Hi! My name is Ray, and I am currently a third-year student at Queen’s University. I am studying psychology and sociology as well as the employment relations diploma. I am originally from Vancouver, BC, but moved to Kingston to study at Queen’s, and let me just say, it is a HUGE difference living in Kingston compared to Vancouver. Go out after 5pm on a Sunday night everything is closed here! haha.
I never really knew what I wanted to do as my future career until I started studying at Queen’s. And because of my interest in HR, I gained an interest in employment law because of the diploma, and I always thought the law was an interesting subject from watching too many Suits haha. I hope by the end of this course I will have a thorough an understanding of employment law to know my own rights, as well as the employers and other employees rights, are. I have very minimal experience regarding the law, so this may be challenging in the beginning but that does not mean I won’t work hard to achieve my goals.
Employment relations is something that I always had interest towards, I enjoy dealing with people as well as different problems that require critical thinking, with my background in psychology and sociology I am able to analyze situations in a social scientific matter of things.
and my first job was actually working as a newspaper boy for my city, it was tough work, especially with school and soccer practices haha
That is it for my introduction everybody, thank you for your time, Good luck in the course!
Best,
Ray C
Ray's EMPR Blog 
Hey Ray!
Cool to hear that you are from Vancouver! I’ve always wanted to go there but have never gotten around to it. I hear its beautiful!
I completely agree with your statement regarding the fact that you would like to know your rights as an employee. I think so many people have worked in jobs having no idea what their rights are. They just show up, do their job and don’t think twice about whether they are being treated properly. I know that I have been in positions as a high school student in a part-time job where I thought that my employer was violating workplace laws but I was too afraid to confront my manager about it as I thought I would get penalized for it. From what little I have learned so far in this course, bar far the most interesting to me is the mutual consideration clause. I had no idea that both parties must benefit from a change that is made in a contract otherwise the contract is unenforceable even if the employer has signed the new contract. What have you seen so far that is the most interesting to you?
Great first post!
Maddy
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Hi Maddy,
Vancouver is a really beautiful city to visit, the mountains are breathtaking.
When I worked in high school my employer was giving out work shifts that were too short, but being a high school student I didn’t think much about it, just thought of it as more free time for me. Now that I understand more about the working laws through this course, I can see that clearly, it was illegal for them to do so.
The most interesting part about this course for me actually has been how employment relations deal with the law, I did not think that people that work in HR or ER would have to know so much about the law, I had always thought of them as sort of an in-house employee management, manages productivity and quality of work sort of jobs.
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Welcome to the course!
Although, hopefully, it isn’t too related to Suits perhaps you can critique their legal analysis!
Enjoy the course,
Professor Webb
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Thank you for your wishes, I hope to enjoy the course.
Well shucks, I better start watching some judge Judy instead of suits then, maybe that will get me through this course. haha
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Hello Ray,
Welcome to EMPR 200! I look forward to working with you this term and reading your thoughts and analysis of current events on your blog.I am glad you were able to use the same blog site as for EMPR 210.
Part of the reason we use blogs rather than discussion forums in our EMPR courses is so that we can promote the work of EMPR participants on our unit website and through our alumni networks on LinkedIn.
If your post is selected for promotion, I will follow up with you to ask permission if I can post a link more broadly to your blog. It is a good way to expand the conversation to working professionals and promote the ideas of EMPR participants. If you would rather that we do not promote your blog site more broadly, just let me know. There is certainly no penalty (or advantage) associated with declining the promotion of your blog posts to our alumni network.
If you would like to learn more about our alumni and the Employment Relations Program at Queen’s, please visit our website – http://mir.queensu.ca/ .
Again, welcome to EMPR 200!
Rob
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Hi Ray,
Let me echo my colleagues above in welcoming you to our respective courses in the EMPR program: Welcome to EMPR 240!
I, too, am a soccer player and I was lucky enough to turn that into a first job at the local indoor soccer center when I was younger.
It sounds like your background and interests should provide you with a great fit in the EMPR program. Welcome again and I hope you are enjoying the course!
Best,
BW
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Hi Ray!
Thanks for sharing your introduction with us! I visited Vancouver for the first time last year and it’s definitely no Kingston! I also got super confused when I landed at night and couldn’t figure out what this “motionless giant light” in the sky until I learned the next day that it was the lit up top of a mountain for skiing and such!
I noticed your interest in employment law, have you taken the course yet? I think there would be a lot of topics that would be highly interesting for you!
Before I go, I’m interested to see if there are any connections that you can make between studying psychology and employment relations. Perhaps we can discuss more in the future in the course! I look forward to working with you!
Warm Regards,
Michelle Chu
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