Root Causes and Health

One of the processes used in Engineering, is Root Cause Analysis. There are several different methodologies for Root Cause analysis, including 5 Whys.

What I want to do here is more of a thought experiment than a formal engineering process.

In Monday's post, I started to discuss the things that help to maximize human potential, things like:

• Healthy relationships (not abusive ones)
• Proper nutrition
• A body as healthy as possible
• Adequate sleep
• Limited stress

The thing of it is, none of these begin in adulthood. Workplace health costs will continue to rise until we learn to address these issues at the root. Because our health doesn't begin when we become adults.

Walking the Middle Path

Last Friday, I hinted at the ways that resources designed and intended to help women, often get co-opted to promote the standard "femininity, make-up, and fashion" wares that women are supposed to like.

I also hinted at the tightrope that women in STEM walk, between focusing on their male-dominated work, and conforming to the feminine ideals.

I asked the question: What costs more?  Playing the game in order to continue a conventional career? Or being authentic?

Authenticity, which may require a more unconventional path?

A bit of history

From my perspective, the 1990s were an era when culture began to make a significant shift, so that around the year 2000 significant change was happening.

Over the 1990s, the evidence that global climate change was caused by humans came pouring in, and by the year 2000 environmentalism was mainstream. I began to see more business-environmentalist partnerships, as the economic value of nature began to be calculated and recognized. As the economic impact became measurable, businesses began to address the triple bottom line: people, planet, and profit.

In Global Political Economy, the results of the Structural Adjustment Policies came in, and criticism of the IMF, WTO, and World Bank had an effect. Those organizations began to shift their purpose toward the Millennium Development Goals and programs that might *actually* help the less developed countries, instead of punishing them for crises.

The UN also got on board with the (likely independent) realization that Catherine McAuley was right,"there is nothing more conducive to the good of society than the education of young women," with their Girls Education Initiative.

The global SuperClass seems to be talking about the issues.

Before these changes, in the 1990s, taking the kind of work that I did, felt a bit like "selling out" my values for a just and sustainable world in order to follow my dreams. After these changes, I could begin to feel more comfortable in the corporate world. The financial evidence suggests that environmental and social responsibility are profitable.

Are we there yet? No, most definitely not. Sometimes corporate and government initiatives conflict and contradict each other, saying one thing but resulting in the opposite. There is significant resistance to change, as many of the ideas and research contradict "common sense" and/or disrupt the status quo.

 But I have certainly seen changes. Tomorrow, I'll tie this in to thoughts on leadership and followership.

How do you spend your time?

Now that my days are largely my own, this is becoming a significant question, that factors into the issues of time, money, gender.

As an undergraduate, I didn't have a computer of my own. I used the campus computer labs to write papers, code homework assignments. Most of the labs, I worked with hardware during the lab period, and not outside of it. In fact, the one exception to that "rule" was EE 207, Digital Logic, where purchasing the hardware was a required part of the class, and I could bring it home (or to the Band Lounge) and work on it anywhere.

YUPpy Respectability

When one is a Young Urban Professional, recently graduated from college, there are a series of things expected to happen.  The order may vary, but in general the steps are:

1. Build an emergency fund.
2. Save for retirement.
3. Pay off debt
1. Student loans
2. Auto loan (one is usually expected to have a car in order to get to work)
3. any Credit Card debt one has acquired
4. Save for a down payment and buy a house
5. Furnish said house

Every person is different, every situation is different, and so some of these steps may be easier for some people than others.

In addition, the instant one is gainfully employed, the salespeople come out of the woodwork with opportunities.

Homeowners, in particular, are targeted for home security systems, water softener systems.

Big City - Small Town

In a previous post, I began the story of my own understanding of diversity and social justice.  I said then that I was not sure when or if I would be ready to tell part 2.  However, I have had time in the past seven weeks to think about it, and to begin to tell the story.  This is turning into a longer series than I thought.

As a child, I wished I grew up in a small town, the kind of place where I might have a teacher who had taught one or both of my parents, where aunts and uncles were around, and where people knew who I / my family was.  Not that we needed to be famous, popular, or rich.  Just, I wanted to be in a place where my family belonged.

My sophomore year of high school, my father was discharged from the Air Force.  Dad finished his degree (a second Bachelor's), and over the summer they began job hunting in earnest.  When he was hired for a job in rural Indiana, we moved.

Culture Shock