We’re pleased to share the recording of our recent webinar, Tracking Surface Water and Groundwater Contributions to Flooding in an Alluvial Aquifer. This session, presented by Dr. Michael Callaghan, Senior Applications Engineer at Aquanty Inc., explores how integrated hydrologic modelling can improve understanding of groundwater flooding risks— particularly during major flood events.

Focusing on the June 2013 flooding in southern Alberta, the webinar demonstrates how groundwater flow within alluvial aquifers can contribute to infrastructure damage, even when overland flood defences are in place. Using HydroGeoSphere and its Hydraulic Mixing Cell (HMC) approach, the study tracks the dynamic contributions of surface water and groundwater throughout a flood event, offering new insight into subsurface flood mechanisms and system behaviour.

Key Highlights:

• Understand how groundwater flooding can impact infrastructure during major flood events.

• Learn how integrated surface water–groundwater modelling improves flood risk assessment.

• Explore the Hydraulic Mixing Cell (HMC) approach for tracking water sources through time and space.

• See how real-world case studies inform more effective flood defence and planning strategies.

This session is especially valuable for hydrologists, flood risk managers, and water resource professionals working to better understand and mitigate flood impacts in complex aquifer systems.

Watch the recording now to discover how integrated hydrologic modelling provides deeper insight into groundwater flooding and supports more resilient infrastructure planning.

Watch The Recording

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The Greater Kitchener Waterloo Chamber of Commerce (GKWCC) provides strong, continued service to over 1500 members in one of Canada’s marquee pioneering and entrepreneurial business communities. For the past 140 years, dating back to the Chamber’s founding as the Berlin Board of Trade, we have expanded into one of the largest and most innovative Chambers in Canada by focusing on the needs of all our members, big and small. For more information, please visit GreaterKWChamber.com. 

The GKWCC is seeking a Marketing Manager who is responsible for strengthening the Chamber’s brand, supporting membership growth and retention, promoting events and programs, managing digital communications (including quality control), and overseeing the day-to-day execution of marketing initiatives.

This role operates under the direction of the Director, Community Engagement & Strategic Programs, who is responsible for setting organizational marketing strategy, campaign direction, budget allocation, and priority setting.

The Marketing Manager is responsible for translating this strategy into coordinated execution across all marketing channels, ensuring quality, consistency, and alignment with the Chamber brand and strategic plan. This role provides day-to-day leadership to one Marketing Coordinator.

Marketing Strategy Execution & Team Leadership –

Under the direction of the Director, the Marketing Manager ensures effective delivery of all marketing and communications initiatives.

• Execute the Chamber’s annual marketing and communications strategy as directed by the Director, Community Engagement & Strategic Programs
• Translate strategic marketing priorities into actionable campaign plans and coordinated workflows
• Provide day-to-day supervision for the Marketing Coordinator
• Assign priorities and manage workflow for the Marketing Department, to ensure deadlines are met across all channels
• Coordinate timelines, deliverables, and approvals across marketing activities to ensure successful execution, and support continuous improvement of each
• Coordinate cross-departmental marketing requests and ensure proper prioritization
• Ensure budgets are accurately updated with final expenses in a timely manner

Content & Communications

• Work in collaboration with the Marketing Coordinator on content creation (graphics, captions, blog posts, website updates, videos, etc.)
• Review, refine, and approve all marketing content prior to publication
• Maintain consistency in tone, branding, and messaging across all communications channels
• Maintain quality control across social media, email marketing, website updates, and promotional materials
• Oversee content calendars for social media, email, website, blogs, and promotional campaigns
• Ensure timely execution of all scheduled communications
• In collaboration with the Director, coordinate media releases, blog posts, and external communications as required
• In collaboration with the CEO, coordinate regular advocacy-related communications (socials, blog posts, press releases, etc.) and bi-annual advocacy impact reports
• Oversee the Chamber’s website content updates and digital presence
• Oversee digital advertising campaigns including coordination, scheduling, and delivery

Reporting & Performance Support

• Track campaign performance and consolidate reporting for leadership review
• Maintain dashboards and reporting tools to track campaign performance
• Provide insights on execution effectiveness and recommend operational improvements
• Assemble monthly reports

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work closely with Events, Membership, Sponsorship, and Advocacy (including Physician Recruitment/Healthcare) teams to execute aligned marketing deliverables
• Attend all Chamber events to provide live coverage on social platforms
• Ensure sponsor, member, and partner messaging is accurately represented across all channels
• Provide sponsors and partners with marketing plans to help promote events & programs
• Identify opportunities to enhance engagement, participation, and member value through marketing
• Ensure all departmental campaigns are executed in accordance with strategic direction provided by leadership
• Complete retention calls, as assigned, to assist with member engagement & retention

Other Duties as Assigned – As with any organization, priorities may shift and additional responsibilities may arise. The Marketing Manager is expected to be adaptable and responsive to evolving needs.

• Strong Team Leader: You are comfortable managing people, setting expectations, and ensuring accountability while supporting professional growth.
• Exceptional Organization. You thrive in managing workflows, timelines, approvals, and cross-functional coordination.
• Translating & Executing: You excel at translating strategy into structured, high-quality execution and ensuring nothing falls through the cracks.
• Experience in a fast-paced environment: You can tackle projects independently and push through until the job is done. You’re an exceptional multi-tasker, and a self-starter with the ability to take initiative and ownership of your responsibilities.
• Detail-Oriented Quality Controller: You take pride in consistency, accuracy, and brand alignment. You love proofreading and catching grammar mistakes.
• Excellent communicator: You can write, edit, and guide messaging across multiple platforms and audiences. You enjoy creative writing, but you can also adapt it to a specific brand/audience. You’re excited at the opportunity to expand your network and build relationships within the community (in-person, over the phone, and via DM’s).
• Tech Savvy: You are comfortable adapting to new forms of technology and using various platforms (social media, video editing, AI, etc.). You are also proficient in Microsoft Office.
• Trend Setter: You stay ahead of digital trends and know how to turn timely ideas into high-impact, high-visibility content that gets people talking (and maybe goes viral).
• Support Local: You make regular trips to the corner bakery, participate in #KWAwesome community groups on social media, and generally enjoy supporting Waterloo Region business owners.
• Helpful, but not required: Experience in photography, videography, video editing, live productions, graphic design, project management, public relations, and/or public speaking.

If this sounds like you, or what you’re striving to obtain, then please apply. We look forward to learning more about you and what you could bring to this role.

To Apply: Please send your application to Carolyn Marsh at cmarsh@greaterkwchamber.com. When applying, please provide a resume, and either a cover letter or 60-second self-introduction video.

Next Steps: We thank all those who apply, however, only those candidates who are selected to move forward in the application process will be contacted. The posting will remain open until the position is filled. The start date for the successful candidate is flexible, but preferably they will start in July 2026.

Position Type: Full time, Permanent.

Hours of Work:Monday – Friday, 8:30am – 4:30pm, with a 30-minute unpaid lunch for a total of 37.5 hours each week. Evenings/early mornings will be required, to attend our Chamber events. Although extremely rare, some weekend coverage for events may also be required.

Travel: Hybrid work environment, with minimum 2 days per week in-office (80 Queen St. N., Kitchener), with additional travel required around Waterloo Region for events and/or video shoots. Mileage will be reimbursed for work-related activities, but this role requires a valid driver’s license and access to a reliable vehicle.

Compensation: $54,000 – $64,000 annually, plus benefits. Compensation within this range will be based on experience & qualifications.

Benefits:

• Healthcare including dental and vision plan, as well as an EAP program, which all starts 3 months into employment
• RRSP matching, which starts 3 months into employment
• 2 weeks’ vacation + stat holidays + lieu time for hours earned for events
• Monthly mental wellness half-day Friday (subject to change)
• Hybrid work model
• Professional Development opportunities
• Parking included

—

The Greater Kitchener Waterloo Chamber of Commerce believes that everyone is free to be their true self and receive the same respect and opportunity, regardless of ethnicity, gender, culture, identity, sexual orientation, age, beliefs, language, or disability. We have an inclusive work environment that is a safe and welcoming space for all and we encourage applications from all qualified candidates. If you require accommodation at any time during the recruitment process, please email cmarsh@greaterkwchamber.com.

The post Job Posting: Marketing Manager appeared first on Greater KW Chamber of Commerce.

♦

So, it appears that Doctor Who may be done for a while.

Russell T. Davies recently confirmed that his production company and the BBC had parted ways. There will be no Christmas Special for 2026, and the cliffhanger at the end of the second season of Disney's Doctor Who will likely never be resolved. Instead, the BBC will be tendering out the property to potential co-producers, with no relaunch date in sight -- language eerily similar to what they said after the original series ended in 1989.

And, strangely enough, I feel fine.

Make no mistake, this is a bittersweet moment. It's hard to overstate how much of an impact this show has had on my life. I am a writer because of Doctor Who. I met the woman who became my wife through Doctor Who. The show has provided me with many happy memories since I stumbled upon it on TVOntario in 1978 and pretended to be a Dalek on my elementary school's playground (I was six). I have loved every single Doctor I watched from William Hartnell to Ncuti Gatwa, and all of the extras that have been shoehorned in, including Jo Martin and John Hurt. Will it feel like something's missing in my life as we pass another Christmas without a special, or another year without a season? Yes.

But if I'm honest, I could sense this closure coming, back when the BBC decided to farm the show out to Disney rather than replace exiting producer Chris Chibnall with someone else in-house. Returning producer Russell T. Davies gave it his best shot on the Disney revival, but it felt like too much of a break from what had come before, and it felt like Disney's heart wasn't in it. The production values were strong, but the seasons were shorter, giving the storytelling far less room to breathe (a problem of many television series nowadays, including Star Trek). When Ncuti bowed out early rather than suspend his burgeoning film career for a third season that might not happen, the writing was on the wall, in spite of RTD's attempts to sugarcoat the thing.

And maybe that anticipation makes this closure easier to accept. Or, maybe it's the fact that I'm forty years older than I was during the program's cancellation crises of the mid-to-late 1980s that I'm able to be philosophical about the whole thing. Right now, given the shenanigans RTD had to pull to get the ending of the second Disney season that we got when he realized he had no guarantee of a third season, I'm glad he was able to pull off some semblance of an ending. I'm still impressed by the audaciousness of Gatwa regenerating into Billie Piper and leaving us hanging on that moment. Say what you will, but it still makes for a memorable send-off.

So, as bittersweet as this moment is, I am... thankful. I'm thankful for Russell T. Davis. The fact that this moment is bitter is because of the many good memories of the show over the past twenty years -- memories that would not have happened if he hadn't successfully launched it and set its tone. I am thankful that we got twenty years out of the revival, which is comparable to the twenty-six the original series got. I am thankful for the many actors who took on this role, who were able to give their own take on the character of the Doctor while staying true to his essence. And I am grateful for the many friends I have found through the show's fandom, from the time I first saw the program in 1978, to the past twenty years of its existence.

Yes, anybody who revives this show is going to have a devil of a time dealing with Russell T. Davies' ending cliffhanger, and frankly they'll probably avoid addressing it altogether. That's fine by me. Let fan fiction figure this one out and do a hard reboot instead. We know this program can do it, because it's done it successfully before -- not only in 2005 with the revival's first episode, Rose, but at several places within the show itself, from the original to the revival. This show can change course and set aside its old continuity very easily -- far more successfully than, say, Marvel or DC Comics. The Doctor just falls through another universe. Time can be rewritten. Et cetera. Et cetera.

It may be that a rest and a reboot is exactly what Doctor Who needs. Let the fans process the twenty years of new material they've been given. They have plenty of other sources of Doctor Who for their fix, and plenty of spaces with which to share their passion with other fans. Let them get hungry again, and then bring things back after a few years. As long as the new producers remember that this is, at heart, a story about a wizard with magical cabinet that can take him anywhere in the universe -- an individual who fights for peace, but doesn't believe the ends justify the means, who values intelligence and empathy over raw strength, then it will be a success again.

After all, this is how we things restarted back in 2005.

So, thank you, Doctor Who, for the past twenty years. Thank you for the past sixty-three. You have given me so much in my life, and we will always have Gallifrey.

• One thing that I am especially sad about is Carole Ann Ford, the actress who played Susan, who was brought aboard in the final season for a few mysterious appearances to build a plotline that will now never be resolved. The contributions she made were worthwhile and stand on their own, but I still think she deserved more than what she got, and that's a shame.
• I will say, regarding the finale, that while it was a brazen scramble by Russell T. Davies to pull a resolution out of his ass, I do appreciate one particular element of Ncuti Gatwa's regeneration: the fact that RTD finally got it right. Every other Doctor in this revival has passed away in epic, sprawling adventures. While Ncuti's last story was epic, he decided to regenerate in order to save the existence of a single child. That was the regeneration Davies wanted for David Tennant's Doctor, which he got talked out of. And while there are similarities to Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi's regenerations, in that they sacrificed themselves to save small communities, they did so while fighting Daleks or Cybermen. Ncuti's Doctor sacrificed himself for Belinda's child after the main fight was over, because everyone matters. Every single child. This Doctor sweats the small stuff, and that's what makes him the Doctor. Good on Russell T. Davies for remembering that.

NDMA has not been reduced to drinking water standards. Chlorobenzene has not been reduced to drinking water standards. Ammonia has not been reduced to drinking water standards. How many other dissolved solvents, pesticides, rubber additives and agricultural chemicals are still in our groundwater? How many of them are above their drinking water standards? These dissolved chemicals by the way are not in just one of our drinking water aquifers but in both the Municipal Upper (MU) and the Municipal Lower (ML) aquifers. Merely as an aside what is the drinking water standard for water with multiple toxins in it? Is it higher or lower than with only one toxin in it? What about water with two or three toxins above drinking water standards and with another dozen or more toxic chemicals that however are below their drinking water standards? As of this point in time science can not answer those questions. Common sense fortunately can despite all attempts to prohibit it by guilty parties and replace it with bought and paid for by the polluter opinionated suits. 

 Then of course there is the Canagagigue Creek. There has been decades of sampling and discovering DDT, dioxins/furans, PCBs, mercury and PAHs the entire length of the downstream Creek from Uniroyal/Lanxess. All of these over the years have exceeded various government health standards for decades yet not one shovelful has been permanently removed. We are talking health standards for benthic communities living in the sediments, creekbank soils, floodplain soils, the sediments in the bottom of the Creek as well as fish tissues that have bioaccumulated the toxins. The failure to date to clean up these toxins from the Creek has negatively affected wildlife, the environment and human beings living and farming along the Creek. I believe that some day Woolwich Township's abandonment of the Old Order Mennonite farmers along the Creek will be viewed as potentially criminal behaviour. 

Meanwhile TRAC will continue to be both the centerpiece of the cheerleading brigade as well as the scapegoat when it all hits the fan. I will enjoy watching Sandy Shantz, Susan Bryant, Nathan Cadeau, Tiffany Svensson and others twist in the wind as they are abandoned by Lanxess, Waterloo Region, the Ontario MECP and the other fellow travellors. 

♦

Steak-frites, or just plain ol’ “steak fries” (the former making them sound all fancy), are a favourite dish of mine.

Steak frites is a common bistro and brasserie menu in many European countries and in North America as well. With their claim to having invented French fries, Belgian cuisine also claims steak frites as their creation too.

I don’t really care where they came from: they are usually good wherever you find them, and the plate pictured above is from the venerable and excellent Montreal bistro Restaurant L’Express (#73 on Canada’s 100 Best).

Check out my latest post Steak frites from AndrewCoppolino.com.

Like any other new joinee, I was very ecstatic about starting a new project in the organization. There is a different kind of excitement when you become part of something from its very beginning. It feels as though you are not merely assigned to a task but invited to build something meaningful.

I was excited about sketching the design, discussing ideas during the whiteboarding sessions, understanding the trade-offs, and hearing senior engineers debate architecture decisions that I barely understood at that time. Even sitting quietly in those meetings felt special because for the first time, I felt included in something important.

There was an emotional attachment developing without me realizing it. I had already started imagining how the project would evolve over the next couple of years, what features we would build, what scale challenges we would encounter, and how much I would grow technically along with the project.

Little did I know that one day my manager would break the news that the management had decided to put the project on hold.

At that point in my career, I did not even understand the corporate vocabulary surrounding such decisions. People used terms like sunsetting the project, organizational dynamics, budget alignment, revenue pressure, business priorities, and many other polished phrases that sounded sophisticated but emotionally empty to me.

All I understood was this:
Something I was genuinely excited about was no longer going to exist in the way I had imagined.

I still remember how strange those days felt afterward. Technically, work continued as usual. Meetings happened. People logged in. Tasks were assigned. But internally, something had changed for me.

I noticed a gradual sadness during the day. A strange lack of enthusiasm. Even the current tasks at hand started feeling mechanical. It became difficult to put the same energy into the work because somewhere in the mind, disappointment had quietly occupied space.

What surprised me most was how normal this seemed to everyone else.

Whoever I spoke to in the office would casually say:

“This happens.”
“You need to get used to these things.”
“Projects come and go.”

At that time, those statements did not comfort me. In fact, they almost sounded cold. I kept wondering how people could become so emotionally detached from something they spent months or years working on.

But as time passed, I slowly understood what they actually meant.

Corporate life moves differently from personal emotions. Organizations take decisions based on survival, market conditions, leadership vision, customer demand, and financial realities. Sometimes a technically good project may still not continue because the business no longer sees long-term value in it. Sometimes the timing is wrong. Sometimes leadership changes. Sometimes priorities shift faster than teams can emotionally process them.

As early-career professionals, we are never really taught how to deal with this side of work. We prepare ourselves to clear interviews, solve DSA problems, understand system design, and write efficient code. But nobody teaches us how to emotionally process uncertainty at work.

Nobody teaches us what to do when the thing you were emotionally invested in suddenly loses importance.

For a young engineer, a project is not just a project. It quietly becomes a source of identity. You begin associating your learning, your future growth, your visibility, and sometimes even your self-worth with it. So when the project slows down or disappears, it can unknowingly shake your confidence as well.

Looking back now, I realize the bigger challenge was not technical adaptability. Engineers eventually learn new technologies and move to different teams. The harder part is emotional adaptability — learning how to stay motivated even when things do not go as planned.

That experience taught me something important very early in my career:
never attach your entire sense of growth to one project alone.

Projects may stop. Teams may dissolve. Managers may change. Entire business directions may shift within months. But the effort you put into learning never truly goes to waste. The discussions you participated in, the design thinking you observed, the mistakes you made, the confidence you slowly built — all of it stays with you quietly.

Today when I see young engineers going through similar situations, I understand their disappointment much better. Because when you are new, every opportunity feels deeply personal. Every project feels permanent. Every team feels like it will stay together forever.

But careers are much longer than individual projects.

Sometimes the very experiences that disappoint us initially are the ones that slowly teach us resilience, adaptability, and emotional balance in professional life.

When My First Project Was Sun-Set: A Lesson in Corporate Reality was originally published in Code Like A Girl on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

There’s a version of this conversation that happens in nearly every tech team, eventually. A strong engineer, a talented systems administrator, a high-performing developer; someone doing great work, building credibility, and one day wondering: Is management the next step?

It’s a question that comes with a lot of noise. Some people assume it’s the natural progression. Others feel pressured into it. And many talented technical professionals hold back, uncertain whether they’re ready, or whether it’s even what they really want.

As a Career Strategist who has worked extensively with professionals in technology, I wanted to get past the generic advice and go directly to people who have lived this transition. I spoke with four experienced IT leaders, all of whom began their careers in hands-on technical roles before moving into management, and asked them the questions that actually matter.

What follows is what they told me, combined with research on what the transition really demands, and practical guidance on how to approach it with intention.

Before we get into the how, it’s worth acknowledging the why this matters, particularly for women in tech.

According to Grant Thornton’s 2024 Women in Business report, women hold just 32% of senior management positions across the global tech sector, below the cross-industry average of 33.5%. But zoom in on the most senior technical roles specifically — CIOs, CTOs, and IT Directors — and the picture is starker: the Nash Squared Digital Leadership Report 2023 found that only 14% of those positions were held by women, a figure that has barely moved in years.¹

Those numbers aren’t just a diversity statistic. They represent a gap in perspective, in decision-making, and in the kind of leadership that high-performing technical teams need. If you’re a woman in a technical role considering management, you’re not just making a career move; you’re stepping into a space that genuinely needs more of what you bring.

Before exploring how to move into management, there’s a more important question to sit with: Do you actually want to?

Management is not a promotion in the traditional sense. It’s a different job. It requires a fundamentally different orientation, away from technical execution and toward enabling others to execute well. And for many people, that shift is more demanding than they anticipated.

Ronan Murray, Infrastructure Manager, who moved through JP Morgan and IBM before taking on people management at LeasePlan Information Services, reflects on what drew him there: “I’ve always gotten the most satisfaction from delivering something new or improving how things are done. People management was a completely new challenge, but even more rewarding. Today, the most rewarding part of the job is seeing engineers and managers develop and grow.”

Not everyone finds that shift equally natural. Olivier Beyssac, Site Reliability Manager at Google, is candid about how different the reality was from his expectation: “I understood it would be a different job, but I didn’t think it would be such a radical difference. As a manager, the people aspect is predominant, combined with team dynamics. Your teammates expect you to take the right decisions on projects, while your reports need you to take the right decisions about them.”

And Gavin Hand, Head of IT Infrastructure, offers a perspective that gets to the heart of the mindset shift required: “Management requires a greater level of acceptance in order to succeed — acceptance of criticism, constraints, responsibility for others’ actions, even if this doesn’t sit well with you. The sooner your mindset changes, the better.”

These are not small shifts. They are identity shifts.

Harvard Business Review’s leadership research describes this well: moving into management for the first time requires genuine identity work, getting clear on who you want to be as a leader, not just what tasks you’re taking on. In a 2023 HBR Women at Work episode on becoming a first-time manager, leadership coach Jen Dary puts it directly: “There is identity work to do, which is: who do I want to be and what is my intention?”

Ask yourself honestly:

• Do I get energy from developing others, or does it drain me?
• Am I comfortable with outcomes I don’t directly control?
• Can I find satisfaction in team achievement rather than personal execution?
• Am I ready to take responsibility when things go wrong, even when I didn’t cause them?

There are no wrong answers. Some exceptional technical professionals find their deepest satisfaction staying in deep expertise. Others find management unlocks an entirely new dimension of impact. Clarity here will serve you more than any qualification.

Across every conversation I had, one theme was consistent: technical expertise gets you to the door, but it’s your human skills that determine whether you thrive once you’re inside.

This aligns with a growing body of evidence. McKinsey’s research on talent management highlights how social and emotional skills — empathy, communication, adaptability, leadership — are increasingly critical as organisations navigate change. The same research notes that these capabilities remain persistently underdeveloped, precisely because they’re harder to measure and build than technical competencies.

In practical terms, what does this mean for a technical professional stepping into management?

1. Delegation is a skill, not a hand-off.

One of the most consistent pieces of feedback from the leaders I spoke with was how profound the shift from doing to trusting others to do really is. As our anonymous female IT Director put it: “A manager needs to be able to delegate, depend, and trust others to do the work. That is the most fundamental change, the shift from doing a task and knowing when it is completed, to handing that responsibility to a team member.”

This isn’t just an operational change. It requires genuine confidence in your team and a willingness to accept that things may be done differently from how you would do them, and that different doesn’t mean wrong.

2. Communication becomes your primary technical skill.

In a technical role, precision matters in code and systems. In a management role, precision matters most in how you communicate expectations, feedback, and direction. Ronan Murray describes it as needing “strong communication skills to translate what you need into something others completely understand and can deliver.”

Research from Harvard Business Review (2024) reinforces this, noting that a manager's impact on their team depends heavily on interpersonal capabilities that most first-time managers haven’t needed to develop before, including clear communication, empathy, and the ability to invest in others’ careers.

3. People are the work, not an interruption to it.

This sounds obvious, stated plainly, but it represents one of the biggest mental adjustments for technical professionals. The shift means staying selectively hands-on, not to hold on to the old role, but to serve the team. As our anonymous IT Director notes, staying technically engaged is most valuable “when it is required to impart skills to a team or team member,” a subtle but important distinction between doing the work and developing the people doing it.

Olivier Beyssac captures the broader balance well: “Switching to management at Google doesn’t mean that you stop being technical. It can be quite hard to mix people management and technical projects, but I don’t think you can manage an effective team in tech if your engineers don’t think your technical background is legitimate.”

The goal is not to abandon your technical identity. It’s to build a new one alongside it.

It’s worth noting that when asked about his top three daily skills, Beyssac named coaching, negotiation, and industry experience, notably different from the communication and delegation cited by others. It’s a useful reminder that management in tech isn’t one-size-fits-all. The blend of skills you develop will be shaped by your context, your team, and your own strengths as much as any rulebook.

If you’ve read this far and the move still appeals to you, here’s where to start, without waiting for a formal opportunity to land in your lap.

Build your soft skills visibly.

Soft skills are the primary criteria when organisations promote into management. But many technical professionals develop them informally, without ever making them visible. Update your LinkedIn profile, your CV, and your professional presence to articulate not just your technical competencies but also your interpersonal ones: time management, mentoring, conflict navigation, team collaboration, communication, and stakeholder management.

Our anonymous IT Director is clear on why this matters in practice: “Communication is key; managing a team requires a manager to lead by giving good instruction, and to be a good listener. Organisation is essential for balancing needs from different people: your team, peers, senior management, internal and external customers. And delegation requires the confidence to trust others to do the work.”

Volunteer for team lead and mentoring opportunities now.

You don’t need a manager title to build management experience. Volunteer to lead projects, act as an escalation point for junior colleagues, or take on mentoring responsibilities. These experiences become both evidence and practice.

A useful framing from Ronan Murray: “Project management is a great interim step, you can work on technical projects and get people experience without having to formally manage people.”

Invest in structured learning.

Our anonymous IT Director completed a Supervisory Management course with the Irish Management Institute (IMI) and describes its impact clearly: “It helped put a lot of things into perspective. It is not instinctive; it is a skill which needs to be learned.” Exploring leadership, management, or HR development programmes, whether through your organisation or independently, gives you both a framework and a confidence boost that can be genuinely transformative.

Consider transition roles.

Not every move from technical to management has to be immediate. Intermediary roles, such as project manager, tech lead, team lead, and product owner, allow you to develop the people-facing muscles gradually, while still staying connected to the technical work you’re good at.

Management is not a more important job than deep technical expertise. It’s a different one. Both matter enormously. The most effective technical organisations need both great individual contributors and great people leaders, and the best managers are usually the ones who choose it, rather than the ones who feel they have no other way to progress.

Ronan Murray puts it simply, and it’s the best note to leave on: “Whatever you do, treat people with respect and the way you would like to be treated. People are a company’s greatest resource; look after them.”

If this is the direction you’re drawn toward, the path is more navigable than it looks from a distance. It starts with self-awareness, builds through small visible steps, and develops through genuine investment in the skills that enable others to thrive.

The technical skills that brought you here are a foundation, not a limitation. What comes next is up to you.

Thinking about what your next step looks like? Explore career consultancy and coaching services at elizabethlenihan.com, or connect on LinkedIn.

This piece draws on original interviews conducted with the following professionals:

• Gavin Hand, Head of IT Infrastructure, Dublin — LinkedIn
• Ronan Murray, Infrastructure Manager, Dublin — LinkedIn
• Olivier Beyssac, Site Reliability Manager, Dublin — LinkedIn
• Anonymous, IT Director, Dublin

1. Grant Thornton (2024). Women in Tech: A Pathway to Gender Balance in Top Tech Roles. Note: the Grant Thornton figure (32%) measures senior management broadly across all functions within mid-market tech firms globally. (This is a wide net: it includes heads of department, directors, VPs, and senior managers across all functions within tech companies: HR, finance, operations, not just technical roles). The Nash Squared figure (14%) measures digital/technology leadership specifically, CIOs, CTOs, IT Directors, and heads of technology function. The two figures are complementary, not contradictory. www.grantthornton.global/en/insights/women-in-business/women-in-tech-a-pathway-to-gender-balance-in-top-tech-roles/
2. Nash Squared (2023). Digital Leadership Report 2023. Referenced via AIPRM (2024). www.aiprm.com/women-in-tech-statistics/
3. Harvard Business Review / HBR On Leadership Podcast (2023). How to Embrace Your New Identity as a Manager. hbr.org/podcast/2023/12/how-to-embrace-your-new-identity-as-a-manager
4. Penney, C. (2024). New Managers: You Don’t Need to Know It All. Harvard Business Review. hbr.org/2024/12/new-managers-you-dont-need-to-know-it-all
5. McKinsey & Company (2023). What Is Talent Management? www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-explainers/what-is-talent-management

From Technical Expert to People Leader was originally published in Code Like A Girl on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Hindsight allegedly being 20/20 I believe the reason that our so called authorities have studiously ignored, minimized and silenced discussion around these highly toxic, persistent and mostly organic pollutants (POPs) is their tacit belief from the beginning that the Elmira Aquifers would not/could not ever be remediated to drinking water standards. At the very least all parties way back in the early 1990s after the EAB (Environmental Appeal Board) was bilaterally shut down were committed to NOT publicly criticizing and disparaging each other. They knew that the magnitude of their misbehaviour and negligence was such that it could permanently rupture public confidence in our entire political/judicial/economic systems.

Hence the big LIE began. Yes we can do it! Yes using the "cheapest and least effective" remediation method of Pump & Treat (hydraulic containment) we will restore the Elmira Aquifers to drinking water standards by 2028. This lie was LOUDLY proclaimed for twenty-five years by Uniroyal Chemical, Crompton & Knowles and Chemtura even years after CPAC, myself and numerous colleagues all said otherwise.in the spring of 2012.  

In reality I am an optimist who believes that with proper, professional and unbiased study, effort and expenditure of resources the groundwater resource could have been saved. That likelihood now, decades later, is greatly diminished thanks to the efforts of Sandy Shantz, Susan Bryant, the Ontario MECP, Woolwich Township, Lanxess (& predecessors) and Waterloo Region. Yes I believe that the dissolved NDMA, chlorobenzene, ammonia and so much more can eventually be reduced considerably more. It is the list of POPs plus mercury above that likely will be the toxic sticking point. As our authorities and others have lied to us for so many decades they have wasted opportunities to find and remove them throughout the past 36 years. However much they were diffused and entrenched into low permeability soils and aquitards, time has only increased the removal difficulties and costs.      

Penny wise and pound foolish is an old English saying. In this context if Uniroyal and our governments had spent less time and money on face saving, public relations and gamesmanship and done the right thing from the beginning as many citizens so advised, we would be so much closer to restoring our aquifers to clean, potable water. 

♦

Term: 4 years per term with a maximum of 2 consecutive terms

Shape the next generation of leaders. The Ontario Educational Leadership Centre (OELC) is seeking visionary, community-minded professionals to fill at least three (3) executive officer vacancies on our volunteer Board of Directors. Help us govern, strategize, and expand our impactful youth leadership programs across Ontario.

We are currently recruiting specifically for the following key leadership roles on our Board Executive:

1. President and Chair of the Board: Provides strategic leadership to the Board, presides over meetings, and acts as the primary liaison between the Board and the Executive Director.
2. Vice President, Finance: Oversees the financial health of the organization, serves as Treasurer, and chairs the Finance Committee to manage budgets and stewardship.
3. Vice President, Administration: Manages corporate governance tracking, board records, and ensures organizational policies align with regulatory frameworks.

Since 1948, OELC has empowered youth to maximize their potential as community agents of change. Serving over 1,600 students annually across Ontario, we deliver highly engaging leadership courses built around core pillars:

• Self-Awareness and personal growth
• Equity and Inclusion principles
• Teamwork and collaborative dynamics
• Communication skill-building
• Well-Being for individuals and teams
• Global Connections to school and community

We welcome all qualified applicants, including active, recently retired, or retired educators and professionals who bring diverse perspectives.

• Mission Alignment: Deep passion for youth development and empowering the next generation.
• Professional Expertise: Background in education, non-profit governance, finance, government relations, legal affairs, or fundraising.
• Commitment: Ability to dedicate at least 4 hours per month for board meetings, committee work, and organizational events.
• Strategic Mindset: Readiness to collaborate with the Executive Director on long-term growth and organizational sustainability.
• Valued Assets: Prior experience with youth programming, non-profit boards, or donor fundraising is highly advantageous.

In compliance with the Ontario Not-for-Profit Corporations Act (ONCA), directors owe a fiduciary duty and a duty of care to the organization while executing the following pillars:

1. Strategic Governance: Guide OELC’s vision, shape effective oversight policies, and evaluate organizational performance.
2. Financial Stewardship: Oversee annual budgets, review statements, and advise on sustainable fundraising and grant-seeking activities.
3. Community Advocacy: Act as an ambassador to expand OELC’s professional networks and community profile.
4. Program Innovation: Support the Executive Director in monitoring program efficacy and developing forward-thinking leadership curricula.
5. Active Committee Work: Attend 5 annual board meetings and actively contribute to sub-committees (e.g., Finance, Governance).
6. Succession Planning: Participate in the ongoing recruitment, onboarding, and development of future board leadership.

OELC is dedicated to building a board that reflects the diverse youth and communities we serve across Ontario. We strongly encourage applications from equity-deserving groups, including Indigenous peoples, Black and racialized individuals, people of all genders and sexual orientations, and persons with disabilities.

Interested candidates are invited to submit a current resume and a one-page cover letter outlining their skills, experience, and motivation to join the board.

Contact Email: executivedirector@oelcccaso.com
Attention To: Jeff Benner, President of OELC
Application Deadline: July 15, 2026

Selection Process: All applications will be reviewed by our Governance Committee. Shortlisted candidates will be contacted by a member of the Board Executive for an interview.

The post Ontario Educational Leadership Centre- Volunteer Board Members appeared first on Capacity Canada.

♦

I’ve come round to the idea that Langdon Hall is a place I will return to — even though it’s nearly 600 kilometres away from where I now live. It’s not an adventure on which I can embark often, but it is always a visit that soothes the soul and feeds the spirit (and stomach) exceptionally well.

When we moved from Waterloo Region a couple of years ago, Aubrey and I had thought it would now only be a rare occasion to stay and dine at Langdon. In fact, as we checked in for a visit earlier this spring, we (sadly) thought it might be the last — just because there are so many wonderful choices for restaurants right in our new backyard: Ottawa, Gatineau and Montreal, all of which we are much closer to and which are packed with great dining-and-beverage venues.

However, the atmosphere at LH swept us away, as it always does, and we realized that this might not be the case at all: our recent stay, it turned out, confirmed for us that it was a get-away that we needed to make whenever possible.

There is something in the very air at the Cambridge Relais et Chateaux that draws you in and envelops you. There’s a grandeur to the old building but one that isn’t intimidating; it’s beautiful, but it doesn’t overwhelm. A lot of that is because of its rural and calming bucolic setting in a glorious 75-acre Carolinian forest.

Inside, the detail and ambience in the main house and Wilks’ Bar, for instance, reminds me of our former home in downtown Kitchener. But let me quickly clarify that statement! Our previous, long-time home in the East Ward was a modest Depression-era house built in 1937 and was in no way as glorious (or as large!) as Mr. Wilks’ summer home.

However, some of the architectural details — the woodwork, the baseboards, the mouldings, the windows, the fireplace — resembled what you see at Langdon, and they have always reminded us of our humble abode on Simeon Street.

That fact is in part what makes the Federal Revival-style of Langdon’s architecture so charming. There is an ambience and character here that is truly unique. Like I said, it feeds the soul. And we just feel like Langdon is our home when we visit. It feels so comfortable and accessible. We have never found anything comparable. We stayed in the newly renovated “Cloisters” (very nice indeed) but like equally the country-estate charm of a “Stable” room.

The food and service in LH dining rooms are unparalleled, of course.

Listed as #18 on Canada’s 100 Best restaurants, Jason Bangerter’s cooking is beautiful, inventive and delicious — taking ingredients from the many on-site and local sources, including a 10,000 sq.-ft. garden, they have at hand. I love watching a cook, basket over their arm, wandering through the garden harvesting ingredients.

Tasting menu, a la carte menu or breakfast and brunch, the kitchen puts out terrific dishes with elegance and wonderful flavours and textures. This was certainly the case in our recent visit, one that saw the last preparation of the menu before it moved into the new summer season. Accompanying, of course, was stellar service from each staff member who came to the table. That is just as important as what is presented on your plate.

I’m hard-pressed to think of another restaurant where all of these elements coalesce so naturally and so seamlessly. We can’t visit often, but we discovered that Langdon will always be somewhere on the horizon, an anticipation of something soothing and relaxing on our itinerary.

Banner photo/Colin Faulkner.

Check out my latest post (Another) Return to Langdon Hall from AndrewCoppolino.com.

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When I say "useless" I guess I had better be more specific. The TRAC meeting is "useless" from the point of view of the public interest. It is however highly useful from the point of view of Lanxess, the MECP, Woolwich Township and all the other "fellow travellors" who feel that it is in their best interests to keep the public in the dark and to support plans that have guaranteed groundwater remediation failure. Pump & Treat aka Pump & Dump has always been known as the "...cheapest, least effective" groundwater remediation methodology which apparently is why it was so embraced by Uniroyal Chemical way back in the early 1990s.

The other reason that it has been both embraced and supported by Woolwich, Waterloo Region, the MECP (Ministry of Environment, Conservation & Parks), GRCA etc. is because mud slinging between all the guilty parties just listed was ended and has remained so by agreements from the dirty polluter (Uniroyal), their successors (Crompton, Chemtura, Lanxess) as well as the political bodies listed. 

TRAC (Technical Remediation & Advisory Committee) aka Thoughtfully Rotten & Corrupt has been extremely helpful in selling the sham "cleanup" to the public. Even now it has  a place in the propaganda put out by our mayor and the MECP claiming some kind of moral victory over NDMA, chlorobenzene, ammonia and all the other long unnamed and ignored contaminants including DNAPLS, dioxins and DDT.  

Now the guiltiest of the government bodies certainly is the MECP formerly MOE. Once again however municipal and regional woosies...oops I mean politicians know their place and are not going to want to ever be seen as at odds with the higher tier levels of government whether provincial or federal. It is the great weakness of democracy in that we do not generally attract the best and brightest so much as the laziest but most power hungry individuals to run for office. Sometimes we the public get lucky but not nearly often enough as the gross failures of the Elmira Water Crisis indicate locally and as Ukraine, Sudan and the Middle East indicate internationally. 

For the record I believe that it is more accurate to refer to the MECP  not as it has been in the second paragraph above but as the Ministry of Expanded Corporate Pollution. They are particularly large polluters best friends. Little polluters they will bash hard if it suits them.

Undemocratic twits and idiots like Donald Trump presiding over the most powerful nation on earth are so stupid that they actually lecture other countries about not being democracies like the ones that they are currently ruining. 

Excerpt from my paid Substack column, Her Edge. Read the full post here

The only woman in the room.
The only woman in leadership.
The only product manager in the company.
The only one who didn’t come up through the traditional path.
The only parent on the team.
The only designer in an engineering org.
The only bootcamp grad in a room full of CS degrees.
The only one at your level who didn’t come from a FAANG company.
The only one balancing a sick parent with a demanding job.

You have plenty of people around you.

A boss. A team. A partner who tries.

But when something goes sideways, really sideways, you run through the list and realize none of them can help with this particular thing.

None of them is doing what you’re doing, at your level, inside the same walls.

What you need is a peer. Someone who gets it without you having to explain the whole context first.

And you don’t have one.

That’s where I was on a Friday afternoon in October 2015.

It was four months into my time at Arctic Wolf, and I had just watched my team revolt.

I was employee 35. Hired as the Director of Engineering to build the foundation that would let fifteen developers scale to hundreds over the next 7 years.

The dev team was running as one team on monthly sprints with a lightweight ticketing system.

At ten people, that works fine. You’re in the same room. You know each other. You just build things. But they were fifteen now and heading to twenty, and at twenty it was going to break.

My job was to add just enough process to remove the chaos. No more than that and no less. Process for process’s sake is a disaster. But just enough, at the right time, is what separates a high-performing team that scales from an average one that limps along.

I had spent the first four months drinking from an information firehose. The tech. The team. The personalities. Earning trust. Building the tools and systems that would let us split into three teams and grow.

As I was building the new structure and process around it, I proposed the new system to the senior team members. I wanted two-week sprints. They pushed back; they felt it would be too much overhead. So I proposed three weeks, and they agreed.

Things seemed to be going well. I thought I had done enough legwork with the right people before rolling it out to everyone.

I was wrong.

On that Friday afternoon, right before their monthly retrospective, I proposed the new plan to the whole team. Starting Monday, we would use the new ticketing system, break into three teams, and move to three-week sprints.

What I didn’t say:

This is just the starting point. We will iterate on it together.

I thought that was obvious.

It wasn’t.

A lot of these developers had worked with my boss for years. Kim had co-founded Arctic Wolf and brought most of this team with her. Now this new person (me) was in front of them, pitching a new way of working. And Kim wasn’t in the room.

They revolted. They told me they didn’t like it and why it wouldn’t work. I tried to explain the thinking behind it. They didn’t want to hear it.

They were having an emotional response. They didn’t want things to change.

I was having my own emotional response. Frustrated, they couldn’t see my vision, scared I was failing, and disappointed in myself for not rolling the change out better.

And that’s when you feel being an only the most.

You want to talk to someone who has been here before. Who understands all the different things at play.

But it can’t be your boss. They’re evaluating your performance while you’re telling them what went wrong.

It can’t be your team. You can’t afford to lose their respect.

It can’t be your spouse or your parents. They’ll support you no matter what, they’ll take your side, but they haven’t lived what you are living and while they can offer emotional support, they may not fully understand the situation to give you the advice you need.

What you need is someone who has done exactly what you’re doing. Who gets it without the backstory.

I didn’t have that person.

I figured it out over the weekend. I realized my mistake and the next week got everyone on board. In the end, that meeting was a blip in the road, but it would have been really nice to have someone to help me navigate it.

That’s the loneliness of being an Only.

It’s not dramatic. It’s just quiet. A Friday afternoon with no one in your corner who understands the job.

Here’s what made being the only R&D Director harder at Arctic Wolf.

When I arrived, the four people who had built Arctic Wolf were already a unit.

• Brian — CEO and co-founder
• Kim — VP of R&D and co-founder
• Matt — Chief Architect and employee #1
• Sam — Head of Security Operations also an early employee.

Brian, Kim, Matt, and Sam had all worked together at BlueCoat for years before founding Arctic Wolf.

These four were tight. A shared language, a shared history, a shorthand built over a decade and a half together.

And then there was me. The outsider who joined three years after inception, trying to earn my way in.

They weren’t excluding me on purpose. But I didn’t have their history before Arctic Wolf and I hadn’t been there for the first three years they spent building it together.

That’s not something you can catch up on. You either lived it or you didn’t.

I was the only engineering director. An outsider to the founding group. The only woman in leadership below the founding level.

Three kinds of Only. At the same time. For 5 years.

In the spring of 2018, I was promoted from Director to VP, and I became the only female VP in the company until January of 2020, when Gwen was hired as VP of Pack Support Services. She was taking over a team I had built from the ground up, and it couldn’t have gone to a better person.

It was lovely to have her there. It was lovely not to be an only in that respect anymore.

But I didn’t wait for Gwen. Long before she arrived, I had built something for myself. Support systems outside the company that helped me feel less alone, more supported, and more confident through those five years.

You can’t fix being an Only. But you can make it feel less lonely.

Read more about what I built. And how you can build it too.

Her Edge: This One's for the Onlys

Originally published at codelikeagirl.substack.com.

Her Edge: This One’s for the Onlys was originally published in Code Like A Girl on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

♦

KITCHENER - The Kitchener Panthers continue to have problems with the home run.

Chatham-Kent hit four over the fence at Jack Couch Park Sunday, including a sixth-inning grand slam from Austin Gurney, as the Barnstormers took down the Panthers 10-5.

It was one of two homers for Gurney.

Kitchener also had success with the long ball, as Petey Kiefer hit a two-run blast in the fifth and Mateo Zeppieri hit a solo shot in the sixth.

Zeppieri led the team with three hits. Both Yosvani Penalver and Malik Williams had two hits.

Owen MacNeil gave up two runs on five hits in five innings of work.

Jacob Liberta took the loss after giving up four runs on five hits in two innings.

Aden Ryan got the win for Chatham-Kent after going two innings. 

Former Panther Dakota Parsons started for the visitors, scattering four hits in four innings. He gave up three runs (two earned) and struck out three.

Kitchener drops to 5-7 on the year, while Chatham-Kent moves to 4-6.

The Panthers get a few days to rest before hosting Toronto Friday at 7:05 p.m.

GET YOUR TICKETS NOW and #PackTheJack!

Early-career engineers often walk into the software industry with one dangerous assumption:

“If I work hard and stay sincere, people will naturally treat me well.”

Unfortunately, corporate engineering teams do not always operate on emotional fairness.
They operate on reliability, trust, pressure, deadlines, and perceived competence.

And this creates a painful situation many engineers silently face:

“My manager speaks politely to everyone else… but becomes rude only with me.”

Obviously, this hurts deeply because it feels personal.
And as a matter of fact, sometimes it is personal.
But many a time, it is something harder to accept:

That does not mean you are useless.
It does not mean you cannot grow.
But ignoring the signal can permanently damage your career trajectory.

This article is not about defending toxic behavior as rudeness is never ideal leadership.

But early-career engineers grow fastest when they learn to separate emotional discomfort from operational reality.

Most new engineers think managers mainly value:

• effort
• sincerity
• long hours
• enthusiasm
• honesty

Experienced managers value something else first:

• predictability
• ownership
• speed of understanding
• low supervision cost
• reliability under pressure

A manager under delivery pressure does not think.

“This engineer is trying hard.”

They think:

• “Can I trust this person with critical work?”
• “Will this task come back broken?”
• “Will I need 5 follow-ups?”
• “Can this person independently unblock themselves?”
• “Will this engineer create risk for the team?”

This is the harsh reality of engineering organizations.

If your manager is repeatedly rude specifically toward you, ask yourself honestly:

Examples:

• Asking the same questions repeatedly
• Missing obvious details
• Forgetting instructions
• Delivering incomplete work
• Giving vague status updates
• Needing constant reminders
• Escalating before debugging properly
• Taking too long to understand systems
• Saying “I tried everything” too early
• Repeating mistakes after feedback

One or two mistakes are normal.

But repeated dependency changes how managers behave psychologically.

They stop seeing you as:

“an investment”

and start seeing you as:

“an operational drain.”

That shift changes tone very quickly.

Many engineers immediately conclude:

“My manager hates me.”

But sometimes the real situation is:

“My manager does not trust my execution.”

Those are different problems.

Hatred is emotional.
Distrust is operational.

And operational distrust usually comes from patterns.

There are usually 3 stages.

The manager explains carefully:

• “Please improve debugging.”
• “Read logs before escalating.”
• “Test properly before pushing.”
• “Document your findings.”

Tone is calm.

Manager starts becoming shorter:

• “Why was this missed?”
• “Did you verify?”
• “We discussed this already.”

Patience reduces.

Manager assumes:

• instructions won’t be followed,
• mistakes will repeat,
• extra supervision is needed.

Now the tone becomes harsh.

This is often where engineers emotionally collapse because they only notice Stage 3 and ignore Stages 1 and 2 that happened earlier.

Weak reaction:

• “Manager is toxic.”
• “Nobody appreciates me.”
• “I’ll mentally disconnect.”
• “I’ll do the bare minimum.”

Strong reaction:

“Why has confidence reduced, and how do I rebuild it?”

That mindset shift changes careers.

Do not chase “big impact” immediately.

Start with:

• correct updates,
• accurate timelines,
• proper testing,
• organized notes,
• complete debugging evidence.

Managers rebuild trust from consistency, not promises.

Bad:

“I’m checking.”

Better:

“Issue reproduced. Root cause narrowed to config mismatch between service A and B. Verifying logs now.”

Specificity creates confidence.

Before asking for help:

• explain what you checked,
• attach logs,
• mention hypotheses,
• explain why you are blocked.

Managers respect effort visibility.

Nothing damages reputation faster than repeating the same issue.

Create:

• debugging checklists,
• deployment checklists,
• review notes,
• learning logs.

Professional maturity often means creating systems around your weaknesses.

Painful truth:
Some engineers improve slowly because they only learn during assigned work.

Fast-growing engineers:

• read architecture docs,
• study production issues,
• watch system design talks,
• revisit mistakes independently.

The industry rewards self-driven learners disproportionately.

This article is not saying:

“Managers are always right.”

Some managers:

• humiliate people publicly,
• play favorites,
• insult juniors,
• weaponize pressure,
• damage confidence intentionally.

That is unhealthy leadership.

But before concluding toxicity, ask:

• “Would a strong engineer receive the same treatment?”
• “Have I objectively improved over the last 6 months?”
• “Am I easier or harder to manage now?”
• “Do senior engineers trust my work?”

Self-awareness is a superpower in engineering careers.

Sometimes a rude manager reveals more about the environment. Sometimes they reveal something about your current professional level. The mistake is assuming every uncomfortable experience is unfair persecution.

Because in engineering careers, reputation compounds.

And one day, the same manager who sounded frustrated with you may start saying:

“Give this task to her. She handles things properly.”

That transformation is possible !!

Why Is Your Manager Only Rude To YOU?! was originally published in Code Like A Girl on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Who exactly? Was it staff or was it elected councillors?  If councillors, who were the ringleaders who made Wilmot residents wait six months and longer for emergency water supplies? Record reporter Luisa D'Amato in today's paper seems pleased and satisfied that the Region are now offering immediate hookups to large tanks of water placed outside homes with water shortages in Wilmot Township. Yes that solution which was also used decades ago when the Region first started pumping water from Wilmot to serve the thirsty and growing cities of Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge, appears to be a good one. Who were the twits and twerps in any way at all blocking, forgetting or dragging their feet on this emergency solution to serious water shortages for numerous Wilmot residents? They need to be identified and shown the door, elected or otherwise. Ms. D'Amato is correct when she states that it is no fun to balance powerful competing interests however I see the powerful interests all on one side and that is the developers and builders. Sure as hell the residents and voters in Wilmot have been studiously ignored and treated with disdain throughout by the other parties including Waterloo Region councillors.

Today's K-W Record has Ms. D'Amato's article titled "One bright spot in a sea of problems" on the front page.

Register: Online at our KWality Talk Page, this is an in person event.

Location: Morty’s Pub, 272 King St N, Waterloo, ON N2J 2Y9

Time: 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Details:

It’s that time of year again! On June 25 join the board and members of the KWSQA community at Morty’s Pub for an evening of food, drinks, and socializing with your peers.

The social will kick off at 6pm and will run until 8pm. We’re hoping to host the social on the patio to enjoy the summer weather, but in the case of inclement weather the event will be moved indoors. Food will also be provided through the event by KWSQA. Drinks and extra food will be the responsibility of attendees.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Tickets:

This year our social tickets will be offered for a rate of $20 for Non-Members. Anyone with a 2026 KWSQA Membership is able to attend the event at no additional fee. If you wish to purchase your membership in order to access this and all following KWality Talks you may do so by purchasing your membership here, then returning to this page and using your new membership code on the first screen to reserve a KWSQA Member Ticket.

2026 KWSQA Members will need to enter their Membership Code (which will have been sent via Ticket Tailor) on the first screen in order to access the KWSQA Member Ticket type. Reminder, this code will have been sent to you by TicketTailor when you purchased your membership or in early January. We recommend searching for “2026 KWSQA Membership” in your emails to find the email with your membership code. If you cannot locate this email or your membership code please reach out to info@kwsqa.org

♦

LONDON - Another tough night at the office for the Kitchener Panthers.

They were doubled up 8-4 in London Friday night, marking Kitchener's third straight defeat.

If there is any silver lining, the bats started to get some results as the Panthers generated 11 hits. Three of those came from Yunior Ibarra, a season-high for the Cuban catcher.

Malik Williams, Yosvani Penalver and Raffi Gross all had two hits a piece.

Gross extended his hit streak to seven games, while Williams has multiple hits in three of his last four outings.

Kitchener had two runs in the first, before London responded with a run in the third and two more in the fourth to take a lead they wouldn't relinquish.

London's big inning came in the sixth, when they scored four runs.

Kitchener left 13 runners on base on the night.

Samuel Quintana gave up a run on one hit in three innings of work.

Elian Serrata took the loss, surrendering three runs (two earned) on three hits in 1.1 innings. Both Quintana and Serrata had three strikeouts.

Travis Keys struck out four in five innings to capture the win. He gave up two runs on eight hits and walked three.

Kitchener falls to 5-6 on the season. London improved to 7-3.

The Panthers look to rebound Sunday afternoon at home against the Chatham-Kent Barnstormers. First pitch is scheduled for 2:05 p.m.

GET YOUR TICKETS NOW and #PackTheJack!

Sunday is COUNTRY DAY at Jack Couch Park. The first 500 fans into the ballpark get a FREE Panthers cowboy hat!

Those councillors  do their best work behind the scenes. Generally speaking public council meetings are not places for the truth to emerge as much as for slogans and mom and apple pie statements to be made. Even when councillors vote against doing the right thing they never have the honesty or guts to say outright that they want their campaign donations to continue hence they sure as heck aren't going to offend builders or developers by publicly calling them leeches or parasites grossly profiting from people's desires to own their own home for themselves and to raise their children. If smaller, modestly priced homes in subdivisions are less profitable to develop and build then without sweeteners or government subsidies they will stick to the bigger, more profitable builds. 

At the regional council meeting two days ago councillors voted in favour of pumping another 15 litres per second of water from Wilmot Township wellfields. At the same time they verbally advise that they are in the process of updating and improving their well interference processes and protocols. Too little too late you twits. Being "in the process of updating" does not allow some residents to do their laundry today. It does not allow multiple family members to take showers and wash dishes for example on the same day. Flushing toilets is now on the "If it's yellow let it mellow and if it's brown flush it down" system. "  Seeing that sign at a cottage with a very shallow well in a dry August might be tolerable but in your full time home with multiple family members it's not. 

I know what I would like to advise Wilmot Council and residents but I think it would get me into trouble. Let's just say that some well thought out civil disobedience might get the Region's attention and loosen their wallets to permit immediate funds to be available for drilling either new private wells or deeper wells for residents long experiencing water shortages that will only get worse with the Region's increased pumping of their water. Holding back on tax payments might actually be merely the tip of the iceberg necessary to get action versus mere attention from them.

Today's K-W Record article is titled "Water rationing for new builds to begin" by Bill Jackson.

Happy Pride Month! In today’s newsletter, I’m sharing five suggestions for how to be better allies for our LGBTQ+ coworkers. 🌈

A few years back, Aja Hammerly, a developer advocate at Google, wrote a blog post with the following story:

“The college I attended was small and very LGBT friendly. One day someone came to visit and used the word ‘gay’ as a pejorative, as was common in the early 2000s. A current student looked at the visitor and flatly said, ‘we don’t do that here.’ The guest started getting defensive and explaining that they weren’t homophobic and didn’t mean anything by it. The student replied, ‘I’m sure that’s true, but all you need to know is we don’t do that here.’”

Hammerly noted,

We don’t do that here was a polite but firm way to educate the newcomer about our culture.

Consider using this phrase the next time you hear someone making a disparaging comment or joke about someone in the LGBTQ+ community.

Share on Instagram, LinkedIn, or YouTube.

One of the myriad things I’ve learned from Jeannie Gainsburg’s excellent book The Savvy Ally: A Guide for Becoming a Skilled LGBTQ+ Advocate is how to respond when someone comes out to you.

Gainsburg says to thank them, perhaps with a “Thank you for trusting me enough to let me know.”

Then listen, and let them take the lead on anything they want to discuss.

If there’s an awkward silence, she recommends throwing in one of these comments:

• “Congratulations! I’m so happy for you.”
• “I’m here for you.”
• “This calls for a celebration!”

Doing so can help make someone feel seen, supported, and accepted.

In I Am Neither, Kathia Ramos shared what it was like to let people know that their pronouns were now they/them.

Their manager at the time was very understanding, yet mistakenly used Ramos’ old pronouns. The first time wasn’t a big deal. She apologized and moved on. Then it happened again.

As Ramos wrote,

“I didn’t expect the apologizing to escalate to an explanation of how she was trying to use the correct pronoun. Time stood still while she apologized, and I could feel everyone’s eyes on me. What appeared to be an effort to make herself feel better, actually made me feel worse.”

If we use the wrong pronouns for a coworker, let’s simply correct ourselves. Without launching into an explanation of how hard we’re trying to use the right pronouns. Without making it all about us.

Did you know that tech company Mapbox created “Queer in Tech,” a free collection of stock photos?

As explained in their announcement:

“We created this photo set to promote the visibility of queer and gender-nonconforming (GNC) people in technology, who are often under-represented as workers powering the creative, technical, and business leadership of groundbreaking tech companies and products.”

There’s also “The Gender Spectrum Collection,” which is free for non-commercial purposes. Their recommended usage guidelines state:

“Images of trans and nonbinary people can be used to illustrate any topic, not just stories related directly to those communities. Consider using these photos for stories on topics like beauty, work, education, relationships, or wellness. Including transgender and non-binary people in stories not explicitly about gender identity paints a more accurate depiction of the world we live in today.”

Representation matters. Join me in bookmarking these sites for future stock photography needs.

p.s. I’ve curated a longer list of sites specializing in stock photos and illustrations featuring people from underrepresented groups. Some are free, and some for a fee. Find the list at betterallies.com.

In Supporting the Transgender People in Your Life: A Guide to Being a Good Ally, Advocates for Trans Equality recommends several ways to support transgender coworkers. Here’s just one:

Avoid compliments or advice based on stereotypes about transgender people, or how men and women should look or act. The article explains,

“People sometimes intend to be supportive but unintentionally hurt transgender people by focusing on their looks or whether they conform to gender stereotypes. Here are some examples of what to avoid, as they often feel like backhanded compliments:

• You look like a real woman! I never would have known that you’re trans.

• You would look less trans if you just got a wig/shaved better/wore more makeup/etc.

• No real man would wear clothing like that. You should change if you don’t want people to know you’re transgender.

• I’d date him, even though he’s transgender.”

That’s all for this week. I’m glad you’re on this journey with me,

Karen Catlin (she/her), Author of the Better Allies® book series

Copyright © 2026 Karen Catlin. All rights reserved.

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We Don’t Do That Here, and Other Actions for Allies was originally published in Code Like A Girl on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.