Saturday, August 08, 2009

The Mod Goddess Guide to Work


You are in a work meeting and presenting an important project on marketing trends for your company. Your power-point skills are in full flow when it’s pointed out that your figures couldn’t possibly make sense if you had seen the departmental email on last quarter’s drastic sales drop… grrr, how had you forgotten to include that? Undoubtedly the dimwit temp’s fault. But blaming him will sound paranoid and professing ignorance, pathetic. Time to grab the thick skin of Pasowee, the Buffalo Woman.

This tough cookie was a Native American Goddess – stolen from her tribe, she made a daring night-time escape but was caught in a powerful thunderstorm. She grabbed an old buffalo skin for protection. Lying under this rudimentary shelter, Pasowee came up with a terrific housing plan for her people: the teepee. When she returned and demonstrated how buffalo skins stretched and supported could create quite a cosy abode, she was immediately promoted to Construction Chief.

Get your buckskin on, baby, and weather the work-storms. Own up to accounting errors, reply to emails and don’t take too many sick days. With a resilient pelt like Pasowee’s you needn’t take job-stuff personally. And think outside the hide. A spell-checked report might get read but a brilliant idea might get a raise.

Mod Pasowee - Anita Roddick: founder of The Body Shop, a natural cosmetics chain that started as a small shop in Brighton and thirty years later, had 2,000 stores in more than 50 countries. She pioneered ethical consumerism, advocating fair trade and recycling but received some criticism when she sold her company to the L'Oreal corporation for £652 million. Sadly, Dame Anita Roddick died in September 2007 but she will be remembered as one of the most innovative female entrepreneurs.

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