Author Archives: Norma Shirk

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About Norma Shirk

My company, Corporate Compliance Risk Advisor, helps employers (with up to 50 employees) to create human resources policies and employee benefit programs that are appropriate to the employer’s size and budget. The goal is to help small companies grow by creating the necessary back office administrative structure while avoiding the dead weight of a bureaucracy.  To read my musings on the wacky world of HR, see my weekly blog HR Compliance Jungle (www.hrcompliancejungle.com) which publishes every Wednesday morning. To read my musings on a variety of topics, see my posts on Her Savvy (www.hersavvy.com).
by | September 2, 2014 · 5:00 am

Frankenstein’s Mother

Frankenstein

Mary Wollstonecraft was an unusual woman. She left home at the age of 19 to escape her bullying father and his many failed business ventures.  She worked as a school teacher and a governess before settling on a writing career.

Wollstonecraft’s political writings focused on the hot topic of the day, the French Revolution. She was a “republican” supporting the ideals of the French Revolution. In 1790 she became the first intellectual to challenge Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the French Revolution when she published Vindication of the Rights of Man. Most intellectuals, however, sided with the conservative Burke as news spread of the violent Reign of Terror.

Wollstonecraft’s social writings also diverged from the mainstream.  In 1792 she published Vindication of the Rights of Woman, which advocated gender equality and better education of women. She believed a better education would enhance their self-respect and self-worth. She also published a novel in which the women enjoyed sex and considered it ridiculous to pretend otherwise.  (She beat Erica Jong by almost 200 years.)

Wollstonecraft’s private life shocked conventional society as much as her political and social views. While living in Paris she met Gilbert Imlay, an American businessman, and agreed to be his common law wife. However, Imlay deserted her after the birth of their daughter, Fanny.

Wollstonecraft returned to London and eventually moved in with William Godwin, another political and social radical. They both despised marriage as tyranny but married when she became pregnant.  Wollstonecraft died soon after at the age of 38 about a month after the birth of their daughter Mary.

Daughter Mary is known to us as Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein. Mary Shelley was overshadowed in her own life by her parents’ notoriety. It left her feeling like a freak and a social outcast, much like the Creature in her famous novel.  Psychologists might be able to explain it better; for the rest of us, it means that Mary Wollstonecraft was Frankenstein’s mother.

About Norma Shirk

Norma started her company, Compliance Risk Advisor, to help employers create human resources policies for their employees and employee benefit programs that are appropriate to the employer’s size and budget. The goal is to have structure without bureaucracy.

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by | July 24, 2014 · 5:00 am

Rebel With A Cause

 

Emily Dickinson

 

 

 

 

 

 

Emily Dickinson was a rebel. She’s an excellent role model for any woman (or man) who wants to demur from the mainstream but not be handled with chains, to paraphrase one of her more famous poems.

Her rebellion was unobtrusive, quiet, and almost invisible at first viewing. Consider her poetry; She wrote poetry that often did not rhyme. The convention in her day was that poems consisted of four-line stanzas in which alternating lines rhymed.  Her style was so radical that it was rejected by one of the leading poets of the day. The rejection must have crushed Emily because she never again submitted a poem for criticism or publication and her poetry was first published after her death. Now her non-rhyming style serves as a  transition to the free-form style prevalent with today’s poets.

Her poetry memorializes her rebellion against the constrictions in her life. One widely  anthologized poem begins with an observation (paraphrasing again) that people who fight silently are braver than those who fight openly as soldiers. This sentiment will resonate with anyone who has fought an up-hill battle against oppressive authority or stupid social conventions.

Emily rebelled by using satire in her poetry. Her satirical eye was as sharp as Jane’s Austen’s, but perhaps not as gentle. One of her poems pokes fun at a preacher who preached so long on a broad topic that he made it narrow. We all love to skewer pontificating bores, but we rarely do so as elegantly as Emily.

Emily was also a rebel in her personal life. At a time when marriage and motherhood was the only socially acceptable career for women she remained unmarried. She carved out an unofficial career as a poet.

I discovered the rebellious life of Emily Dickinson when I began reading my copy of her collected poems, bought long ago and forgotten on the shelf. I never realized how radical she was when I was forced to read her poetry in English literature class. Now I want to become a rebel like Emily Dickinson.

About the author:

Norma Shirk helps employers create human resources policies for their employees and employee benefit programs that are appropriate to the employer’s size and budget. The goal is to have structure without bureaucracy.

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by | July 3, 2014 · 5:00 am

In the Middle of Nowhere

Letchworth State ParkLetchworth State Park is in upstate New York in the middle of nowhere. It can only be reached via secondary roads from Rochester or Buffalo.  I first visited the park on a school field trip.

I love the park because I’m a history buff and there’s plenty of history in the park.  On our school trip we visited the pioneer and Seneca Indian museum and the restored Seneca Council House. Near the Council House we saw the statue of a truly remarkable woman named Mary Jemison.

Mary’s family emigrated from Ireland in the early 1700’s. After her family died in a frontier raid, a common occurrence in those days, she was adopted by the Seneca tribe. At the time of her adoption into the tribe Mary was about 15 years old. She spent the rest of her life as a member of the tribe and her descendants can still be found among them.

Mary farmed land that is now within the borders of the park.  Traces of her life and farm remain, including a log home built for one of her daughters. Mary is buried in the park near the land she used to farm.

Of course, not everyone cares about history as I do. So if history is not your thing, there’s plenty of natural beauty on display in the park.  The primary natural attraction is the waterfalls on the Genesee River.  The river is shallow but it narrows into a deep gorge that descends through a series of three waterfalls. At the lower falls, a stone bridge spans the river gorge allowing a wonderful view upstream of the middle falls.

If you ever find yourself in the middle of nowhere near Buffalo or Rochester, consider taking a side trip to Letchworth State Park. You can eat lunch at the Glen Iris Inn, formerly the home of William P. Letchworth who donated the park land. Then take a stroll to the nearby historical and natural sights in the park.  It’ll be worth the trip, I promise!

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by | June 12, 2014 · 5:30 am

How The Heck Did That Happen?

emotions,females,people,persons,Photographs,shocks,surprises,women

Running a business is both exhilarating and scary.  It’s exhilarating to have total intellectual and artistic freedom to do what you want as you earn a living.  It’s scary because all the responsibility falls on you as the business owner.

Expect that you will have a few “how the heck did that happen” moments. These moments can arise from many situations.  Perhaps you discover that a trusted employee has stolen company money or property.  Perhaps you learn that a key supplier has gone bankrupt just as you are about to enter your busiest season, leaving you scrambling to meet your sales goals while searching for a replacement supplier.

Planning can make all the difference between failure and success for your business.  Planning involves taking three key steps:

 

  1. The first step is to ask “what if” questions. What if my key supplier suddenly disappeared? Asking this question means that you will immediately begin looking for a backup supplier. Or it could mean that you decide to use several suppliers at all times so that you have an existing relationship and can quickly ramp up orders to the surviving supplier. This type of planning is a component of what the pundits call your “business continuity plan”.  A good business continuity plan works in conjunction with a good disaster recovery plan or emergency response plan.

 

  1. The second step in planning is to buy insurance to cover your risks. If you have employees, it is always a good idea to get a policy that covers employee dishonesty.  These policies can restore you cash flow while your former trusted employee is living in the islands on your money.  At least your business won’t fail due to the sudden, acute loss of cash.  These days, most insurance companies offer package deals on property and casualty insurance that cover the basic liability risks faced by any business.  A basic P&C package can be supplemented with a “rider” that adds more coverage for specific risks.  Your agent or broker can help you decide which coverage best fits your company’s risks.

 

  1. The third step in planning is to remember that your advance planning will probably not fit the crisis that you face in your “how the heck did that happen” moment.  No matter how well you plan, something will boondoggle in unexpected ways. But having a plan means that you can improvise a solution. An existing plan can be tweaked to fit the unexpected and that will save your business. Not planning in advance is a guarantee of failure for your business.

 

If you follow the three key steps outlined here, I believe you will have the basics for a good corporate compliance plan.  After all, the point of a corporate compliance plan is to sort out all those boring back-office details that make the difference between failure and success, when you find yourself asking, “How the heck did that happen?”

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