Four retired U of T professors have lost the first round of their struggle for pay compensation for alleged sexual discrimination, but the judge has left plenty of room for the next battle.The professors say the university enriched itself and discriminated against women faculty by paying them on average 20 per cent less than men. Justice Arthur Gans dismissed the women’s request to represent all women allegedly discriminated against at U of T, but he has left the door open to individual...

My cough began innocently enough when I woke up with a tickle in my throat, but a week later the tickle became non-stop coughing fits. The doctor at the walk-in clinic prescribed puffers containing cortisteroids for me, assuring me I had a common cold symptom. When the puffers did not work, my family doctor just gave me stronger doses of the same cortisteroids. I took his advice simply because I didn't think I had any other options. In desperation, I called a Shiatsu therapist, Laurie Ward,...

Thinking about taking a break from the working world? You’re not alone. The “Sabbatical Sisters” — Catherine Allen, Nancy Bearg, Rita Foley and Jaye Smith — advocate people give themselves the “gift of time” by taking a sabbatical in their book, “Reboot Your Life: Energize Your Career & Life by Taking a Break.” Reuters interviewed Bearg, a national security consultant, about incorporating sabbaticals into one’s life. Why take a sabbatical? We think everyone needs one. There are a number of...

“I woke up with the idea for it in the middle of the night, four years ago,” said Hyde, author of the Mo’s Nose book series. “I got up, wrote the idea and wrote the first version of the first story. I even saw it illustrated in Japanese ink brush in my dream.” The dog in Hyde’s dream belonged to her best friend Amanda Giacomini, whom she asked to illustrate the first book, “Mo Smells Red”. Giacomini didn’t know how to use Japanese ink brush, but learned the skill for the books. Most of the...

When Casey McConnell started text messaging marketing company Qittle he took the traditional route of hiring onsite employees. But he soon realized it was more advantageous to hire workers online. “We found it was easy to find these specialists or people that we could hire for a certain amount,” said McConnell, the CEO of Qittle. “We didn’t have the extra overhead and we just got the project done. It’s really easy for us to ramp up our needs or pull back using contractors. If we had an...