Here are my questions for her:
1. Is this the job you went to school for? No
2. What jobs have you had before this? I started my first job at 8 years old when I started delivering papers across my whole village of Iroquois in Eastern Ontario. I then worked as a house maid, I worked for my village picking up garbage on the garbage truck and cutting grass at the local community parks and baseball diamonds all before I was 16. I worked at a gas station, as a waitress, on an assembly line at a factory, as a telephone collections agent, and in a video arcade from the ages of 16 to 21. Once I was at university I began to work based on the skills I was developing there, so I then worked as an assistant for my home community’s member of parliament in Toronto, I worked at creating large scale hand drawn maps, report writing and analyzing artifacts while obtaining my archaeology degree. And then once I finished my archaeology degree I became a licensed archaeologist with a specialty in human remains recovery and reburial. I had the opportunity to work across the South Pacific Ocean, Eastern Europe and across the USA and Canada with this career. After working in archaeology for 8 years I became a licensed high school teacher and guidance councilor. I taught sociology, history, geography, learning strategies, leadership and native studies in the classroom and then supervised a minimum of 500 students a year as a councilor. As a teacher/councilor I also had the opportunity to travel with students, to Australia/New Zealand, England, France and across the USA. While teaching I began some more university work and focused on sociology and equity studies in education where I investigated anti-racism and spiritual diversity of teenagers. After 8 years of being in a high school I took my skills on the road and lived and worked in England, Egypt and Nepal. In 2013 after returning to Canada I find this job at the City of Kingston.
3. What did you take in school? I was actually a terrible primary and high school student, because I was not paid much attention to in school. I was very fortunate that I had parents who believed in me and kept me going to get an education. But, when I left high school I was still pretty illiterate and could not write to save myself. And so my skills coming out of high school were based in art and illustration. I first went to college for this, but was not talented enough to survive in the workforce, and so as a mature student I then managed to get into university. I was again lucky that two professors understood my weaknesses and privately taught me how to write over the course of my first two years of university. I then completed a Politics degree, then an Archaeology degree and then a Master’s Degree in Human Evolutionary Anatomy, I then pursued an Education degree and then finally a Doctorate in Sociology and Equity Studies. It is said that I have been a life-long learner, and although I suffered with writing, I didn’t let that stop me in my desire to always know more.
4. Where did you go to school? After high school I went to Sheridan College (now a technical university), then on to York University, Simon Fraser University and the University of Toronto.
5. How did jobs you have had before this help with this job? All the positions I have had since my childhood have helped me learn very important soft skills, such as time management, respectful customer service, and organizational management, but most importantly I learned how to become a trustworthy employee, where honesty, and a strong work ethic in always finding things to be done instead of only focusing on my particular area, daily targets or waiting for people to tell me what to do, have served me very well. I have always been a proactive thinker about what needs to be done tomorrow or next week, and if I can get a leg up on it, the more prepared I will be for it to be done on time and done well. I think this was a response to knowing that if I had to write anything of value, it was going to take me a while to do so, so waiting until the last minute was not going to prove successful.
6. How long have you done this job? I have been with the City of Kingston for 2.5 years.
7. Did you have to move to take this job? Well, not really, as I had just returned to Canada from being overseas for years, and as my family are all still in eastern Ontario, Kingston seemed like a nice place to stop for a while. Luckily enough, this job came about at the same time as my husband and I were moving here.
8 & 9. Has the job changed since you started and if so how? Oh yes. In the job description I sent previously it said that things are under review, and that is because the tasks originally written for this job were not the tasks that were the best use of time for making this job meaningful for the community. Because I work for the municipal government, I am accountable to the whole of the population of Kingston who pay taxes which in turn pays my salary. So as my job was originally written to deliver interactive educational programs for our city museums and arts spaces, my job is now to find out what programs or opportunities people want in the community FIRST before setting upon designing anything. It is more of a shift in philosophy then in action if that makes sense.
10. What aspects of this job do you like the best? Meeting new people, and figuring out how to help generate and meet the needs of what the community wants. I am more of a networker, where I connect people up to make things happen, then making things happen entirely myself. This is my favourite part of the job. J
11. What are the hardest parts if this job?Sometimes I want to get things done faster than my bosses can afford or are comfortable with. So being extremely patient and maintaining momentum of ideas and keeping up contacts within pending projects while waiting for the green light from my bosses is definitely the hardest part of the job.
12. What has been your favorite moment in this job? Oh, there have been a few. But I suppose the passing of the First Peoples Recognition Statement by our current City Council would have to be my favorite.
13. Do you work with the mayor and if so how?I don’t work daily with the mayor, but I have helped to work alongside him with such things as cultural sensitivity training and the reading of the Recognition Statement respectfully. As well, he has always been very eager to visit with any students that I bring in to City Hall for various programs. He is a very effective and personable mayor.
14. Do you work with the council and if so how? Much like the mayor, I work alongside them when they request special projects or programs to be created. And it was City Counselor Neill who first proposed for the Recognition Statement to be created and adopted, and so that request came to me to then I approached the community for scripting and bringing back to City Council an official statement for their approval.
15. Can you tell me about a difficult situation and how you handled it? Oh… well, we all face difficult situations, and will continue to do so. The key is to learn from them, and to take on board how to not let the same difficult situation happen again. And to be honest, I’m struggling with trying to come up with a situation to tell you. For the most part, any difficult situation I’ve been directly involved revolved around the lack of communication and inclusion with the most appropriate voices on the topic being discussed.
16. What communities within Kingston do you work with? Everyone really, but most particularly I have been involved with elementary school students and teachers, teenagers and young adults through the City’s Youth Strategy, and over the last year, the First Peoples/Native community.
17. What are some of the things you do for & with the Native community in your job? As I am new to this community, I am trying to do more listening than talking, to understand the needs and hopes of the community. I have joined various community boards in the areas of education, arts, culture, health care, the military and general supportive groups, to help in understanding where this community has been up until now and where it wants to go. I have also had the pleasure of interviewing several community members to put together a report called Kingston First Peoples: Purposeful Dialogues. I am hoping from this report that more visible and proactive projects will help to elevate the voice of the Native community across the whole Kingston region. I have helped support the Recognition Statement being adopted, and just recently helped produce a book mark that has “Welcome to Kingston” written in the various languages of our Native community members, including Lakota thanks to your mom J. I am also working directly with the Mississauga’s of Alderville to help reestablish their history across Kingston, and am involved with helping to resurrect a PowWow next spring.
18. How has this job raised awareness of Native people within city council? Well, I’m not sure my job has raised awareness directly with city council, but it is more like a trickle effect within the building. I have had no problem telling people that I am Mohawk, and therefore people have just become more sensitive to learning about and responding to what the First Peoples community have or don’t have across Kingston. My bosses in turn have been more apt to think inclusively when management meetings occur with senior officials and councilors. So, it really comes down to the fact that my manager hired me to help integrate a First Persons voice in the projects and workings of the Cultural Services Department. If my manager had not done that, then whoever took my job might not have had that perspective to add to the internal discussions of the building. Sometimes and perhaps unfortunately, it’s not so much what you have to offer a job or community, as it is finding an ally who is in a place to help position you to be heard. J
19. How has your Native background helped with this job? Oh, my spirituality and ancestors have brought me to this point, I have no doubt. The type of job I now do, which I more or less describe as a “social equity liaison officer” can be described as a new type of job in the work force. These roles never existed 10 years ago, and so my whole career has been in search of finding my “perfect job” and yet it didn’t exist until now. And only through the vision of my manager and her seeing the potential in hiring me, have we helped to mould this type of job in this environment. Sometimes it’s not so much about being a round peg in a round hole as it is in being a round peg who with perseverance makes a square hole rounded enough to fit the peg.
20. What advice would you give to young people looking at similar jobs? Know yourself very well. Know your strengths, and know your weaknesses. Promote your strengths, and find ally’s to help with your weaknesses. But, don’t ever think you can’t be happy at a job nor that the job for you isn’t out there. Sometimes you just have to work at making your “dream job” become a reality through rarely taking no for an answer, and winning people over to listening to you and what it is you enjoy doing and are really good at!! J Try all kinds of different things before you more on, because I said earlier, the key is to learn something from all experiences, and the soft skills can really make the difference when it comes to securing more opportunities.
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