A few months ago, during a rainy day, the CEO had a town hall in a Mississauga banquet hall. The hall was a mile away from our offices. So everyone jumped into their car and went to the hall. When the event was over and I was leaving, I noticed quite a few women didn't have an umbrella like I did. I offered, as one should, a woman closest to me walking through the parking lot, to share my umbrella.
She did, reluctantly, for about 10 seconds, then she came out from under the umbrella. It was clear that she was very, very uncomfortable. I got a sense that she felt I was "trying to pick her up". Man-o-man, I was just trying to be civil with a work colleague whom I didn't know. It turned out that our cars were about 20 feet away from the other and the walk to our cars was about 1 minute plus. As I settled into my car, I thought to myself, "wow, don't people have different perceptions about things, based on their past experiences--good or bad!"
