa, tought english in Brazil, Argentinia, Thailand and India, I worked on my dads farm, Ive waitered, been in the Navy, Ive been a financial manager for Wolseley and B&Q. At the moment I'm working as a cheff. And I have no idea what I want to do with my life.
My biggest problem is that I'm only 27 and Im running out of countries that I can go to with a South African passport. My degrees can get me into basicly any country, but then I'll have to settle for the 9 - 5 corporate job, and that would drive me insane within the first day
I do network administration/computer programming for a school district in Flagler County Florida. I develop programs in C#.NET/ASP.NET/AJAX and use MS SQL Server extensively as well as ActiveDirectory and all the Microsoft server products. I frequent the .NET newsgroups (microsoft.public.dotnet.general). My name on there is DKODE as well.
I used to work closely with the teachers, but now I am creating websites/applications for the Administration staff and creating other stuff to make stuff easier.
It's quite rewarding, and also, I get to work with my friends, we have a great time and all really enjoy working with each other.
I wrote this some time ago, its incomplete but time is limited for me now. ( I hate "time")
What I really want to be when I grow up is a bonsai nursery owner/master bonsai artist/Buddhist counselor, but for now I work for money as an instrument mechanic. My financial plan to get there came from the book; Your Money or Your Life. That book goes very well with Buddhism, but is a whole other topic.
Instrumentation is like metrology in action, the study of weights and measures put to use. I'm reading The Wings to Awakening. In it he talks about feedback loops as an analogy for Karma. Feedback loops are my bread and butter. Think of the cruise control on a car. You have a process sensor; in this case the "speedometer", you have a set point; "the desired speed", you have a control element; "the accelerator, or gas pedal", and you have a controller; "the brain", the brain does the math to tell the control element which way to move to keep the process at the set point. We have feedback control loops for just about anything you can imagine. Volume, flow, temperature, pressure, vacuum,density,speed,weight,PH,conductivity,moisture, always something new comes along. Each loop affects others, and those others, and so on and so on. When the loops are unhappy, no one is happy at work.
Usually its stressful. Sometimes it's dangerous, and I just found out the company has an environmental issue in our community to resolve.
For a long time I felt trapped, the pay and benefits are too good to give up, but the stress was hard to deal with. Early retirement doesn't mean much if it is from a debilitating injury, or death. I was such a disagreeable person at work some of my coworkers still don't talk to me.
Its much better now that I try to do the best I can to help, and let the chips fall, never mind me me me.
I worked doing sub-acute (they get better or go to a Nursing Home) rehab with the elderly as a Physical Therapy Assistant for 12 years. Then Medicare changed their reimbursment system and nation wide lay offs happened. I didn't get laid off but what we were left with as a rehab system didn't work. I went from sending 70% of my patients home to sending none home. (How can you rehab a stroke on 15 minutes three times a week?) So I quit and became and Office Manager at a home care based hospice for 5 years. A little over a year ago I quit that job to bring my 95yo grandmother to my home to care for her. She has dementia and needs someone with her 24/7. I have LOVED all three of these jobs, I am really lucky!
Comments
I did love nursing but always felt dissatisfied with giving it less than 100% of my time and commitment. So when I married and we started a family I never went back.
Now I run an online fair trade retail business with my hubby and we're loving it. It's hard work, we make nothing at the moment but we get to know wonderful people both in the UK and all around the world and make a difference, however small, in the battle against 3rd world poverty :rockon:
So yah.. I'm happy with that
Sas
HH
LOL!!
Sas,
That's very cool! You could contact Chris Martin, from the band Coldplay, to help you. He's a big supporter of Fair Trade, if you didn't already know. I just officially switched from big cosmetic corporations to The Body Shop for all toiletries. I stopped buying for a while because of the bad press they were getting but I looked into it more closely and went back to them. The press can be pretty cruel and terribly inaccurate sometimes.
I congratulate you, Sas! Well done!
Love,
Brigid
P.S. If there's anything I can do in Canada for you, just let me know. I'd be more than happy to volunteer.
I worked for Greenpeace, fundraising, not parachuting off smokestacks.
I worked for a children's festival, and fundraised for charities like The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
I worked in the kitchen of a small hospital as a Dietary Aide, fancy title, back breaking job.
I worked for Cingular Wireless as a Customer Care Rep so if any of you ever have problems with your wireless company, PM me and I'll give you some inside info.
When I was younger I was a cocktail waitress and bartender. That was the dirtiest job I ever held and I'd rather be homeless than go back to doing that.
Now I'm disabled and rely on the government and my employer's insurance company for a small income. I live with my parents, thankfully, because I wouldn't be able to do this on my own.
Above all else I wish to become ordained and devote myself to the Dharma at a monastery called Gampo Abbey, in Nova Scotia. I'm not physically able to yet so I'm living as close as I can to the precepts and immersing myself in study and practice everyday.
Love,
Brigid
Thanks Brigid.
As it happens, Body Shop have today announced that the business has been sold (out?:-/ ) to L'Oreal!
I'm sure HH will have something to say on that!
Sas
I'm soooo disappointed!!
And L'Oreal, of all companies!!
I'm going to have to look into this. I'm hoping they're going to keep the foundational motivation of The Body Shop intact.
Dammit! I'm so angry.
Why, oh, why??
Thanks for letting me know, Sas.
Love,
Brigid
At least we can all be clear that Body Shop will be testing on Monkey's and Rabbits.
As I always say never trust a hippie.
HH
I had the good fortune to meet a Banana farmer from St Kitts last week. He was doing a tour a explained what profit those bastards put on his banana's.
Fact, fair trade product are of highest quality. The quality it ensured because they are grow or producted by small enterprises. Not big exploitive companies that treat their workers like animals.
Fair trade products are the coolest thing. Mrs Karmadillo may I wish you the very best in your enterprise and I think Brian should give you a free add. I mean it.
HH
I read through all the information that was available to the public and it's all a load.
What a horribly shameful thing to have done and I don't care how much pressure she was under. She's publicly talking about "shared vision" BS and she couldn't have sold out any bigger. Shame on you, Anita Roddick!! Shame!!
Brigid
Oooooo don't get me started or HH will start looking like Larry the Lamb
Getting the corporations to embrace fair trade, organic and all other things ethical is good... but it so grates, especially when companies like Body Shop, Pret-a-Manger (sold to McDonalds?!), Green & Blacks (fairtrade/organic choc. company sold to Cadburys) sell out. The big corporations and high street shops are starting to cotton on to the fact that consumers want ethical products. Nescafe have a fairtrade coffee now. OK Good they're making an effort, but what about the way they trade the majority of their coffee - not to mention all the other stuff Nestle gets up to!? Marks & Spencers have introduced a new range of fair trade clothing....... but what about the rest of their products??!!
And I agree HH, this is something that annoys us - we don't sell food products, we sell clothing and jewellery and homewares etc. We see the true costs of our products at producer level and sometimes, where we have to use wholesalers, their markups are decidedly dodgy.
ermmmm I'd better shush now because I could go on and on and on and on..........:ot:
Sas :buck:
Dell
You don't say!
Well no-one could ever say you've led an empty life
May I suggest that there is always the French Foreign Legion. Remember where ever you are in Le Monde they will help.
HH
dell
I used to work closely with the teachers, but now I am creating websites/applications for the Administration staff and creating other stuff to make stuff easier.
It's quite rewarding, and also, I get to work with my friends, we have a great time and all really enjoy working with each other.
Brigid
I wrote this some time ago, its incomplete but time is limited for me now. ( I hate "time")
What I really want to be when I grow up is a bonsai nursery owner/master bonsai artist/Buddhist counselor, but for now I work for money as an instrument mechanic. My financial plan to get there came from the book; Your Money or Your Life. That book goes very well with Buddhism, but is a whole other topic.
Instrumentation is like metrology in action, the study of weights and measures put to use. I'm reading The Wings to Awakening. In it he talks about feedback loops as an analogy for Karma. Feedback loops are my bread and butter. Think of the cruise control on a car. You have a process sensor; in this case the "speedometer", you have a set point; "the desired speed", you have a control element; "the accelerator, or gas pedal", and you have a controller; "the brain", the brain does the math to tell the control element which way to move to keep the process at the set point. We have feedback control loops for just about anything you can imagine. Volume, flow, temperature, pressure, vacuum,density,speed,weight,PH,conductivity,moisture, always something new comes along. Each loop affects others, and those others, and so on and so on. When the loops are unhappy, no one is happy at work.
Usually its stressful. Sometimes it's dangerous, and I just found out the company has an environmental issue in our community to resolve.
For a long time I felt trapped, the pay and benefits are too good to give up, but the stress was hard to deal with. Early retirement doesn't mean much if it is from a debilitating injury, or death. I was such a disagreeable person at work some of my coworkers still don't talk to me.
Its much better now that I try to do the best I can to help, and let the chips fall, never mind me me me.
Emma
Major : Aviation Management with Flight Training (going to become an airline pilot)
Minor : Architecture and Urban Planning (I'll most likely have to pick one of the two)
Brigid