“We've got to stop pretending our choices don’t affect others.”
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Transcript
Beth: I think it is a poignant symbol of how we believe in classes in this country in a way that we constantly say we do not because no one is surprised to hear lawyers or financial advisors changing course coming off of a pandemic, but we are all acting like we are shocked that some folks are saying, you know what, maybe I don't want to wait tables anymore.
Sarah: This is Sarah
Beth: And Beth.
Sarah: You're listening to Pantsuit Politics.
Beth: The home of grace-filled political conversations.
Hello. Hi everyone. Thank you so much for joining [00:01:00] us for a new episode of Pantsuit Politics. We're so glad that you're with us today. We're going to talk about the climate change report, do a little followup to our conversation on COVID-19 earlier this week. We're going to spend some time talking about the great resignation and what's going on with careers right now. This was inspired by one of our listeners on Instagram, and we're excited to dive in topic and then outside of politics, we're answering a question from our listener, Jen, about finding a church to come back to and generally about being in spaces where the cultural context of the space is being ignored altogether.
Before we do that, we would love to invite you to follow along with us every day on Instagram at Pantsuit Politics. This is where we share what's coming up in the Pantsuit Politics world. We have some fantastic community conversations and offers some glimpses into our daily life so we would love for you to follow us there at Pantsuit Politics on Instagram. You can also follow us on Twitter at Pantsuit Politics. Honestly, the best thing about both of these spaces is the interaction you get with other [00:02:00] people who listen to the show and we would love to see you there.
Sarah, after Tuesday's episode when we were talking about how the purpose of our initial lock down mentality to the extent that we actually took those measures was about making sure that our healthcare system could handle COVID-19 and all the cases walking in and after the episode we heard from many, many medical professionals saying we're there again. We are at capacity. We are beyond capacity. We are seeing more children than we've seen before. The circumstances of seeing those children is much worse and so we just want to spend a minute saying one, that that's happening again and two, to all of those medical professionals, you've have to be so tired and so burnout [00:03:00] and so frustrated that this is happening again and we see that and honor it and appreciate what you're doing out there every day.
[00:03:07] Sarah: Yeah, as we were recording that, I mean, I was thinking about my friend, Diane, who works in our local healthcare system who told me over the weekend, like, oh, our ICS and ICU beds are full because the truth of the matter it is, yes, we were told and that was a public health goal that was articulated that we needed to, you know, prevent the overrun of our hospitals and also, you know, our hospitals, as we've talked about early in 2020 are just built to operate at such like a fine margin, a very thin margin that as we continue to live with COVID-19 that anytime there's a surge, they're going to be overwhelmed because they're just not built to operate like that and listen, that might be a conversation we need to have, right as we move forward.
I'm sure many hospital systems around the [00:04:00] country are having this conversation. As we move forward and acknowledge the reality that COVID-19 is not something we're going to tackle, you know, world war two style and celebrate with a V day celebration, but something that we're going to incorporate into our lives, then we're going to have to think about that with regards to our hospital systems that aren't built with the surges in virus load like that. I mean, there to a certain extent, there's always a flu season and flu season is deadly for many americans. Thousands of people die during flu season every year, but that's just a different beast than the surges we're looking at right now and the reports coming from around the country in Texas, where they're putting up tents outside some hospital systems to deal with the overflow, like it is it's really scary stuff.
[00:04:39] Beth: Well, speaking of really scary stuff, We have heard a lot of reaction from listeners this week to the climate change report that was recently released and I think this is an ongoing theme. I'm not sure this climate change report tells us a whole lot of new information, as much as it underscores what we already know about the urgency of acting in [00:05:00] order to preserve something like our way of life that we enjoy today but having that alarm sounded in the midst of a time when we're already stressed and in the midst of something that feels really out of our individual control, that really requires collective action. It's hard and so we thought we would spend a few minutes today just talking about how we're individually processing what we know about climate change, how this report hit us and what we think might come next.
[00:05:29] Sarah: Yes. This report came from the intergovernmental panel on climate change. It was pretty comprehensive on the state of climate change, where we are right now, where we're headed in the future, how close we are going to come to our goals and you know, much of the reporting that I listened to and read talked about part of the sort of five alarm fire nature of this report and it was there and it was certainly emphasized in the reporting across most of the news outlets is that the sign we [00:06:00] are science has gotten better. We have gotten better at measuring this. We've gotten better at projecting what's coming. The pace at which the changes in our climate our compounding is faster than any of us anticipated and that's hard information to take in.
Look, I just traveled to the Pacific Northwest and to walk through in particular, the whole rainforest, which is, you know, this it's right there in the name it's rainforest. It's supposed to be cool and damp and lush and green and when we were there after the first heat bubble that hit the Pacific Northwest this summer, it was none of those things. It was hot, it was pretty dry. Many of the ferns in the forest were burned up. I'm seeing that more and more when I look around at nature, something that I've taken great comfort in. I mean, you see the effects of the heat. You just, you can't miss [00:07:00] it and I think this. Climate change report putting in front of us in such stark terms something that we all see in our everyday lives is heartbreaking but I love a quote I heard from a GOP representative that said, like, we're done looking, we don't need to emphasize the problem. We understand the problem fully. It's time for solutions and I, you know what I told my 12 year old when we were talking about it and he was like, this feels so scary and I'm like, it is scary, but don't ever underestimate the human species desire to survive.
We have changed the planet. We have always changed the planet. We will continue to change the planet. We're in a symbiotic relationship with planet earth and sometimes that relationship is very unhealthy and toxic, but I try to stay focused on, you know, what I can do for my part and that I do believe in the human [00:08:00] races, desire and ability and ingenuity in its desire to survive. I think we're just, you know, for better or for worse, we have more information and more science and we're just better at understanding the problem sometimes I think beyond our capacity to process the problem and that that's really hard when it comes to climate change. Yeah. Yeah,
[00:08:24] Beth: I feel a real sense of urgency around climate change. I also feel a real sense of optimism because our capacity to understand it better is developing at the same time as our capacity to address it more effectively. I really do believe that we have technologies that are going to enable us to meet this moment and I really do believe that we are reaching consensus on the need to use those technologies and meet this moment. Do we have a hundred percent of, of Americans or a hundred percent of the world on board? We do not. Uh, but like with a lot of things, I think we've got a critical [00:09:00] mass and a lot of energy and a lot of opportunity to do better here.
The most frustrating thing to me in response to this climate change report has been all of the comparison to other countries from us outlets where people will say it's really bad, but America can't do this alone. True. Correct. Also all of Europe, can't do it alone. Also, China can't do it alone. Also India can't do it alone. I get that we enjoy saying, well, someone else needs to step up to, uh, but we can do a whole lot. We are a very big country. We're very influential in the world. When we develop technology and decide we're going to solve a problem and go hard at it. A lot of the rest of the world benefits from that. I just felt like there was an attitude of like, excuse making for inaction here because we can't solve the problem by ourselves. That is the exact wrong posture that we need to have. We need to lead on this and we can, and we should and I think most of us are ready to.
[00:09:59] Sarah: You know, [00:10:00] we just had a long meandering conversation on the Nightly Nuance on Thursday about COVID-19 and our feelings surrounding it and the challenge before us and the trauma, we've all experienced and I feel similarly when I read this climate change report that we need to get much better at letting grief and optimism co-exist together because they always do. I am heartbroken about this report. I have three little kids. I am a heartbroken. I grieve for the changes that we put in place that have changed planet earth permanently. I grieve that desperately and also I hope for a better future for the same reason I grieve for the three children that live in my house and I think that with COVID and with climate change and with all the challenges in front of us, particularly because we live in a time where they are ever present and screaming for our attention in real impactful ways and in our media environment on social media, [00:11:00] that we have to allow space for both of those emotions.
If we want to survive and thrive and flourish and integrate these experiences, we have to allow for grief and also hope and optimism. They can exist together. We are human beings. We are big and messy and complex, and we can hold both of those things at the same time and I hold both of those things at the same time when I look at this report and when I look around. When I drive through and I see mother nature struggling under the burden of this heat, when I see human beings struggling under the burden of this heat, and I know in my intellectual brain and in my broken heart and in my soul that this heat is a reality for us moving forward. In the same way I feel the burden and the heartbreak of that when I think about COVID and I have to grieve that and acknowledge that, and also adapt because that's what human beings are good at doing.[00:12:00]
Well, when it comes to adaptation and integration and thinking through trauma and grief and hope for a better future, I think we're not just doing that culturally and in society, but we are also doing that on individual levels across this country. I think we see that in the labor market. We're so grateful for all of you who encouraged us to have this conversation about the great resignation, about the dramatic changes happening in our workforce right now. They are there. We all feel it. We all see it. Some of us are living in it.
[00:12:45] Beth: As we are recording, CNBC is reporting this morning that a new survey shows that 38% of us workers are seeking employment elsewhere. 41% are considering leaving their current job within the next six months. [00:13:00] 52% of people who are thinking about quitting, say they're financially prepared to do so and 57% of people who say they are not financially prepared to do, so are willing to take on debt while they search for their next job. So people are not playing when they say they're not pleased with where they are today.
[00:13:19] Sarah: Well, and look to me just psychically, like in the woowoo sense of the word, it just makes sense. Right? If you're not going to re-examine where you are after a global pandemic that forced all of us again, I don't really care where you are on the political spectrum. I don't care if you're vaccinated or not. Everybody had a moment where they thought could I get this and will I die now? Maybe you decided no, whatever it's fake, but even then, like that, that has a psychic impact. Having, taking that moment, that pause where everything stopped and you had to think what if everything was different, that's going to change you and it's certainly going to change how you spend your day [00:14:00] to day.
[00:14:01] Beth: I have felt so frustrated in all of the conversations about this topic and especially about the sort of labor supply conversations, where we're discussing all the restaurants with the sign on the door saying they can't find enough help. That is the least surprising thing to me on earth right now for so many reasons. I think it is a poignant symbol of how we believe in classes in this country in a way that we constantly say we do not because no one is surprised to hear lawyers or financial advisors changing course coming off of a pandemic, but we are all acting like we are shocked that some folks are saying, you know what, maybe I don't want to wait tables anymore and all of those considerations are valid.
Whatever type of work you're doing right now, it's, it is a good thing to sit back and consider whether [00:15:00] it's what you want to keep doing and what you have learned from the past year and what your new priorities are, and what's even possible for you when a lot of the support systems that have enabled you to do your work have, have shifted or become completely unavailable and I worry that in a lot of the discussion about the labor supply, we are really being gross about each other and the way that we're thinking through this, and I kind of settled in to myself just with this realization that I'm not entitled for eating out to be as easy as it has always been. I'm not entitled for travel to be as easy as it has always been.
I should have settled into that perspective earlier is you and I travel around the United States. Sometimes we get to a city and we're like, everything is harder here. Certain parts of the country are already a lot harder to move about in than where I live and where I live, I'm not entitled for it to stay the same forever and I'm especially not entitled to have that at the expense of the quality of [00:16:00] life, of my fellow human beings, who also want to enjoy their Saturdays as I do.
[00:16:06] Sarah: Exactly what you just articulated is right and I think it's important to pull those two things apart, right. There is an individual component and there is a bigger societal policy component and look, they're not separate. They're related, right? I mean, that's, that's why we have policy because we hope that it will affect individual decisions. Dylan Massey who's had a really good piece in Vox, said and the title was the Big Drop in American Poverty during the Pandemic Explained and the subtitle was, the lesson from the past year, poverty is a policy choice and that to me is something that we all need to just come home to, come to Jesus moment. This was a choice. This was a choice. We decided that the way our economy ran and the people who should be served by that economy, be it convenience, be it cheaper prices, be a supply [00:17:00] chain that flowed like the tap water, that we were willing to sacrifice people at the bottom of the economic ladder for that.
That we deserved cheap, convenient prices, products, services, knowing that the people who prop that up at the bottom of the economic pyramid were suffering poverty conditions as a result and the anger is in some ways, not surprising, but know is heartbreaking that people feel like they're privileged and their desire and their entitlement to cheap prices or convenient supply chains or they're dang Chick-fil-A sauce, which we're going to talk about in a minute is the most important thing.
[00:17:57] Beth: Let's talk about that Chick-fil-A sauce has been on my mind all week. So I had [00:18:00] a conversation with Tiffany and Jess. Tiffany is one of our executive producers and has been a long time supporter of Pantsuit Politics. Jess is her partner and works with her. Tiffany owns two Chick-fil-A restaurants in Texas, and Jess does organizational development work in Tiffany's restaurants and they are an amazing power duo of incredibly savvy business women who are morally grounded in a way that is hard for me to put into words, but you sense it as soon as you start to discuss their business with them and I was really happy that they reached out to share how mean people are being to their teams, because it led to a really robust discussion of how they try to build a culture in their restaurants and I was really affirmed, honestly, in my entire perspective on how human resources ought to work when I asked Tiffany about the labor supply issue because here's what she [00:19:00] had to say.
[00:19:01] Tiffany: There was the Daily Episode recently about talking about different perspectives and I'll be honest, it was hard to listen toit. Like I had to pause it halfway through just because I was like, okay, breathe. Like, yes, like this is part of it. We've been blessed in the fact that our team has not experienced the labor shortage to the degree that most people have. We are very, very lucky, lucky. However, I would say the luck is partly balanced with something we've worked really hard on and that's culture and also being ready to put yourself out there and do things that are hard and so I have leaned into, I feel like as a business owner, many times when I know that fellow people around me think I'm crazy, but I have leaned into paying for things or doing things that I felt were right for the people in my business and then that were working with me that are sometimes financially difficult and they're hard, but I have faith that it's going to work out in that way.
Just that I believe, like I see the numbers enough to go if we do this right it'll be, you know, [00:20:00] become on our side. Um, I think that that's been the culture that we've built around that has really helped us. Our culture has really helped us keep an eye on what's important and I never stopped hiring. Like I never stopped hiring. I do final interviews almost every Friday. Um, and like I never stopped hiring. Um, and so I think that's helped us build up a base but like, we're experiencing a little bit of turnover, but we always do in August so that's normal yeah and I, but we did wage increases that were substantial, substantial, huge wage increases in June and it was something we spent six months working on and planning for us.
So I think that just being ready to like lean into hard stuff as a business owner and knowing that it may not always make perfect sense and it may be very scary, but you have to look at it and trust your gut and say, What is my reason for doing this? Am I doing this because I just want to build my own bank account and I want to go buy an island somewhere? Because sorry, Chick-fil-A is not gonna help you do that um, and it's not going to be an option. Like that's not it, but am I [00:21:00] doing this for the people that I get to work with? Am I doing this because of like, I get that opportunity to like, be a part of their lives? Okay. So then how do I best use the resources that we get as a business? And so that's been some of my answer as a visitor to how I've dealt with it's it's culture and I understand 100% why people are leaving this industry without a doubt.
[00:21:20] Jess: And we've known that this industry is hard and that the burnout rate is high. We've known that and so way before the pandemic, that's why we always leaned into paying very competitively, offering premium benefit, trying to be very creative with our time off because we know how hard this industry is. What's not helpful, one of the comments that I'm hearing a lot is, well, people aren't coming to work because the government is paying them more to stay home. That comment just really, as someone that has worked in the food industry and been a server, you know, in college, it is so easy to get into that [00:22:00] overfunctioning hamster wheel and just go, go, go, go, go and work the long hours.
I can understand if somebody had a moment to just be still and breathe and reevaluate, there are, there is some clarity sometime that comes from those moments of like, wait a minute. What do I want to do? Am I, am I burning myself out? Like, am I do I want to shift to something different? And so I feel like because we've been ahead of the game. I try to, I hope because we've tried to pay competitively and it's more than just a job. We're trying to give people some, a purpose, but for some other folks that have worked, been working in the industry where they maybe haven't had that, and it has just been about the money or about the hours, I can see why some of them are burned out and maybe reevaluating things.
[00:22:51] Sarah: Listening to the entire conversation you had with both of them on the nightly nuance, like the culture is incredible and so many things that she articulates I'm like, right that's the healthy way to approach this. [00:23:00] One she talks a lot about that they employ young people because with all the love in the world, a fast food worker position, it should not be propping up a family, a single parent. They have such a healthy perspective on like who you should hold these jobs and in another part of the conversation, they still articulated we want robust benefits and we want good pay. Sometimes it doesn't look like it makes sense financially, but we know what that's important and that will help us retain employees. Like it's not like they even think, well, it should be young people and they're disposable. They think, no, it should be, it should be young people in college students that will have turnover, but this is how we handle that and this is how we still treat them with dignity while they're here.
[00:23:39] Beth: Well, and they also want their management positions to be positions that can support a family and to be positions that feel like a career instead of just a job and I love that they have not seen the drop-off in people who are willing to work for them, that other places have, because they have invested so much in this culture [00:24:00] and I also loved hearing Jess kind of reflect on why people are making the choices that they're making right now.
[00:24:08] Tiffany: How do you have boundaries with guests even when you want to love and serve them? Like, how do you have that? And then it's just always teaching, like the team members that they're important, they're valued and don't let something happen with a guest that makes you feel like you are less than, than of a person um, and if that happens, please let a leader know so that we can step in or help you or talk you through it or give you a moment in the back to like, process. Like just giving people that space um, because in the pace of Chick-fil-A, it's hard and if you just keep turning over to the next guest, the next guest and never deal with that, um, and I can speak to that with growing up in it.
You never deal with it and then you get home and not only are you like just physically exhausted, you're mentally exhausted and that eats at you for a while and you just never deal with all that negativity or the struggle with it, or [00:25:00] how am I handling this? And it kind of just, it takes on a whole new toll on your life and so, um, burnout is real, but that's a part of it, you know? And so that's why it's just being very clear that we want our team to have a place to be able to like, yes, they can have boundaries, but also appropriately, but let them share so.
[00:25:18] Jess: Yeah, I mean a little bit of context too, Beth, is that like a year and a half pre pandemic, you know, as we were developing our leadership program, we were focusing on know how to have crucial conversations, you know, all of the leadership characteristic pieces right and drawing in those resources but we really started seeing that a lot of our leaders and team members had a need for some emotional support, some emotional intelligence, and really, so we had to really kind of shift gears and we decided to start offering therapy as a benefit for a lot of our leaders and we've normalized that. Like Tiffany and I are very open about the fact that we're, you know, in regular therapy and talk about the benefits that we have [00:26:00] experienced, but then therapy.
So some of our leaders had slowly started embarking on that journey and as anybody knows, that starts on that journey. Like you can go through some tender seasons right throughout that journey where we're all maybe a little bit heightened um, and so we had kind of started some of that groundwork with them and then the pandemic hit and they're still trying to do that work and also the pandemic. So it's been really difficult.
So we've really had to last year when we brought in, um, a therapist to work with our entire team, um, we really had to sit down and talk about, okay, how do I protect my energy in these situations? You know, I was yelled at, at a guest or bolder language was used against me as a guest and I'm taking that home and I'm bringing it back with me the following day, you know, how do I manage that? So, [00:27:00] and again, remember the average age of our, of our team member our leaders is 23. So that's a big ass for anybody, especially a young person.
[00:27:10] Sarah: When she's I said the part about over-performing a piece of my brain fell into place.And I thought because I'm also an over performer in stress. I can see another path in my life where I pursued a career that really rewarded my overperformance in uh, retail or the service industry. I have friends that are in the retail and services industry and family members and I see they're, over-performing being rewarded. And the thing about over-performing is it just feeds itself, just like she said, until you are forced to stop sometimes while your body, sometimes by lots of external factors and that when you are forced to stop and sort of slow down the momentum of the status quo, which I think is, is in many ways, the bigger story of all of this outreach in all industries, not just retail and services, is that the status quo is an incredibly powerful force.
I think that's [00:28:00] honestly a lot of the reason that we have vaccine hesitancy. How things are and how you are and how your life is moving forward day to day, it's just a really powerful force and when something disrupts it like the pandemic or policy-wise when you see massive disruption through eviction moratoriums, stimulus checks, all those sort of relief payments that people got so that they, the, the privilege and the luxury to just take a dang minute in so many ways. Like it's, it's, it shouldn't be surprising at all that people are looking around and going I want to do things different. I want things to be different.
[00:28:35] Beth: I think that's right and I think it is an opportunity for businesses to ask what they want to do differently. The story of the last couple of decades, at least of American corporations has been, we really want to do more, but our shareholders require our profits to run at the highest margin that they can, right. We really want to do more, [00:29:00] but we are responsible to our shareholders and they will sue us if we make decisions that do not reward them. Well, here we are at a time when our shareholders demands are eclipsed by the realities of the, the inputs for every business, right? If people are not willing to continue to work this way, then what benefits shareholders is finding a new model that sustains the business or that reimagines the business so that it can be profitable again but profitable in a healthier way that meets the moment and so I hope that instead of just running around, complaining about how people are lazy and would rather get paid from the government than work, which I do not think is what is happening by and large.
Certainly, there are some people who function that way in a society as large as ours, but by and large, I think most people want to work, but they want to do work that's meaningful and they want to do work that keeps them safe, [00:30:00] that keeps them financially secure. That has some kind of path to growth, whether that's advancement or just enrichment in what they do and now's the moment. Like if you have lots of good ideas about creating a better culture in your workplace, this is your time.
[00:30:18] Sarah: Well, and I just want to say I have great hope for these policy achievements, I hope that we have learned a lot follow the data and they will continue from the extending the child tax credit to tuition free community college, to lots of ways that we can stop letting poverty exist. We were just letting it exist when we had the power and the tools at our disposal to prevent it, particularly child poverty and I hope that we have learned that lesson and we continue on this path, but individually, let me also just say, as someone who made the choice to change my life. In 2008, my husband and I left his very well paying job in Washington, DC and I left [00:31:00] my very impressive career at the United States senate uh, when I was six months pregnant to move home to Paducah, Kentucky.
There was a lot of risk. There were a lot of unknowns and it did not make sense to other people. A lot of people were very confused by our choice and so for all of you out there going through the great resignation, changing things, and it either doesn't make sense on paper or it doesn't make sense to your family members or you feel like you're taking a great risk, let me just encourage you, it's worth it. I don't regret ever for one second moving back here and making the changes that we did. I saw the trajectory that we were on and it was not the life I wanted and that is enough. That is enough.
You know, there's a lot of policy here. There's a lot of big cultural changes, but if you see your life stretching out in front of you in a way that you don't want, that's enough and everybody else can live their lives the way they want and if it doesn't make sense to them, great, they don't have to do [00:32:00] it. So for all of you in the midst of this right now, within the, the sound of my voice, let me just encourage you and say good for you. Good for you. You have one wild and precious life, and it's your choice on how to live it, at work at home and in all the other ones.
[00:32:18] Beth: Totally agree. No one has understood the career choices that I have made in my life and that's fine. I think we don't have to understand how other people's marriages work and we don't have to understand how other people's careers work and, you know, just recognizing that we want different things from work, we want different things for our every day. It's hard. It can feel like, you're letting someone down if you have a degree that you're not going to use directly. It can feel like you're letting someone down if you choose to make less money than you were able to make before. It can feel like you're letting yourself down, like you can get into this place where you're telling yourself a story of maybe I just couldn't cut that [00:33:00] or maybe I'm I'm getting lazy or maybe I'm depressed, or maybe I don't, you know, maybe I don't understand I'm not processing things. Well, it's really easy to get like into a mental state about career change that is very, very hard and not a lot of people can help you crawl out of that because so few people are willing to make dramatic career changes related to the whole of the population.
It is scary and it takes a special amount of courage to say I'm probably going to make dramatically less money for a while and maybe always. That is so hard and also, I genuinely believe that when your heart is not right at work, your life is not going to be right. I genuinely believe that for so many of us, our workplaces are just systematically breaking us down and that a lot of our social problems and the political [00:34:00] problems that we talk about here all the time are just a manifestation of that.
[00:34:03] Sarah: Well, and the good news is you're not alone. Right? The polling shows it, the reporting shows it that there's a lot of people doing that same assessment and so, you know, reach out, ask the question, share your journey, find the people on that journey with you so you don't have to make it alone because listen, now's your chance. If you don't want to do it alone, there's lots of Americans out there making that journey with you.
[00:34:27] Beth: And I think you just want to believe in yourself as you're making that journey. We all are acquiring skills constantly that no one names for us so if you've been staying at home with kids, we've talked about this before. If you are just looking to make a big career change into an industry that you don't know or into a line of work that you have no experience in, take a second to think about what you do know, because I guarantee that more of it will transfer and apply than you think and I also want to say, as you're thinking about all of this, going back to [00:35:00] school is not the right answer for everyone.
It is very, very easy when we're looking for affirmation of our choices from other people to decide that if I want to make a change, the next step must be going back to school. That feels like I'm getting off of one treadmill and onto another where everyone will understand my choices and that's great. If you really know what you want to do, and your heart really wants to go back to school to do that thing, wonderful. I support you a hundred percent. I'm so excited for that journey for you. If you don't feel that way, though, it is so much money and life and time and stress as an exploratory measure. So I really hope that you can value what you know, and find ways to talk about what you know, and what you have done without feeling like you need another credential as you kind of move forward in your journey.
[00:35:53] Sarah: Speaking of journeys, up next we're going to talk about our journeys with church.[00:36:00]
[00:36:07] Beth: We received a message from Jen who wondered if we could talk about returning to gathering spaces. She says I'm having difficulty returning to my place of worship because a year ago I could no longer sit through a service and have there be no mention week after week of what we were experiencing as people. This isn't what you come to church for is how, what happened after January sixth was addressed and I do not know what to do about finding a place of worship when I live in white, affluent, suburbia, but care deeply about marginalized and oppressed people who are people of color, LGBTQ, immigrants, just to name a few. Any suggestions for navigating this with grace and nuance would be greatly appreciated.
When I read, this is not what you come to church for, I felt that in my gut, because I've heard that so many times in life. It's and it's not just church, right? It's what, this is not what we [00:37:00] come to work for. This is not what we do here. I'm not here to make friends like, right. We put up all these artificial boundaries that are not serving us.
[00:37:08] Sarah: Well in both of us, you know, went through this journey where we went and found a church that was more welcoming and accepting. I think both of us at the beginning of our journey just focused on female leadership from the pulpit, served us pretty well. I will say for, for right now, I'm just about to start this journey again. For those of you who don't know, Episcopals take the summer off. So I haven't been to church in like two months, not for any specific public health reason, just because episcopal's take the summer off and, you know, I'm looking forward to getting back to the routine of attending church.
I think our entire congregation pretty much is vaccinated, but there will still be some changes, I think, with the Delta variant but to me, you know, that that gathering is what's so valuable. Being with, with our community is really important to me and really important to my husband and our kids and I try to hold the rest of it really loosely because, you know, I think one of the things we do with churches, [00:38:00] we try to freeze it in time and we try to decide how it is now, if it's not meeting my needs is how it will always be but it's a living, breathing institution as in it's every institution that's composed of human beings and I always try to keep that.
[00:38:10] Beth: Yeah. I think it's a totally fair criteria to say, I'm going to only invest in the community like this, whether it's church or something else, if it is going to invest back in me and that means living in the world that I live in world that I live in. I don't want to be anywhere right now, a company, a nonprofit board, a church, anywhere where we are not grappling with the major cultural and societal forces shaping how everybody within that organization is operating. If we're going to pretend that we are doing something here, that's isolated from everyone everywhere else, I don't want to be here. That is inconsistent with my values and I think it's unhealthy and I think it hurts us and so, you know, as you're looking for where you want to be in community [00:39:00] post 2020, I, I think that that's an important question to ask. How connected are we to the outside world? Because being insular, organizationally just is a recipe for toxicity and for a whole lot of resentment to build up within an organization.
[00:39:17] Sarah: I don't really know how that works in 2021. I love that meme where it's like may still processing in 2020, also me looking at like less than what, four months now. It's only what is it? August? I don't even know. Time is a flat circle. Um, not that we're on the downward slope of 2021.
[00:39:33] Beth: Yeah, Four months left.
[00:39:34] Sarah: That's right. That's so hard to think about, right. Is that we're going to be in 2022 and that's just, you know, I think the reality of the intensity, like we were talking about of climate change, of COVID, of our politics. To be in a place that's supposed to be of service to other people and not to acknowledge the intensity and anxiety and fear that people feel [00:40:00] such a wasted opportunity. It is such a wasted opportunity.
[00:40:02] Beth: It is, and it is an incredible disservice to the health of, of organizations and of their members and I think that's why we're going to see a lot of shifting around this. It's not just dropping out of work or changing careers. People are going to not come back. Like a lot of people are not going to go back to church for the foreseeable future and I understand why, and I think that's okay and I think people's involvement in different charitable organizations is going to change. We are going to see so many ripple effects of everything that we've experienced over the last two years and I think that that's kind of beautiful, like where everybody's taking a beat to assess what they're really looking for. If we can have more examined lives, that is the best I could hope for from, from what we've just been through.
[00:40:50] Sarah: Yeah. The difficulty is examining our reactions [00:41:00] and making sure that our turning away is based on a felt need or our values or a prioritization and not fear and what I mean by that is, coming off of what we just came off of connecting with other humans has always been difficult and will continue to be difficult and there's going to be a lot of fear and anxiety surrounding that for so many people and I just, I hope. That as we're making conscious choices about all that, like that they're conscious. Like you just said, like it's an examined life and that we're not just reacting out of fear or frustration or anger or trauma or hurt from our fellow citizens and community members, because that's always going to be part and parcel of being in relationship with other human beings.
It is an inherently vulnerable pursuit, whether it be in a [00:42:00] church or a board or a school system or a family. There's vulnerability, it's always going to be there and you know, when we come off of something so traumatic as the pandemic and we move into this new reality where the virus is with us all the time. I just hope that we're all making space for that vulnerability instead of hardening in the face of it, because we see our fellow citizens who are hardening in the face of that fear and anxiety and that frustration and I don't want that for anybody. I don't wish that on my worst enemy.
[00:42:31] Beth: Yeah, people are always the problem and will always be the solution to the problem too and it really stinks that that's the truth of it.
[00:42:38] Sarah: I hate it so much. I hate that design. Who do we talk to? Who do we put in our complaint about that?
[00:42:43] Beth: It is no good and that's why I think this could be such a creative time. We have the pleasure to talk with, um, a very large group of people from a corporation this week about having hard conversations within their business and we got such great questions and it was so [00:43:00] much fun to kind of hear what's on people's minds and how they're relating to each other and it was a very different type of industry than we've spoken with before and what was amazing to me is like, these are the same questions that we're hearing in every space right now.
If we're talking to a business, if we're talking to a sorority, if we're talking at an industry conference. The same stuff is on everyone's minds, the same themes and all of those themes come down to, we have got to stop pretending that my position on an org chart compartmentalize is how I communicate with other people, other human beings. We have got to stop pretending that things that really hurt our feelings don't because we're way too sophisticated to have hurt feelings here. We have to stop pretending that my choices don't affect the other people around me.
Those are the themes in everything that we do right now and the wonderful thing about it is that those are all solvable themes. Like not solvable, like here's the correct answer and we move on from it.
Adressable.
But there is a way for us [00:44:00] to work through those in every space that we are, whether it's a church or something else. The question is, am I in a structure that will allow us to ask those questions? That will allow us to say those things out loud and start to work with them or am I in a place that is going to insist that we keep pretending at every turn? And to me, that's the question. When you are ready to be in some kind of community with other people, Again, and that's going to be on a different timetable for all of us. When you are ready to think about your new career path or your a new church or your new board that you're going to be on, whatever it is. Whether you're going to put your kid on a soccer team, right. Whatever it is, when you're ready to do that exercise, I think just looking for places where people are willing to talk through it all is the most important thing, because if we're willing to talk through it then we can get through it. If we're not then move on, it's not worth your inner.
[00:44:57] Sarah: Well, and I think [00:45:00] our participation in that event, and so many of the questions inside the event is a perfect illustration of what I was talking about. We could have hardened. We could have reacted to, oh my God, another zoom. Roll my eyes. I'm not going to get any interaction, whatever we'll just power through. Listen, we just came from an industry conference and a lot of people decided to show up with that mentality. Just mail it, in cynical approach, whatever who cares or we could do what we did, which is show up and participate and it was wonderful and yeah, it was over zoom and no, we didn't hear a bunch of faces, but I still felt energized and empowered after connecting within that company and it was a big company, you know, at one point somebody said it, this is a huge organization. It feels so hard to change the leadership style and I said, yeah, but it's also a huge organization that brought us in and allowed you to have, has the resources to allow this type of conversation.
Like every moment is the, is the decision to sort of choose to move [00:46:00] away from anger and cynicism and frustration and to step forward into an, a different approach. Not that's not absent of struggle or, or stress or even trauma, but does it harden into that sort of cynical, all is lost, everybody sucks way that like, if you want to, there's plenty, plenty of places that will allow you to do that in 2021.
[00:46:28] Beth: My church just sent out an email talking about how we have made over 20 changes over the last year to our worship service in a reaction to COVID and that calls us to sit down and think proactively about what changes we want to make. That we, that we have responded as we needed to and we have no resentment about that. That was important. It continues to be important. We are shifting all the time. My church just went back to requiring everyone vaccinated or not to wear masks. [00:47:00] We're shifting all the time, but hey, like there is something beneficial in this. Some things that probably we could not have changed at other moments in our church's history, we could change now.
People are softened up or at least adjusting to all of the changes that are being made and so I hope that there is more of that spirit out there in the world, in all kinds of organizations and Jen, I hope that you find what you're looking for from a faith community or from a community of another type. There are lots of reasons that we connect with each other and I, I do feel, I'm kind of excited to see how those shift over the next couple of years.
Thank you so much for joining us for another episode of Pantsuit Politics as we all continue to think through big things together. We'll be back in your ears on Tuesday. Until then have the best weekend available to you.
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[00:49:05] Sarah: Ch- Chik-Fil-A sauce.