Brothel bar

The other day in the lobby of my Hong Kong hotel, I ran into PocketMan, a fellow I met several years ago in Sydney and haven't really been in touch with since. We ended up going out for a drink my last night in Hong Kong, a city PocketMan knows well since he travels there for work nearly every month.

We went to Aqua Bar, with a spectacular view of the harbor. After catching up over a few drinks, we headed back toward the hotel and passed an alley where a little old lady stood and implored passers-by to get a drink. Clearly, it was a shady, shady venture, but PocketMan felt up for a little adventure and pulled me into the alley.

We made our way through the alley, past an older man and a little boy eating dinner on some stacked crates, and into a tiny little bar. In the bar sat a blond man with a little Asian lady hanging all over him. Behind the bar were three young Asian girls wearing tank tops with plunging necklines. They had listless expressions on their faces and leaned against the bar so that their breasts looked fuller.

After approximately two seconds in the doorway, I decided I couldn't stand to be in the bar a second longer, especially since I couldn't handle the overwhelming stench of urine. I told PocketMan that I wasn't staying and he tried to convince me to stay for just one drink. I declined and walked out.

At the alley's entrance, a different lady, older than the first, asked, "Why you no stay for drink?"

Huffily, I answered, "Because it stinks like piss in there!" and briskly walked away, with PocketMan following quickly behind.

I'm not the kind of panda who likes to support prostitution, especially where the girls are probably underage, sold into the sex trade by their parents and clearly unhappy to be involved. But I guess it makes for an interesting introduction to Hong Kong's seedier underbelly - and an awkward end to my Asian trip.

Let's talk about sex, baby

Today was one of those days that make it all worthwhile. I feel inspired, that my work is meaningful and that there's a sense of purpose behind what I do.

For a bit of context, let me rewind a day. At one point during yesterday's Mekong Delta tour, our guide discussed the country's problem with population control, contributed in part by an unwillingness to discuss sex in Vietnamese culture. As a consequence, not only is unwanted pregnancy on the rise, so are STDs like HIV/AIDS.

Cut to today's factory visit. We recently partnered with a Vietnamese factory to invest in a factory-based health education program for women in developing countries, and today I had the chance to observe a training session.

Since the training was conducted entirely in Vietnamese, I didn't understand the content, but I got a sense of the discussion from the condoms, leaflets and birth control pills that were being used as props and handed out. I especially liked the photo used on one of the instructor's slides, pasted for your convenience above.

Entering today's training, I was worried that the training session might be fruitless, given my understanding of the discomfort surrounding talking about sex. The women in the session, however, seemed very engaged throughout the doctor's presentation. And when it came time for questions, they were eager to learn more! The participants seemed hungry for this information and it was clear that these concepts were new to them. I was relieved to see this level of engagement and felt good that our investment was not in vain.

Today's visit also included a meeting with the factory's management team, who shared some of their experiences in implementing the program. Sure, they cited some frustrations, but most of them had to do with logistics and not the core content of the training. Everyone seemed to believe in the importance of delivering health training. There are opportunities to deliver the program more smoothly, but nothing that cannot be overcome.

But what I didn't expect was to hear the factory managers cite this investment as a potential competitive advantage. Even though the training program was launched only a few months ago, they have already seen participants taking these learnings back to their families and communities. The factory is beginning to earn a reputation as a preferred employer and people in the community seem to appreciate the added investment in worker education. In a time when all factories, across all industries, face tremendous challenges in recruiting Vietnamese workers, this is an obvious business benefit.

In thinking about my career path, I never would have imagined that I'd spend a day at work sitting in a sex ed class in Vietnam, but today has turned out to be one of the most gratifying days of my career.

Boys for sale

For my last day on wool duty, I went to Wellington to observe a ram auction, wherein stud breeders sell their 2-year-old boy rams to other farmers who believe the rams' DNA will help them yield better wool, meat or both. About 10 farms were represented, each with a pen of 12 rams or so.

I saw the farmers whom I'd met in my previous two days and they, their wives and their children welcomed me like an old friend. It was very much a family outing where kids gleefully chased each other around, wives caught up and gossiped, and the men talked shop (or sheep, in this case).

For the first part of the day, prospective buyers went around the pens to inspect each ram and to chat with the stud raisers, thinking about which sheep to bid on. Bidders pulled wool apart, checked out the rams' hindquarters, pat their backs and checked to see how loose their skin was.

Each ram had a card that described different attributes of wool type, "carcass" type and some even had family trees posted above them. A few farms posted signs noting that they retained the right to "50% of semen," to be extracted "at buyer's convenience and at seller's cost." It was a very different way to spend a Saturday, indeed.

When the actual auction began, it was very much like the events one sees on the tee-vee, where a man stands up and starts talking very quickly and very loudly. Bidders either raised their hands or nodded definitively and I tried to stand as still as possible, so as not to acidentally take home a $2,000 ram.

I'm sure I was being paranoid, however, because no one mistook me for a local. In fact, before the auction began, one of the organizers announced that I was visiting from the States and that I had been learning about wool farming. Little old ladies came up to me to discuss my job and to discuss New York while some of the older farmers offered me beers.

Also present were a woman and her daughter, raising money for melanoma research. The farmers agreed that 10% of each farm's top-selling stud would benefit the cause these two ladies represented. The daughter was planning to ride a horse across Australia in order to raise more money for research - a journey that was scheduled to take her approximately three months.

I don't think many people from the US get the chance to visit an event that's so far out of their element, so I was grateful for the experience. These farmers are hard-working, family-oriented men who dedicate their entire lives to their livelihood. They have a wonderfully welcome and tight-knit community and are trying the best they can to promote a product and industry they love. Even though I ruined a pair of shoes in the past few days, I feel very lucky to have experienced what I did.

Health class

In high school, I had to take the mandatory semester of health class, where we learned about physical fitness, sex education and nutrition from an older man with too much energy who talked like a gnome. I wasn't so great at concentrating in this class and my health education culminated in getting kicked out during the final exam for talking and being asked to return once I completed it. Once finished, I came back and passed out donuts to a few of my friends.

Now that our company is investing in a health education program with some of the factories that produce our goods, I sure hope none of the factory workers we enroll have the same cavalier attitude I did in high school.

While in Ho Chi Minh last week, I had the chance to kick off this initiative with a factory and the local Vietnamese NGO that will be delivering the health education curriculum. Essentially, we're sponsoring a program that helps female factory workers gain a better understanding of reproductive health, nutrition and sexually transmitted diseases, among other health issues. In turn, factories experience lower absenteeism rates, reduced turnover and higher productivity, thanks to healthier workers. And investing in women has impact beyond just those who experience the health training. Women take what they learn, apply it to their families and help to uplift entire communities.

The local NGO partner shared the approach, plan, curriculum and impact assessment with me and the factory management team and made sure to point out that "We don't discourage sex, we just want them to be safe!" I think this made the Korean managers a bit uncomfortable.

After the kick-off meeting, we had a chance to tour the factory, meet some of the workers who would be participating and discuss additional outstanding issues. The factory tour also proved illuminating because it is a very well-run and organized facility. It's one of the nicest factories I've ever visited, so I'm glad we've chosen a high-performing partner to launch this initiative with.

I feel lucky that I've had the opportunity to bring this program to my company's supply chain and I enjoyed participating in the kick off. These are the kinds of projects that make me excited for my job and keep me optimistic about the impact my role can have. In addition to this facility in Vietnam, one factory in Bangladesh is also implementing the project with our sponsorship. As we monitor the performance of these projects, I'm hopeful that we will be able to demonstrate both health benefits and business benefits so that we can continue to launch similar initiatives with other high-performing garment factories in our supply chain.

The unsparkly side of making jewelry

Yesterday I had the opportunity to visit a jewelry factory for the first time. This wasn't a high-end factory that fashions pieces out of precious metals and semi-precious stones. Instead, it was a factory that churns out the very trendy costume jewelry that's found in women's fashion stores everywhere.

My first impression was that the factory was much smaller than any other I'd ever been to before. Unlike clothing factories that are several floors tall with multiple, long production lines next to one another, the jewelry factory was very modest, with only a handful of tables around which workers performed their tasks.

It was also remarkably more quiet than a typical clothing factory where the whir of sewing machines or knitting machines is ever-present in the background. In this facility, there was hardly any sound and each worker simply sat at her station - polishing stones, searching for imperfections on beads or linking plastic "jewels" together.

The factory was also spotless. Whereas clothing factories tend to have stray pieces of fabric and thread floating around, the floors of this facility were free of any debris. And I found the raw materials storage to be interesting. Instead of huge shelves with bolts of fabric, there was a simple room with plastic jars filled with different colored and shaped beads and rolls of chains and ribbon.

So, overall, it was a good factory ... until I stuck my nose in the back. Adjacent to the factory was another room that was poorly lit and filthy. I asked the production manager what was happening in this room and he explained that it was legally a separate factory, even though it was housed in the same building. Without any distinctive sign or a separate entrance, it was hard for me to believe that it truly was a separate factory. And to outsiders, there really is no way to differentiate one from another.

We decided to walk through this second factory, even though it wasn't technically the one we were auditing. The air was think with cigarette smoke and cigarette butts were strewn all over the floor. Unlike the other factory's production tables, this factory's was smaller, with more workers cramped around it. A few workers seemed to be doing their tasks while seated on the floor and there were piles of trash accumulating in the corners.

Another room had four men casting metals for intricate pieces. They sat at their stations, fixed the rubber casts together and poured molten-hot liquids into the centrifuge, creating mixed-metal pieces. Other workers in this room were polishing these metal pieces furiously.

Three men in another room were filing down beads onto a huge, whirring sander. As we entered, the woman in charge of this section of the factory handed out flimsy masks and gloves to the workers. Clearly, they hadn't been wearing any personal protective equipment before our arrival.

In yet another room, large drums spun rocks and water together, creating stones for jewelry with smooth edges. A man in flip-flops loaded the machines, added chemicals to create the desired effects, and released the water onto the ground and down a drain - one that seemed to go directly into the ground below the facility without being treated.

In the final room we walked through, workers concentrated as they used tiny soldering instruments to fuse chains and metal pieces together. Without any eye protection, I had to wonder if they were in any danger from leaning into such a dangerous-looking activity.

The two factories were night-and-day and it was shocking to see how deplorable the conditions were in the second factory. I can't say for certain that it truly is a second factory, but the one we visited showed us the separate business licenses and rental agreements. Even so, the poorer factory may be a raw materials supplier to the one we contract with - definitely something to look out for.

And walking through the factory's boardroom, I saw samples from almost every major women's clothing and accessories retailer in the US. It produces beautiful work and obviously supplies many brands, but my visit highlighted for me some of the riskier aspects of working in the accessories business.

Dust to dust

In a few short hours, I'll be getting on a plane and leaving dusty Jordan. Throughout our travels the past two days, I've noticed that everything here is very monochromatic. It's all the color of sand and dust - not so interesting.

Jordan has been an interesting experience because the garment industry relies heavily on migrant labor for workers. Companies like mine need to be careful of cases where factory managers refuse workers their fair wages or keep their passports locked up, thereby rendering them indentured servants.

This country is full of challenges from a sourcing perspective, and I feel like my visit has answered a few questions, but opened up a heck of a lot more. We met with representatives from an ILO-sponsored program that seems promising as a means to help mitigate our risk as a brand that's sourcing here, but it's tough to let go of another layer of control. That said, the ILO could definitely give us some credible cover should anything go awry here.

I'm glad I had the chance to visit a few factories here. Some good ones will be added to our supply base, but there were a few that I definitely don't feel comfortable working in. Fortunately, my Sourcing team agreed and we won't be doing business with the poorer factories.

I didn't get to do any sightseeing, but on the way back to the hotel this evening, I saw some camels on the roadside!

Car service

For dinner tonight, I went to a really lovely restaurant with two former co-workers who are also in town for The Nonprofit's conference. We asked our hotel to order us up a taxi and learned that it would be 15-20 minutes. After approximately 45 minutes, we were still waiting and the poor hotel boy (a Cornell student) kept calling the taxi company with no luck.

Finally, he offered to drive us to the resaurant in the hotel's big white van. It was very kind of him and it was the sort of above-and-beyond service that you don't really experience much these days.

After our meal, we were in the same predicament. Our restaurant couldn't get through to the taxi dispatcher and a waitress, a very kind, soft-spoken woman from Beijing, offered to drive us back to the hotel on her way home. We were the last people in the restaurant and it was clear they wanted us out, but again, such a phenomenally kind gesture!

And thank goodness for these acts of kindness because otherwise, we probably would have had to settle for the hotel restaurant!

Township tour

This morning, Charlotte York and I joined a group of geriatric Brits on a visit to the District 6 Museum, followed by a tour of Langa Township. It was a great way to learn about some of the effects of apartheid and brought some perspective to our Cape Town adventuring.

The District 6 Museum is an installation that was apparently supposed to last only two weeks, but has been around for over a decade. Our wonderful guide explained that the Group Areas Act forced the segregation of neighborhoods according to citizens' skin color. As a result, Cape Town's District 6 neighborhood was devastated when it was declared for whites only.

All non-whites were shipped off to Townships and the area was bulldozed, to ready the land for white people to purchase. Sadly, the area never fully recovered and continues to grow, now that apartheid has ended, but it serves as a sad reminder of the country's shameful past.

Our visit to the Langa Township was pretty unpleasant, mostly because we were a tour group of approximately 20 people. Langa Township is the Western Cape's first township and our tour included visiting peoples' homes, a pre-school and a traditional healer. Going into peoples' homes was very awkward and uncomfortable, but it was definitely eye-opening to see the squalor in which people live.

However, some of the other tourists managed to make the experience downright disrespectful. For example, one older man asked to take a picture of the family living in the home we were visiting, but he insisted, "Do not smile!"

I'm of two minds when it comes to these types of tours. On one hand, it definitely feels like you're swooping in on a community, disrupting daily life and viewing people as if they're animals in a zoo. On the other hand, I know that the tourism brings light to the challenges they face and these tours in particular helped to fund pre-schools in the community.

But at the end of the day, I'm glad I had the chance to visit Langa and get out into the community, no matter how contrived the experience.

"This is America happening"

Internets, we have a new President of the United States of America! Watching coverage of the inauguration this morning, it was impossible for me to avoid comparing today's event to the inauguration I witnessed in person eight years ago.

Millions of Americans flocked to DC to be a part of this event - one that was hopeful, optimistic, gleeful and filled with promise. Eight years ago, however, the mood was definitely more sour.

This country ushered in George W. Bush as its President on the heels of a stolen election, on a miserable, gray day with freezing rain and angry protests. The tension, the hatred and the sadness were all palpable that day and W. was the first President who was unable to walk to the Capitol, out of concern for his safety.

And while that day was so sad and deflating, the images of today's inauguration, full of celebration and under clear, sunny skies, have me hopeful that the greatness of this country can be restored.

Take me to your leader

Just a few years ago, who'd have thunk that the American people would elect a black man named Barack Hussein Obama as their next president? Amazing.

I went over to Puppy's last night to watch the returns with a dozen or so flaming liberals who hooted and hollered at the television screen as the results came in. But while it seemed like the entire nation erupted in elation when Obama was declared victorious (and after McCain gave a very nice and very measured concession speech), my fair neighborhood feels wounded after the hateful Proposition 8 passed, writing discrimination into California's state constitution.

In the grand scheme of things, Obama had to win, so I'm grateful. And I'm confident that someday this country is going to come to its senses and truly embrace the sentiment that "all men are created free and equal."

The new Seinfeld

With less than two weeks until Election Day, it appears that watercooler conversation has shifted from "Must See TV" topics to increasingly heated political races. As an example, Mattress and Beetle hosted a delicious little dinner gathering last night where most of the conversation centered around Obama, McCain, Prop 8, Measure K and other newsworthy subjects. Where normally the conversation would not stray from topics like trannies, our friends' antics, upcoming parties, reality television, wigs, food and makeup, our conversation last night took a more earnest tone, given these uncertain times.

And the same seems to be true in every other corner of my life. Polite conversation once limited discussion of politics and religion, but exploring both seem to be quite en vogue, whether I'm at home, at work, at the gym or casually walking down the street. And while I'm enjoying the healthy debate, in many ways I'm looking forward to a few weeks from now when the most pressing issues my friends will discuss are the ones we witness on Gossip Girl and The Hills.

Strategery deck

So, after seven whole days on the job, I met with my supervisor to go over a draft of my proposed strategy. It was a very interesting exercise, seeing as how I still don't fully grasp what it is my new company does. Nonetheless, I put a few graphs on some slides, made some bullet point lists and walked her through it.

I'm not sure my supervisor really appreciates the value of having a stated strategy or direction. She's definitely a task-master and someone who takes conversations into the tactical details. I, on the other hand, tend to think big-picture and build frameworks to organize the work that has to get done. Hopefully, our perspectives will complement each other, but right now, I'm finding it difficult to get her to understand that I struggle to work on some day-to-day tasks without an idea of what the larger goal is I'm trying to achieve.

Whereas at my last company this strategy would have taken months to perfect and approximately 50 meetings to solicit input, my supervisor pretty much green-lighted it. Even if she doesn't see the need or value for it, I seem to have free reign to do as I like. And I think this is going to work just fine...

White pea

I learned recently that the head coach of my childhood United States Swim team passed away a few weeks ago from prostate cancer. While growing up, he was always this towering figure whose stern demeanor instilled fear in my little heart. He'd be on deck, all 6'+ of him, wearing his wayfarers (you could never see his eyes) and sporting some sort of Hawaiian shirt with flowers or palm trees or something.

His sense of humor was a little off, so you could never tell if he was being serious, but that's what added to his mystique and frankly, kept me frightened of him. He had a reputation for being a tough coach with a short temper, but also a great coach whose swimmers went on to Olympic glory. All throughout my childhood, I admired his swimmers who consistently broke national records, seemed huge and powerful, and appeared to be demi-gods.

When I turned 14, I moved into his group and had the chance to experience his coaching style firsthand. In that year, I made the most significant gains in my swimming (puberty may also have had something to do with it), but I also learned how to train hard. For as much (or as little) talent that was in my bones, it was clear that I had to work hard to get better. And to earn his respect.

It's true that he was a hard coach and expected the most out of his swimmers, but he also had a soft side that he rarely showed. We were required to keep workout logs where we'd record our feelings about practice every day - and he would review these logs from time to time. He always wrote the most inspiring words of encouragement and it showed that he believed in my talent in a way that no one had before. He pushed me to get better and to strive for greatness. In may ways, he helped instill in me a sense of confidence that carries me through my life today.

He also helped me understand that swimming could be a team sport. Your teammates helped to carry you to greatness, but they also could help tear you down. I remember one brutal swim meet in the middle of summer where he made me swim the 400 Individual Medley, a horrific event that I was not at all good at. It was the last day of the meet and all I wanted to do was get it over with, finish the meet and go home. I finished in 27th place or something ridiculous like that, so I returned that evening for the finals session all dry and ready to cheer on my teammates. Sadly for me, enough people had scratched the finals so that I was in 10th place. And scheduled to swim it against one other person in the consolation heat of finals. I certainly didn't want to go head-to-head with someone who had beaten me by a wide margin that morning. And I certainly didn't want to endure that brutal race again!

But despite my imploring, my coach made me commit to the race. He helped me see that it was an opportunity to better myself. To rise above the situation and to improve (even though I had earned a best-ever time that morning). And I remember clearly, swimming this race against one other person, with my entire team at the ends of the lane, cheering me on, while a handful of his teammates cheered for him. And I felt myself being buoyed by my teammates in a way that I had never felt before. Not only did I win my race, but I shaved of more than 10 seconds from my earlier swim - and clearly it's an event I remember nearly two decades later.

The sense of team really was something that I learned that year, and one that I made sure to encourage in my future swimming (and work) situations. This coach definitely made me a stronger, better person today and I'm sad to hear of his passing. From the response I've seen to his memorial service, it's clear he touched the lives of so many people and I'm sure they all have that same sense that they would not be the person they are today were it not for him. Even if you could never see into his eyes and he scared us all shitless.

All work and no play

Over dinner tonight, I told a co-worker about something I witnessed yesterday during my mall tour of Delhi. The mall opened four months ago, but much of its space was unoccupied and under construction. Storefronts were boarded up, the sound of hammering rung heavy in the air and dust-covered construction workers roamed the floors.

The third floor, at which one end housed a food court, was the uppermost floor with retail operations. All the other floors above the third were still under construction.

Next to the food court was an extensive playground and arcade for children. Dozens of children were running around, squealing, laughing and attacking the brightly colored jungle gym. Other children were playing video games and still more were frolicking in the bounce house.

I looked up and saw that the next two levels were mezzanines overlooking the playground. On the next level was a boy who could not have been older than 12 years old. He was wearing a dirty kurta and was covered in white dust. He held onto a piece of cloth, bundled to drag a several dozen broken rocks or pieces of concrete and he looked longingly at the kids playing below.

A similarly dressed boy stood next to him, dragging him back to work and away from the edge of the floor. It was truly one of the most heartbreaking things I've ever seen.

I'm just here for lunch

This morning, one of our Indian social and environmental compliance auditors took me to a handwork center where workers apply beads and sequins to garments by hand. One of the things I like best about traveling for work is that I get to see areas of cities that tourists normally wouldn't get access to and I can see how real citizens of a community live.

We drove to the outskirts of Delhi where streets are narrow, there was mud and cow dung all over the unpaved roads and people lined the sidewalks. I'd never seen this much concentration of poverty before and it was kind of disconcerting. Stalls were open selling fruit, juices and other wares, but seriously filty and malnourished people were just out and about, going at their daily routines or just sitting there, existing.

We meandered through the streets and went up a narrow flight of stairs to a small room on the third floor of a building. In it, 21 men sat on the floor, diligently applying silver beads to women's tops with a red and white floral pattern. To me, the garment was kind of hideous so I was glad to learn that the product was not The Corporation's, but a competitor's.

I learned that this particular art of beading and sequinsing is done by men only. It's a trade that's been passed through generations and is considered an Indian handicraft. The effect cannot be replicated by machine, so many brands must rely on hand work to accomplish the effect.

Per each order, a group of men will be hired to work for the duration of time until the order is complete. Thus, depending on the size of the order, the number of workers in the room can range from 15 to 30. And during this period, they receive a wage per garment finished, a food stipend of 50 rupees per day (the cost of my ample lunch yesterday!) and they receive lodging through the night. For those craftsmen who are skilled enough to perform this task, it is apparently a good way to make money to support a family.

I'd never seen a hand work center of this nature before and it was quite a contrast to the garment factories I've visited. There's no production line, just a worker with a bag of beads and a garment stretched on a hoop. A television and radio were available for entertainment and they seemed content to be working.

The center's manager took us a few buildings down and we visited another one of his centers on the building's top floor. This one housed 15 men applying beads to the same product. After checking through this facility, we walked down a flight of steps and my co-worker asked what the other rooms in the building were used for. The manager responded that he didn't know because they belonged to other businesses.

Curious, my co-worker opened one of the doors and was startled to see a small cramped room in which about two dozen men were sewing shirts for a local Indian brand. One boy who looked like he was nine-years-old (he was probably 14 - all workers I've ever seen in factories look very young for their ages) and when my co-worker asked how old he was, he responded, "I'm just here for lunch."

Fortunately, this facility has no relationship to The Corporation, but it hammered home the plight that India's poor face. Poverty-stricken families send (or sell) their children to work and earn a wage. They depend on every able-bodied member of the family to contribute to the family's subsistence. Education is not an option for them and their concerns are immediate: putting food on the table for tonight.

It broke my heart to see such conditions since I'd only ever seen factories that The Corporation uses. And despite what people may think, The Corporation has one of the most rigorous social and environmental programs in the industry. The factory I visited later in the day was a stark contrast: orderly cut & sew lines, workers with age documentation and employment contracts, clean canteens that served healthy meals and protective equipment for each worker. We were given access to wage and hour records and we were allowed to interview random workers individually.

But regarding the handwork centers, we expressed concerns to the manager that his operations were in close proximity to facilities that would never be approved by The Corporation. We encouraged him to relocate his centers so that his work wouldn't be in the same building as a facility that clearly operated unethically and employed child labor. Even though the makeshift factory was not working for The Corporation, we want to make sure we distance ourselves from conditions we cannot approve.

By the afternoon, the handwork manager had consolidated his operations into one building where he could oversee working conditions and we were free to audit on an announced or unannounced basis.

I know we alone cannot change some of the horrible human tragedies that occur in the global garment industry, but I am glad to work for a company that is doing what it can, has been making continuous progress and is protecting the workers who make the products that The Corporation sells.

Blog-o-licious

I just came out of a meeting with a member of our Corporate Communications team where we discussed blogging. Every time we talk about blogging at The Corporation, I get a little nervous about my own contributions to the blogosphere.

Is Chiieew! in violation of a newly designed policy? Is Panda!!!! about to receive a pink slip? I never really know...

Fortunately, we were talking about whether or not we should consider creating a blog, rather than punishing all the employee bloggers who might write mean things about The Corporation. Not that I ever would. Are you reading this, Corporate Communications? I would never malign The Corporation! I am a happy, happy employee working for a lovely and respectful, perfect-in-every-way company!

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights

One of the things I like most about my work at The Corporation is the opportunity to discuss issues that go beyond the typical realm of corporate dialogue. Sure, I enjoy a hearty discussion about sales, profits, budget forecasting, internal hurdle rates and the rest, but I find myself more engaged when we discuss the impact that our business operations have on people, communities, economies and the environment.

These discussions are made even richer when we invite a diversity of perspectives from outside The Corporation, and even outside the corporate world.

Today, we are hosting a meeting at The Corporation where we've been discussing the duty of companies to respect universal human rights, as defined by international norms such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To sit in a room full of executives from around the world, former heads of state, special representatives to the UN and other leaders in both the private and public sectors is sort of a luxury. To think that The Corporation allows me to participate in an ongoing dialogue originally started by Eleanor Roosevelt is also kind of cool.

To the red, to the black

Panda!!!! is incredibly lucky to have the Swerve, a group of gal-pals whose enduring friendship began more than a decade ago, in a brightly-lit pool at a liberal arts college in nowheresville, CT. Through our common experiences as members of the same university swim team, we have bonded through thrillingly close races, traumatic early morning runs in Florida, mountainous breakfast feasts and marathon boozey dance parties, fueled by Madonna and Prince.

We're now spread across three countries in four time zones, but we manage to have real-time conversations on topics ranging from blood doping in professional sports, frightening academic endeavors with unkind professors, superhuman triathlon triumphs, impending parenthood, touchy-feely co-workers, theories about "Lost", the bleak state of the American educational system, confusing punctuation rules, Rihanna videos, global efforts to bring organizational structure to the internets, and most importantly, what we've eaten for lunch.

More than helping me get out of my Corporation-assigned cube on a daily basis, the Swerve offers unwavering support, sound advice, an eager audience for my frustrations and above all else, the opportunity to chuckle.

Scaredy Panda!!!!

Coming to Los Angeles without a car may not have been the smartest move. Last night, after meeting up with friends in West Hollywood, I had to make my way to the lovely city of Commerce to check into my hotel and get some sleep before the jobby part of my visit began.

Mapquest informed me that it would take about 30 minutes to make the journey, so my friend called a taxi to come pick me up around midnight. The dispatcher assured us that a cab would be over in 12 minutes. Well, 30 minutes later, a black SUV with tinted windows rolled up and asked if we had called a cab. I timidly replied that we had, and he declared that he was the cab driver, shaking his radio above his head as proof.

After about five minutes of assuring us that he was indeed a legitimate taxi driver, and that he just drove an unmarked car, I entered the backseat, still skeptical, but very tired and very eager to get to my hotel.

As we traveled along the freeway, the taxi driver noticed that one of his back wheels was making a strange sound. Was that metal on asphalt? He believed he had a flat tire. So, he pulled off the freeway, somewhere in East LA. I looked around and realized we were in quite an unsavory neighborhood. He pulled over, stopped the car and got out to look at his back tire.

At this point, many thoughts ran through my head and I began furiously texting my friend so that I could be in contact with someone (while trying to maintain my panda cool, so that the taxi driver wouldn't realize that I understood he was about to shoot me in the head). "What is he reaching for in the trunk?" "Is his partner going to jump out from that alley and attack me?" "Does he really have a flat tire? And if so, what if someone senses that we are helpless victims?" "Why the hell did I get into a 'taxi' without any proper taxi markings?"

The taxi driver drove a few more blocks and pulled into a gas station, where he called his brother to pick me up. While he tended to his tire, I kept frantically texting my friend, who wrote, "Should I call 911?"

Several minutes later, taxi driver's brother pulled up and I hopped into his car. Luckily, these "taxi"-driving hermanos were legit and he got me to my hotel safe and sound, but quite shaken up.

Internets, what would you have done? What should I have done? Getting in this car and traveling through East LA at 1am was probably not the brightest decision I've made in my short life...

Voluntary lunchslaughter

Internets, I ned to get out into the community more. It's been several months since Roommate A began working at Project Open Hand, a local organization that provides nutrition services to seniors and people living with HIV/AIDS and other serious illnesses, and today a group of us volunteered at the Curry Senior Center, serving lunch to community seniors.

I arrived bright and (relatively) early (for a Saturday) and joined Roommates A and J, Kitten, Blanca and Bill Paxton to serve 120 meals of salmon (They called it salmon, but it was pretty white-looking to Panda!!!!), lentils, salad, vegetables, a nectarine and milk. Among us, Bill Paxton had the most waitressing experience, but somehow he managed to stay behind the scenes, on the plate assembly line.

Of course, my lovely friends and I made the event into our own little party! Some highlights:

* Blanca looking at a patron with a sea captain's cap and asking, "Is that for real?" - to which Bill Paxton replied "Yes, this is reality."
* When asked where Mahogany Sparkle was, Roommate J responded, "She's at home, being selfish."
* The fellow who tried to bite his nectarine, but instead tossed it over his shoulder and looked at his hand with puzzlement
* Bill Paxton smelling vodka on Blanca's breath
* Roommate J finding a 2-liter Mountain Dew bottle filled with whiskey under one of the tables
* The patron who asked Roommate A for some wine
* Blanca bristling at the hospital smell on Bill Paxton's newly-washed hands and Roommate J squeaking (yes, squeaking), "It means they're clean!"

After our strenuous volunteering, we lunched at the mall and celebrated Kitten's birthday, even though it's not his birthday.

But truly, it's been a while since I've been in my community and I really do think I need to volunteer more often. I probs will do this again.