Year: 2021

Staying in Touch…Professionally

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After an hour’s conversation last night with my previous manager, I felt much better about myself. Naturally, this beckoned me to pose several questions here. Do you stay in touch with a previous boss? Or a co-worker who isn’t technically a friend, but rather someone you stay in touch with. Not via social media, but where a call is initiated and verbal conversations are had. Who initiates the staying in touch? You or them? What are the conversations about? Catching up or serious topics about your profession? Do you find yourself opening up, or simply keeping appearances? Do you end the call, thinking perhaps you should not have said that? As the tables are turned or while I wear the shoe on the other foot…as a boss, I have to admit that I stay in touch with members of my staff. Mostly to catch up, discuss a bit about their job, my job and share a few laughs about our time together. I don’t mind if they share too much or not enough. But I …

Topics of Interest

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It’s only Thursday, but for my post time-change-over-the-weekend brain, it feels like it should be a Saturday or June for that matter. Nevertheless, my day is filled with meetings. To the point that sitting still during a video call with a poker face is becoming more and more challenging. As I find my mind drifting off to the winding and narrow back streets of Cannes. Yes the one in France. That’s where I am inside my head, while perched on a ergonomic chair, looking at the camera. Why Cannes, I don’t know. But 20 minutes into a meeting, and I am whisked away to those streets. When the meetings are done, I walk from my desk to my bed and lay there for a second or two in an effort to clear my head or plan dinner. That is until someone pings me for attention… So in case you feel the need to escape from all things mundane, read on. For the love of Downtown Abbey, you’ll be glad to know the sequel A New …

Definition of Cozy

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It’s been raining here in San Francisco for a few days now and I could not be happier. We need the rain in California as much as the next place experiencing drought. This morning I put on my sweater, fuzzy slippers and turned on the heat, feeling the need to be cozy, even while I work remotely. So here’s to coziness…

An Invitation To Guest Post on Raw Silk and Saffron

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We are interested in starting a community of like-minded humans right here on Raw Silk and Saffron. This is all in the name of fun and sharing and nothing more about… Travel Parenting Grandparenting Hobbies Environment Novelists or those who take creative writing seriously Film Buffs Photographers Lovers of food and wine and chocolate naturally So here’s what you need to so. Send your topic via email or below form. Something informative, funny, helpful, inspirational and in exchange (if contents are approved) we will share it right here on Raw Silk and Saffron.

Saturday Topics

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One of the things I do appreciate at my day job is, at the start of any zoom meeting, the host would say: Good morning, good afternoon and good evening to all of you and thank you for joining. Not sure about the rest of the attendees, but I sort of take a step back and reflect on all those getting ready to start the day, the ones planning their lunch and even the poor souls who have to be on way past their working hours to attend a global meeting…I wonder about the scene behind the image of them sitting still in front of the camera. For me it is always at 5a.m., having rolled out of bed, with a cup of tea in hand, hoping no one would need me to talk about anything so intense. What do you do during a zoom call? I woke up very early this morning to get to the local grocer to pick up eggs and some breakfast goods. On the drive back, I actually pulled over …

Travel: Destinations in Film

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I’ve seen different folks going in and out of the neighbor’s house across the street for the past month or so. And right away I realized they are Airbnb-ing (hosting) their property. It’s not that I am stalking, but while parking my car, or doing landscape maintenance, I see different folks in and out, taxis and Ubers pulling up. A call is made in the driveway and definitely a code is shared and next thing you know, the garage door opens and these different individuals, men mostly, go inside. Days later a maid service comes in to clean up and then the family of 6 return home. Which gets me thinking, where do they go for those days while a stranger is in their home? I mean the children are of school age, all under ten going to a physical school instead of online? How does this family juggle such a lifestyle? So I decided to do a search on Airbnb and discovered there are countless homes around my block alone that host vacationers or …

Searching for That Silver Lining

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Apparently I had a smile on my face the other day that troubled my family members. It’s the sort of smile I produce when I am thinking and plotting and re-organizing priorities in my head. You see, recently I’ve been tossing around the idea of scaling back on work and finding a new career adventure which actually and truly makes me happy. Because of this back-and-forth, I’ve been buying novels with that very synopsis in play. Woman leaves life and moves somewhere. Woman finds new joy in life. Woman buys a cottage and transforms it. Woman learns life lessons and so on. I mean you get the picture. So I smile, with every purchase of these very novels which are going to become my inspiration to make that leap or ‘bounce’ from the unfulfilling and into a more simple and yet gratifying life. I’ve been caught with the very smile, when I stroll through a park or a quant neighborhood adoring all things nature, steadily and very colorfully readying for winter. It’s all part of …

If My Weeks were Summed Up In A Slide Deck…

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This has become a thing it seems for me…where on Fridays, I feel the need to recap…kind of sort of what I do at work with a slide deck of where things are. It almost feel like a series. Season 1, Episode 3 and so on. So with that said, here’s this weeks episode. After a not-so-unplugged time-off last week, I jumped right into my days, doing what we all need to do at our workplace. I pulled 12-18 hours days catching up and preparing for a Thursday morning presentation. I know I was running on fumes and adrenaline all mixed up into one. Because just as I felt myself crashing, I turned to some form of caffeine to get me going again. At one point at nearly 2:30 in the morning, I got into bed and turned off the lights, thinking I would get a few hours sleep. But ended up on my phone sending emails and instant messages to our teams spread across the world before their day ended and mine -on-the-clock- began. …