Diversity and Inclusion council at Work!

Fresh off the memory, i rarely write something so afresh, this post is of the events occurred in less than 18 hours..

here i go !!

Cultures and civilizations are centered around Food, Food is centered around source of Water !
why do i say this ?
D cafe is our Food area, event based food catering do not email alerts, folks who are part of the event only get those alerts, but then you have Human communication, 1 person gets to know there is food in cafeteria, it spreads like wild fire, especially when it is 7 pm, just perfect for late workers who cannot afford time to spend to Dinner..

I was one of those, we went to grab some bites and i see what, folks who inspire me are sitting in board room, yes same board room which was spa room for chair massages on other blog, with open doors, getting ready to seat and start a well organized event named 'Diversity and Inclusion'..

My eyes lit up, i said, lets do this, i had not enrolled, i saw empty chair, hopped on to it, as i had RSVPed attitude, then realized i was not in minority, many other folks rolled their chairs and into board room and Door closed !

Journey begins, format of the 90 mins sessions is listed, classic corporate style, corporate style brings in lots of good time managements with it!
TED talk was the 1st on agenda to set the ball rolling, TED talk once it starts, in todays world it is natural to get good attention to the video and listen in to the message on it.
I like this idea, best ice breaker is the TED talk.. yes yes, this works all the time.. i am going to use it very often now to set the stage!

Event management, classic team creation, folks start self-assigning numbers in room on 40 folks, 1. 2. 3,, 1. 2. 3.. at the end, all 1s are one group, 2s are second group and so on, so forth !

Pen, paper , stationary is all taken care of, 3 leaders are also identified, man, this is next level planning.. all participants are given a sheet to list 5 things / places they identify themselves with..

Our team had 6 folks, i will name then as D1.. D6

@D1 - Swimmer / country side girl
@D2 - immigrant / desi - pak
@D3 - immigrant / desi  1/2 Indian, 1/2 Pak
@D4 - immigrant / desi - Indian
@D5 - immigrant / hispanic
@D6 - Big family women / animal rights
@D7 - california girl

this room with 40 folks came with open mind to discuss their different cultural backgrounds, to learn and share their stories.

It is good to know person from within, you can connect better, understand temperaments, understand priorities, values etc, this is so helpful in team building activities.
a forum like this just expedites knowing each other, organic relationship building will take its own time, but event based, long drives, trip based, situation based will be very easy!

back to the @Tedtalk topic, Ted talk
https://www.ted.com/talks/rebeca_hwang_el_valor_de_nuestra_diversidad_interna/transcript?language=en

Celebrating the dual / triple origin stories, be a sponge absorbing diff cultures, not many folks on earth are lucky to have been exposed to diff food , diff ppl, religions, regions, etc..
so yes, embrace the duality, plurality of YOU!

So cheers to the leaders who gave such a thought to include Diversity and Inclusion as a topic !

Long Live global Citizens !

Cheers..
Earth

Wellness Week at work!

It is wellness week at work, glad that our management decided to host 1 week out of 52 weeks dedicated to Wellness events.

Events namely,
1. Chair Yoga
2. Fresh Juice tasting
3. Chair massages.

@Chair Yoga - turned out be super fun 30 mins, after this session, i look at the chair as yoga mat, well just because i used the work yoga mat do not include me in your imaginations as Yoga practitioner, i am far from it.

The lesson was taught via recorded video on our colleague Demoing the same on large screen, we could connect easily with the steps ! hurray !

@Fresh Juice, turned out be busy corridor traffic as soon as message was received via email that Juice are here in Cafteria ! D-cafe! all the red ones were gone, red meaning - beet roots, folks are educated now not pick non sugary drinks, we were left with lemon, ginger, orange, mint , not bad juice, we picked 2 mini 8 oz bottles and headed back to our desks !
Then starting sugar count discussions, guess what, some rules i guess, local made food need not be printed with nutrition details, so even better guilt free gulping on 16 oz flavorful juices !

@Chair Massages, very organized to begin with, online portal to book slots on the day of massage, automated emails with Masseuse information, we stood outside our board room, which was now converted to a jazzy spa, well these days all portable items make it easy to convert any place to any place :)
Massage session started, no questions asked, guess i got the Leader masseur who took control of things and started with my back, i kept the cool and continued the bear the pain as my muscles started talking.. after few mins, masseur discussed about lack of stretching to be the reason, he wished me good and suggested more sessions, on my way out i picked some mint, the Polo the Mint with the hole types.. last year i had missed this session, super occupied with work, this year will have no regrets to have attended it ! hurray!