Audra Williams

Video meetings are a great way to make sure projects keep chugging along while you’re working from home. But they don’t replace the relationship building of actually being around your coworkers. For that, you might want to turn to remote team-building activities like online gaming or movie nights.

You can also forge some new connections. Dig deep into your bravery and send a message asking, “Isn’t this wild?” to a coworker you’ve always wanted to befriend. Ask someone to be an accountability buddy, and check in with each other every day to make sure you’re staying on track.

Most people don't have a point of reference for a prison without walls. Most people don't have a point of reference for a prison as a tourist destination, either. But Iwahig Prison and Penal Farm is both of those things: a place where incarcerated men move fairly freely over 64,000 acres and members of the public can come meet them, dance with them, and buy their handicrafts.

Where is Adam Lambert’s line for Gap Kids, promoted with an upbeat commercial of young boys playing with dolls and doing ballet while wearing shiny sparkly glam clothes and lipgloss while Diamond Rings serenades us all?

He then became curious about my own leg situation, asking if I wore heels and stockings, and if I had ever worn a cast. I let him know that I was more of a flat shoes and black tights kind gal, and that I had a knee brace I had to wear sometimes. He got super enthusiastic, sending me four messages in rapid succession: "Wow I want to see it on you. Can you show me? Hello? Done talking to me?"

Supporting women in politics is no longer a controversial move. What few folks have been brave enough to point out, however, is that there is a finite amount of seats to go around. So if we are saying we need more women in politics, we are also saying that there should be fewer men in politics. I don’t make the rules. That’s just math.

Last week saw two celebrity suicides in quick succession. Like clockwork, the hashtag #gethelp immediately began trending on Twitter. I know this imploring comes from a desire for our friends to be okay. But if you have struggled with mental illness, you know that the dominant narrative that “help is just a phone call away” is so untrue that it feels almost cruel.

According to a recent survey by research group The Conference Board, “Developing the next generation of leaders is the third internal concern for CEOs globally.” Meanwhile, Slack’s recent Good Collaboration, Bad Collaboration report found that, “Ten percent of French respondents rated ‘hierarchy’ as a top personal challenge at work.”
There is a clear tension between these two realities.

The formula for a successful road trip is simple. Access to car + amazing snack selection + pre-loaded Google Maps + destination = great times. If you need help on the destination front, here are 10 very surprising rentals within a four-hour drive of Toronto.

Ostracism by coworkers can be at least as damaging as harassment. Here are some ways to navigate and help prevent it.
Five years ago, I quit what was in many ways my dream job. It was a permanent position with benefits, a combination I’d never had before. I quit for a really embarrassing reason: No one really talked to me. Integrating into a new workplace is usually awkward, but it just never got better. There was no hostility, but my efforts to build rapport seemed to die on the vine.

I don’t believe in astrology or numerology; I don’t think there’s anything to be gleaned from magic crystals or the leaves at the bottom of my teacup. But I’ve been afraid of ghosts for as long as I can remember, so in December, I asked three friends to take the course with me at $21 a pop.

After my weird and perilous childhood, "anxious and hopeful" is sort of where I landed. I'm thankful that Watcher in the Woods and Stranger Things tell a story that shows those feelings can still be at the center of a happy ending. You just need people around you who will always believe you about your experiences, no matter how unlikely they sound.

Dudes (and white people) think that as long as they express the right ideas in public, and don’t actually insist any women make them actual sandwiches, they can keep on enjoying being at the top of the food chain and never have to do anything they don’t want to do, or ever not get to do anything that they do want to do. They feel their awareness can change the world, or that their guilt mitigates the impact of their privilege.

When we are bombarded with body-shaming and narrow definitions of fitness every day, it can feel like an act of rebellion to just check out of exercise completely. But if you are someone who has felt chills of recognition when reading about of the ways that trauma can live on in our bodies, you might long for an entry point into building physical strength that doesn’t feel like opting into the gym industrial complex.

Even for a kid-free person who has been around babies a lot, it’s hard to know what our new parent friends need. Should we try to make plans to hang out with you or is it stressful to get those kinds of invites when you are adjusting to your new life? Should we comment on your posts about adjusting to having a baby or are you only looking to hear from fellow parents? Please feel free to let us know if you are not getting what you need from us.

I see so many women slogging away at day jobs they don’t love that leave little space for their own creative work, while making excuses for their male partners’ stagnation and lack of productivity. It hurts my heart for all of us. Can we please stop propping up these dud(e)s who aren’t propping us up back? Can we please expect our partners to be partners? Think of all the great art we could make!!! Or at least naps we could take.