Today were hosting a rocking Panel Discussion that i am really excited for. And in her new book, cant even. She will be joining us with some amazing, kate young, smith. If you have not yet order a copy of the book, we ship everywhere. We have curbside pickup. Were also open to the public at capacity just make sure to come by on a monday or tuesday because weekends are really busy for us. Just remember that your purchase is supporting a bookstore rated and also if you order a copy of the book from bookpeople bookstore, you will be getting another thing. Just give everyone a quick platform event after this introduction number guest will be joining us on the screen. In taking questions and please make sure to submit them in the bubble below. Youre looking at your screen, the bar below always to the right you will see two little bubbles this a q a. To submit them there instead of the chats. And with that, we will be recording tonights event which will be aired on cspan and later date right just a heads up. Now on to introducing outcast of the night. Anne Helen Petersen is here, the former academic. At that university of texas at austin. Her focus is on the history of celebrity. Too loud too fat to study into lead. They were featured in mbr in the atlantic, she currently lives in montana and kate young is nelly based cultural critic. [inaudible]. Her book is on the intersection of race gender and sexuality. And is impaired in different media, cosmic cosmopolitan and paper magazine. She has a ba in journalism from boston university, masters and mathematician. At the masters in journalism and the arts from the university of southern california. In 2016, she served as inaugural talk criticism fellow. 2019 she was awarded the fellowship in Digital Innovation and criticism. And ms. Smith is a journalist based in northern california. And another is an editor and also writes in a daily newsletter. And is published work in catapults. [inaudible]. And then you have connie, the executive, and public consumer culture. She also posted become produced or 2019 documentary series title the reported on fashion, culture around the world. The Second Season one and news women of new york award. And with that, i would like to help me welcome our guests for the night. I think youll for being here. Anne Helen Petersen hi everyone. I am anne Helen Petersen and i am glad youre here and i am so grateful to have people host this. I lived in austin, people was a real refuge for me never to my come back to austin, it remains as much. I am so grateful for the work they do in the community and the things they preserve for books and reading. I am very happy to be here. I want to actually go around it and i love each of the panelists say just one thing about themselves like the place when they can find a piece of work that theyve done that they are really product. I think one of the talks of these panels is introducing internet thinkers. And also to say thank you for being on this panel. Donating 250 to an organization to each of their choice. Its like what is a a little about their Organization Get them on your radar sprayed people if you have 2 or 5, to throw their way, a little bit can add up to a lot. Let start with connie. Because shes to the left of me and resume. Hello, connie. Im very proud of but i think the most recent piece ive done is an assignment i wrote, the grateful generation with no apologizing to do. And again any of the same structures that we millennials throughout, it really focuses on the sort of personal reckoning that i underwent when i went through the workplace reckoning that where along with other editorials union where to address the people and structures that were responsible for things. To make sure the things changed in those changes were implemented and were sustainable. In a meaningful way. And when people ask, why were the changes. It happened in 2020, were all working from home in sort of like decentralized a lot of people said that it was because of like what is happening, and what i noticed is there some sort of switch that happened was based off of older generations that millennials like myself, the younger millennials entering the full workforce in a difference in the way that we saw the world and things that were possible and that things that we were capable of and the possibilities of collective action. So i wrote about all of that. And i wrote about how my generation sort of lost position. No what we have learned from a number of people and is been all of the various reckonings that have been happening this year. My organization,. [laughter]. Thank you for reminding me. I just had a baby two weeks ago. It so my brain is a little bit pride. But i will mellow on this by the end of this, i will have an organization dropped in your chat room. Anne Helen Petersen think your muted brain it. So im kate. The thing that i am real proud of this essay that i wrote for netflix makes essentially homecoming as a project in the thinking. [inaudible]. And really proud of them because i think because it encapsulates the kind of writing that i most enjoy doing. Specifically around how they are represented. And for my organization, i would like to Pay Attention to the overall. [inaudible]. Action network. And has all of this crucial, now and especially these days with. [inaudible]. It is more crucial than ever to put people on the ground. Hello. Ive already gotten introduced. My piece that is most relevant to the conversation and to make larger audience a fork is called good grief. It appeared in the sixth issue and offered online and features are looking at the the you get your one day off and then you need to come back and you need to be over it. This feature came out before covid19. Now it feels more intense than ever because everyones experiencing loss. Because loss and unable to process it or, its already a complicated grief. You need to get therapy. And the grief counselors the night interviewed said actually sometimes grief just sucks. And thats how it is. So is an amazing feature to work on. And great to be supported by one of the few black editors that i get to work with. In my charity is also local, the Childrens Fund. 111 of the lowest income counties in california. With really significant disparities with classes. Which techies are buying houses and people sitting on the streets. The Childrens Fund provides a ton of services and support. And i would say above their wage. Right now theyre both fire refugees and covid19 issues that are really testing their ability. So i would love to see them give our support. Anne Helen Petersen so shout out to the current fundraising for the yearly Capital Campaign basically. And aaron youre a nonprofit the desk truly intellectual work. Go to google which magazine you finally to donated tribute to that played an important project that i donate to every year. Thank you. A newsletter addition that are out is the q a i did with seven monies tiktok intern. L about you guys but i spent during the pandemic deep into tiktok. In the sort of thing excited about how creative everyone is. Especially the young people. One of the accounts have been totally blown away with money, so is able to get into the guys are like runs the whole thing. Any sort of like picked his brain and he i think will did you look it up. Its so weird accounts. But like explain sort of basic economics and blows you away. Any say oh yeah, now i get it. As i got to ask him about his background and everything in it turns out that he has studied film in college. Which explained everything. So if you google these likes, the money and tiktok. I highly recommend to visit him. I highly recommend him. [inaudible]. In their organization is the city. Nonprofit that covers at the grassroots level. I have been checking the coronavirus chat room and reducing everything a day parade oparade. [inaudible]. Their building like a sociable memorial for new yorkers who have died from covid19. Its like a huge undertaking. And then we also have this ongoing project with a few other in order to give the nypd accountable. Especially for the lesson in the black communities. Their so much in terms of that just to get to talk about their experiences. So i think, theres never a bad time to support journalism. I think it is how informative it is especially right now. Anne Helen Petersen thank you so much bring it to yesterdays panel, they were talking about the labor and the exhaustion of social media participation. In one thing that everyone talked about was how the only platform that doesnt make you feel bad is tiktok. Because first volcano feel that even his millennials, even the youngest, i know you guys are younger millennials. Youll feel the compulsion that you have to go out there necessarily. There are college kids who can go do that. So i just consume it. For myself. So the big question that we are going to do is a little bit more personal and talk about time in our lives when we felt that we had the most. The broad theme of this panel is culture, freelance culture. Again to be working all of the time at some capacity. Without that is a salary job or putting together a bunch of different gigs. And that compulsion which existed before Millennials Health become much more prevalent as millennials have entered the workforce. And then the recession in 2008, has become a defining feature of the millennials relationship with work. So just like feeling like i always had to be trying to put together other unpaid jobs in order to find a job that would pay me reasonable. But im curious to hear what everyone else has to say. For me is definitely college. Yet this whole amazing chapter new book that like the college emission classes. So when i did it reminded me of this nightmare of colleges, just to be the most fun years of your life or whatever. And i went to the university of missouri, the Journalism School there. And it was sort of like on top of just normal pressure to have the time of your life every day but also be like preparing for your entire life. It was his pressure coming from our professors the administration and our peers in terms of that you have to do your internship, you have to like never stop letting up because that is how youre going to make it. And theres this real sense that only a few will ever make it out of here. It was so competitive. It just seemed like any even if he took the weekend off, it was like youve had this sense that you are falling behind. Its i think i was definitely yet, most stressful during that time in my life. For my time as a professor, like how you make the connections to get those internships. Sometimes there through your university or college was sometimes professors are like, try to reach out to some people in the business. And you dont know how to do that. You dont have to like you dont have the connections to my parents or anything like that that would make that possible. I felt like such a huge boulder to keep rolling up the hill. Absolutely. So fulltime freelancer for 15 years so basically all of those years probably the most stressful point was my father had a heart attack in 2012. And he needed a quadruple bypass. We dont mess around when it comes to a problems in the system for any lawful out. I had this realization that he was an adjunct faculty member, no savings. And he could not work for months and actually ended up later leaving the workforce altogether. Which in a normal world, where people can retire at 60, it is fine. But was not for me i suddenly realized i was going to be keeping two households. One income and accounting that is very poor and a very high cost of living. So that was where i really started scrambling to the bottom of the barrel basement jobs like any, 50, i will take it. I think the scramble is really familiar to a lot of freelancers. It comes to this kind of dark side because it comes back to bite me in the oscillator with 70. Like, that should be essay that you wrote for 50 bucks in 2013. Or whatever. Which is something that i think we dont talk about is much as we should and in this pressure to do it all, do all of the things. Sometimes they will say like really you need to really take that assignment. Really did. Okay. Okay, thank you. I have that dotted all over the internet. Like some of them i didnt do anything for them. Like what connie talked about, i was just grateful to be published on the internet right. And that throws down one of the people can expect to be paid. And what i could be expect to be paid because if i were free, why would the pace nobody else. Kate, go ahead. Served for me it was slightly different because im an immigrant and when i graduated from college on back home. It was a frustrating experience for me because i thought if you had the opportunity, that we just dont have the expectation that you leave home in 18. I can do here. So that was kind of never really the pressure that i was under. That was under a lot of pressure to kind of find work that held prestige and wanted to talk about in the book. And for a number of years, i was kind of what, i like the crippling part but i was trying to on the internet the websites the people on twitter care about. And my parents had never heard of them and they dont think the real. Having to continually justify the work that i was doing meant something. I was also behind in a way because when i had entered the workforce, i was afraid of it. I was very like very cognizant of the fact that can be in the internet forever. And i was not willing to submit my work for 50 bucks. I was too scared. But im also very glad they dont have things floating around because by the time i started writing on the internet. Will kind of moving out of that phase and also had found that i had Something Else that i wanted to write about. It was a personal choice. So that aspect of my professional life well it kind of meant that it took a long time. In the woman predominantly who started in that time do have our art further along in their career now. In the tradeoff is was it worth it. And i held back that long. I was really ashamed eventually that i was not doing the work that my mother can brag about. Big time. That left a lot of conflict between us when i was back living at home. Because she did not understand the industry that i was working and in that how it functioned. This was during the time that it was routinely the pot entire publications were going under. And i was supposed to find a way to become a staff writer and publication that was going under that didnt Hire International people that i could not technically legally work for because also i couldnt work in the u. S. Is this whole thing. It sort of just fine with the efforts that she thought was nothing. It was essentially the boundaries of what i could accomplish. And took a really long time. When they started theres no ships, they open it up internationally. And then i was able to get a byline. Become recognized enough to keep going. In the interpretation that i was able to go through. It was very difficult. There is something that limits me specifically because it didnt for me as a culture credit, there certain things that you cant do. Like you cant do the premieres from the ocean. Its that kind of makes those things available, available opportunities. [inaudible]. I found a very strange relationship to how i view the work respect because i definitely grew up with the understanding that michael was to not have to do the kind of work that we are now recognizi recognizing. It you clock out at 6 00 oclock. Like if i went to school that i got my degree. That i would not have to be working at kfc or whatever it was. But they have benefits. Like it is fun. In the antidote, and about the gentleman who was going to teach or be manager of the Grocery Store. Why is not okay to simply have enough to support yourself. Like what more is there. I dont live to work a job. I earn money so that i can do other things i actually want to be doing with my life. So yeah, it is a lot. Anne Helen Petersen yes. A lot of people who dont know or dont work closely with people who are immigrants dont know how difficult it is to find an organization that is willing to go through the visa process with you. It is a huge prolonged deal and its incredibly stressful read on the worker and his socks. And i wish that there was a massive reform. So like youre right, its hard weeks going to other people. No i cant just apply for the job. A lot of the application specifically ask if you are allowed to work in the country replied something or a place and then i would find out a few days later that i had to have a visa to work there. So currently i am graduated from grad school. [inaudible]. You know, its a long process and the rules are constantly changing. And its very stressful because there is to be a certain point that you are recognized, that hasnt anything to do with how well he worker how hard he worked for haskell for your are. Is about who is willing to take you on as a commodity and willing to invest in and jumping through all of the the polls. Just the idea of the job. Its not like theres this job listing. Its just nonexistent. It. [inaudible]. People are not trying to be a cultural writer but difficult of the reality of the middle and the old jobs. Like part of i think the people keep asked me, how did millennials get this at reputation for being lazy and entitled. I think a lot of it is when we were raised to advocate for ourselves. Any of us especially people raised in middleclass into, a lot of our jobs do necessarily look like traditional understandings of work. Like im sure you get all the time, like you watch movies for your job. I got that so any times through the course of my life. Getting a phd in movies. It must be nice just to watch movies all day. Yet, theres just a lot more. So what about you. My first time experiencing burnout was my first time experience in media. I saved up all of my money for marking and college to spend the summer in new york city working through an internship. One was 12 a day. In one was 30 which i would do one post at this magazine. As no longer around. Im staying around prayer and bu besides paying around 6000 a month to share one apartment with six girls. I spent my nights reporting nice, weekend its not working. This visual brings me such shame and horror. Like hundred people, young people in business casual like sipping on wind. It was like trying to network with one another. That was what my summer was. We were trying to share tips about how to get the job and this was just months before the recession hit. We were all very bright idea idealistic about the prospect of what work look like. And that all fell apart shortly afterwards. I left my summer feeling completely depleted, totally exploited. In all of the things that you can experience working in exploited job. And raising other embarrassment and shame. If like from the total joy and euphoria. What i found was that the work in the craft like literally putting words on paper really excited me. That part of it was excellent pride and perhaps i took away well lessons from the summer. I dont know if i couldve gone longer than the three months but because it was only three months. The discomfort that i felt and having gone through it was a challenge. I can only know myself to the discomfort, it will be off on all of the time. Obviously that is not the case. And worse yet, nothing really blinded me to how i was perpetuating the complexity within the workplace. In that lesson that i learned, or missed lord 18 years ago was the genesis of the grateful generation story. Anne Helen Petersen just a reminder to out that if anybody has questions, drop them in the q a. We will get them and if this a bit. But i think kn on something that kalin said, im curious about how the thinking has evolved over the years about this moment. Like what you perspective that you had. Cate said looking at somebody with adobe job, nine to five job that a lot of us may be perceived as not what we wanted in our life and what are thinking about the attractiveness or just the ability of how that is our has shifted. Lets go back. I would definitely say that i think coming out of college, that there would be like one perfect job that would fulfill like every nook and cranny. Now i had to do is just like walk into its. Like work hard. Like be poised and like, i dont know just this divine job. And then would be fine. I watched a lot of my friends right out of the gate get these great internships and fellowships. I got what i thought was my dream job with media. And i saw this like first two years, we tell each other better jobs. Kind of like comical where it would be like, oh my gosh it this is so great in the middle of these people. And then i can remember i was talking with like 40 fellows and immediate and we had like, a friend is giving public in i can remember somebody asked the question and we all just sort of in a note saying that i dont like this job. It is so hard and we were all like one person would say is so painful. I do not go to harvard. On the other hand, im working 12 14 hours a day. And i dont know that i want to do this. That mirage came crumbling down. All of the anxiety and my coworkers and these really cool jobs. They havent made it sort out that they didnt. This perfect job did not really exist. Sort of helped change the thinking for me in terms of i feel like lining up my cards right so this one good thing will happen then. During forever. And help me stop panicking because i was trying to find it like where is it. But it might actually looking for in a job. Its enough to be somewhere where like to work and like the people. Seeing that change a lot for me for sure. Anne Helen Petersen there is this unspoken equation that if you find a job that youre passionate about, you will find happiness. Like you work with fun people. [laughter]. Anne Helen Petersen and equals out elise in our society right now. I am learning that and also i have a lot while i know a lot of people who have gotten into the 30s. And like if i can just work one more year or push one more job. If i can get one more promotion. That all pull find that think. And if it never comes. And they are reaching the point of kind of, quiet crisis. Well i guess i can reconsider a lot of the things that i thought were priorities. I think two things have really shifted for me, boundaries and benefits. I did a staff position two years ago with poverty and for the big deciding factors there was that i didnt want to pay a hundred dollars a month for Health Insurance anymore. And it provided stability even with a little bit of a shift. Poverty is like, strange way for me to be working but i really valued and it has stability and benefits. That brings me to find of this i am much more assertive about my boundaries and i wish i could go back in time to pass me and say, you dont have to accept that for you dont have to write that piece. Like it is not worth it. A note that you think it is that youre going to regret it later. And i carried that into my work now. I work with great editors in the freeman side. But i am a person who says, actually i stop work at 5 00 oclock. Like you email me at five oh one, 20 get answer tomorrow morning. And it felt thats a lot of men that enter and millennials are terrified about posting these kind of boundaries. Then you wont get ahead or you wont get promotions. The something that i definitely see the people who are assertive about the use of their time and their skills and personhood. They tend to get passed over a lot even if the Progressive Organization that say, we really value worklife balance. And unlike except for how you totally do not value that. Anne Helen Petersen it like all of the communication from the way it is right now. Like we really value the parents in our company want to that flexibility. But also you need to be available for these meetings. And also probably like quietly pass you over for a promotion. None have like any guarantees in place but your stability in the workplace. Especially disabled person in the workforce. In a constant versus stress. To say this is a personal boundaries its not about like accessibility or whatever you thank you so going on here. Its a person in need sustained. This huge pressure. To like not let this die down and be the best employee. Improved in hiring disabled people is worth it. Its a lot to put on as that should not be my responsibility or that of my colleagues in any places far and wide. Anne Helen Petersen absolutely. I think in a lot of ways having been drilled really spoiled me because i thanked living at home, i was not in a precarious mess that a lot of other people for. In some kind of able to come to the conclusion that i dont have to do any more work than this nobody can make me. And now that im in a power position for the first time. Im also having to kind of be real strict about boundaries. Make sure the lines between the personal and professional life, especially now that were in the homes. It spoke to me. Its only two months ago when i realized that i could just not work. This choice i can be making. And actually take the states rest. In such a novel concept. I think it posted on instagram. I was like oh, you can do that. Like that was a legitimate choice you can make. Professionally, limited opportunities because of that. Everything was an opportunity to work. I have trouble watching these just watch movies now because its an opportunity. Its always an opportunity for something. For a tv show, i want to make sure that im in the frame of mind is to be paying attention to it. And finally back so that i can watch things that i just dont have time to do anymore but even doing that, several of the guilt about not doing things on the weekends. I Grocery Store for the house. But this underlying anxiety. Like what can i be of publishing at this time instead. Id do this backwards kind and thinking. What am i allowed to be doing, not kind of listening is part of the working. Now that im back of the company, this part of television so as part of what i think of how often have normally become. About how everyone is a family theyre all involved in everyones personal lives. We very much like the idea that there shouldnt be a division between personal and professional space. And then it is about a workplace if you have that division. And me now, i am able to recognize that work as a family, theyre just inching the door open to the location. Any kind of feel that obligation to them. And if you are handing your money over the Grocery Store. Some starting to kind of understand that i get paid for and i accomplish x amount of work in that time. And once a time is i am not obligated to work. I dont actually have to do more work for you the name be paid to do. Because i and then working for free. But i definitely agree with the thing about feeling those suppressions for having the things and i worry about and as i have been able to muddle through without having to do with those things. I am confident about im still blessed to be in the united states. And regardless, even if i am they model employee. [inaudible]. I do this is much as i can but i feel as though, in my adult life i insurance which is fine. And im willing to jeopardize that. But i am also perfectly capable of taking care of my financial responsibilities in the position ims now. Anne Helen Petersen we have to balance right. The desire to have that stability but also the desire to set the boundaries. Like how you keep both of those things. It a steady job while also i sent boundaries and still keep a steady job. I dont think it should be one choice of the other. I can have Health Insurance, i know boundaries. Have two answers. One is very boring. But i will throw it out there for people if theyre interested. But i think that the change that i underway it was i used to be so repelled by the idea that parents and grandparents, it would say it will be easier for you if you live in the same city as your parents or family. It would be a lot easier for you to get married early and have children normally. Can either have a can have a job. He probably should not do both. And over the state that those ideas are right because they are not right for everyone. But it will say that the Natural Center of gravity for one when the older generations thought those ideas, the institutional of the americans, right. [inaudible]. That is no longer the case today. But i was attracted to in my generation are attracted to his being single in a big city and having a lowpaying job and i was like slightly glamorous. That was feasible. Institutionally, for not set up to make that possible for people. So the change that ive undergone is that i no longer think that one is better than the other one but i do recognize the lanes that are easier to fit into. And you naturally look for the shortcuts now because my energy is precious. And i no longer moralize these decisions in the way that i used to. In the second part of that is very racist. I think that for a long time that i was really dazzled by optimizing my own stories and thinking about journalism in terms of content. In all the fun tools that we got to play with. The sort like platforms, social media and all of these things. And watching what performs well and sing the traffic roll in. The ways that i think about them. To have a really challenging driver and the driver seat. And in all of these tools, you can get a lot further get there a lot faster you have these addons. If you have an incompetent driver and driver seat, your car does not run in the first place. Its not going to get you anywhere. Some like what happened is a lot of Companies Including euros and some variance, we relied so much on tools and we forgot trained the driver. And that creates was just diminishing returns. Have to work so much harder to get less listless out of it. That creates a scenario for burnout. And that is the situation thats like definitive of 2010. And for people in the media. I got to enjoy little bit about optimization wife. And it really enjoyable where everything was just kind of creative. It is really creative fun place. But after this sort of analytics is not interested in kind of the saying that it happened. Like digital newsrooms. Like you could not break out into that with those rules. Speech of, yes, i love that metaphor. Its like the driver. Oh good, we have these two also doesnt matter if that driver is totally exhausted right. Maybe we dont even need the driver. Like we can just kind of album or in late take over the stories in a way that you dont have to worry about the health or longevity. Because of that driver gets out, they cant take anymore, he can just put another one in there. And thinking about having the value of having the driver there that see for a very long time. So the question that brings a lot of these things together, a lot of us are talking about things that we did when we still had some sort of safety net. Like we were college educated, i had Student Loans times when i didnt have a lot of money. Then i would say oh, i could take out another student loan or move back to my parents house. I always had housing stability. All those things. So how can we be attentive to the ways that the hustle that we are doing, is categorically different than a lot of other people are doing with everyday. Like i am working. And like one of them might be with a little bit of legalities. Im worried about how am i going to find an eviction especially right now. Especially with the covid19. And how i find the financial security. Thats just an open question. If anybody has any additional thoughts about how we can be attentive to those differences. I think the first thing, speaking of someone who works a lot of those home care assistance. Or maybe at the bakery after hours or a job and i had in College Freedom to actually listen to what people are saying. That sounds like it should be obvious. I am going to advocate for over drivers. They are already advocating for themselves. They have very specific caps that they have been very clear about. So you just going into save them is not really super productive. I think another thing we should be doing is pay a lot of attention to labor journalists who have been doing the work for a very long time. Because seeing journalism is a skill, they have these deeply sourced networks. The people are talking to and helping people really connect with those people ordinarily because you dont need homecare person. So you really know how some of these places work. How the systems function. So kind of getting into what these people are actually saying. I think there is a tendency to be a little bit, shoko were looking for. Considering that you are thinking that you know better than what they do in their needs. You need to ask yourself how can i work as a coconspirator for people are fighting for the same things that i am whether its the healthcare or employment stability are not being harassed in the workplace or not feeling like i have to work 8 million jobs to function. Anne Helen Petersen do think that is part of what happened like the legislation and in california with the over drivers, like they werent listening to what the drivers actually wanted to. So 85, had a lot of problems, they were kind of dragging in there as well. Then we have another ballot measure coming up in november. The intention was to stop this classifying of people. People dont realize is that they actually are just codifying an existing legal decision. Some people say when they came swooping in. Well its not uncommon to see major course decision to make sure that it gets a legislation. But again, he had the selling member who really led the charge and that is not actually talking to any of the people she was legislating for. This became very clear and freelance writers started to say, nearly going to screw us out of a job. They said will that wasnt the intent well, the problem here is the media organizations are slimy and tricky was a contractor when legally you are superduper not a contractor. The way to solve that unfortunately cannot start in the legislature, and has to start in the culture of these companies. And i know some people out of california were saying that we dont know this affects california workers. So maybe were not just going to hire them, we will restrict the work that they do. It is a whole big mess which again, have been avoided like by sitting down with coffee with some people. And had a long conversation. Anne Helen Petersen like coconspirators. Like working arm in arm with people is the answer for a lot of these problems. I think one of the big differences between the Younger Generation and older generation is like the reasons why we work in media is different. For a lot of people the reason is the craft like they really liked to write. What has a thing. I cannot form sometimes. But a lot of younger people, the purpose is a lot more social. Like the enter the workforce because they want to write to wrong because the scene injustice we want to serve the public. And i think it worked to serve, no matter what job that you have, like if you are in service with the community. Like any type of people, theres always an opportunity for you for you to write some sort of wrong a little bit. So i think that for people in media and journalism specifically, we are lucky that any of us feel that the work fuels us and brings us. It kind of get the satisfaction from the work is something we feel like we were really privileged to have. And we have the energy reserved think about spending that in service like for the people that we are covering and the stories we are writing. In the injustices that we are shedding light on. I think for me the thing that has changed the most is to kind of reconfigure this is standing up peoples algorithms. They for me, i was doing the coverage and there were a lot of people, like why should you have that much money. I grew up to value that work. But it is still worth it needs to be done. I want to be able to go to the burger place if i want to. And i dont know how to work the machines, somebody has to do that for me. The idea that the work itself has no value should not be paid. Something that logically confuses me. And i think thats when i started to understand that everyone regardless of the kind of work that they do should be able to work a 40 hour week without being exploited and still be able to afford the things they need for their families. And some in order to make sure that there lights are on and they can make rent and the kids have what they need. Like we should not be expecting that you have to level up some more prestigious position in order to afford the basics but we all like required to live. And also are legally entitled to. I think the stop the shifting of all it is just burgers. Work is work. And if you have decided that work is necessary and needs to get done, then you have to recognize that people are doing that work. Like no one aspires to be a Grocery Store manager but somebody need to be doing the work. I can eat it. And whether or not you think that work is important, the work that you want to do does not change the fact that its an essential step in the process of getting your exit you need. Like the essentials. It is work that is essential need to get done finance are getting done. Its inconveniencing things down the line. And other people arent getting what they need. And already in the process, whether it is the post office man or the garbageman. Their work is essential to the functioning of our society they deserve to be the value of the work they are providing to the rest of us need. I feel like covid19 has really brought this on for a lot of people. Certainly realizing that childcare workers perform a service. And its really valuable. No making how much an hour. Having staff at the Grocery Store and having somebody at the gas station. Somebody at the pumps. Like im helping them real labor awakening also includes lifting up and valuing workers who often are doing very sensitive intimate things and being treated like garbage. Anne Helen Petersen yes, that is one thing, one love kids. It has become such a false term about how we actually treat these workers who are essential. Some packing we fundamentally organize our society to show that value. It shows workers that they are essential and valued. Ive been thinking about this in terms of the immunizations in the media. Okay, by formulating the stake for a little while. [inaudible]. I think there is something to the fact that there is the sort of i think a lot of excitement around organizing workplaces. And asking them about these whitecollar jobs. I think there is something started to be cautious up when were appropriating or borrowing the sort of bluecollar, like im blowing up my sleeves down in the trenches with the management. Like the kind of language. Without having a better awareness or understanding of the Labor Movement that have come before. Before these achievements of longstanding organizations or occupations that have been organized for a really long time. I sort of like been thinking a lot about this because a few years ago i was talking to my dad and explaining like Digital Workers organization and drive. It was so embarrassing because he was like oh yeah, my dad really liked your ideas. His ahead organizer. Of this like massive plant in illinois. And i was like oh my god. I am a dummy. And as members of the media being able to elevate the sort of longstanding movements and organizations and what they have achieved is really important. I think also approaching this point in our own sort of like occupational careers with the physician. Like were learning these tactics from these other organizations. We are building on the work that is already been done. In all of these other levels in society. And to recognize those attempts to take often times can be met with that actionable sense like you will be fired even though it isnt written into the law but there is a lot of fear written into that so the privilege of living in places a strong labor history even in the state of montana. I leftparenthesis speed because of decades of work to i the copper built in the 19 twenties to make sure that these rights that were guaranteed by the employer would be solidified and thats not anything i did but what they did many years ago to prevent exploitation for themselves and for the generations to come. If someone needs advice and q a they want to know and in that family element anything they can do to fix it. And when you apply for new jobs ask them what the culture is like as you were saying earlier if you see a job listing like i have family. There is no way you can fix this it is a fundamental culture problem. Thats a great segue because everybody thinks you can try to change things on a smaller level like we need to approach this problem as regulation and the laws need to catch up the way the workplaces today instead of labor laws function like were in the 19 sixties and havent caught up from the landscape of all sorts of different realities of today. I am so grateful because you are all here today i have taken and such pleasure from this new event that was very anxious i thought will this be done they dont want to be on zoom so thank you all for coming. And i say one thing . We have an Organization Called welcome to chinatown it is for Small Businesses people are disproportionately affected by covid i will drop a link into the chat i no longer where in new york city but it is a magical place but just because of one lousy pack then it is. Thank you everyone have a great friday night work this weekend if you can. I found myself nodding yes at everything you are saying thank you for your work and for talking and writing about this everyone please get the book and get it for multiple people from your independent bookstore and with that thank you everyone this is wonderful we hope to see you at the next one. Thank you again. Thank you so much for joining us today with our conversation