The Labor Movement's Momentum

TOPICS DISCUSSED

  • The State of the Labor Movement

  • Solving Labor Shortages with Misty Chally

  • Outside of Politics: Our First Jobs

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EPISODE RESOURCES

TRANSCRIPT

Sarah [00:00:09] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.  

Beth [00:00:10] And this is Beth Silvers. Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics.  

[00:00:13] Music Interlude  

Sarah [00:00:33] Welcome to Pantsuit Politics, where we take a different approach to the news. And surprise, we're here in your feed a day early this week because we wanted to use Labor Day to talk about labor. There's a lot happening in the labor movement around the country and labor affects so many different issues. So we'll be discussing that today. And we're also going to share a conversation Beth had with Misty Chally about the interesting work she's doing to help solve labor shortages by working with underemployed populations. It's really fascinating work, and we know you're going to want to hear about it. And then we're going to wrap up the episode by talking about our very first jobs.  

Beth [00:01:05] I'm really excited to share this conversation with Misty. I had it several months ago. It's such a refreshing approach. I think sometimes when we talk about labor, we focus more on the employee side than the employer side, and so today I think we're going to have a nice balance of both of those. We're excited to share it with you.  

Sarah [00:01:22] And if you are still looking for something to do, say on the weekend of October 20th through 22nd, may we recommend a trip to Paducah, Kentucky, my beloved hometown where we're having a live show Saturday, October 21st. And we have a full weekend's worth of activities. You guys, it's Oktoberfest. It's the French and Indian War re-enactment at Fort Massac across the river in Illinois, which is one of my favorite events of the year. We have craft classes. We're going to sing karaoke. This live show is just the centerpoint of a very, very full schedule of activities. We hope you'll join us. We would love to see you there. You can get all the information at the link in the show notes. Next up, we're going to talk about the labor movement.  

[00:02:06] Music Interlude.  

[00:02:25] So, Beth, your conversation that we're going to hear with Misty is about labor shortages, which is the fuel, I would say, for this current robust labor movement.  

Beth [00:02:37] We are seeing strikes and the threats of strikes in organizing across industries. I was really fascinated just last week to hear a short segment on RAs threatening a strike. They were saying that room and board is not enough to compensate them for all the work they do now. And unless the university starts to pony up some cash as well, they were going on strike before moving day.  

Sarah [00:03:04] Yeah, in case you called them something else on your college campus or don't know what we're referencing, RAs are resident advisors. Beth was one for three years of her college experience. So where you tell people to stop drinking and openly flouting the rules in the dorms. You have to deal with all manner of things.  

Beth [00:03:21] You deal with things like alcohol poisoning and eating disorders. I did a More to Say probably a year ago now about how I think that job is bigger than you're equipped to deal with at 19 or 20 years old. So when I heard this, I thought, well, one, I'm glad to see other people having the conversation about how big that job is. But, two, what a testament to how trendy organizing is for people in this college campus sector to be picking it up, even in a role like RA where you're supposed to say, "Oh my gosh, amazing that my room and board has been paid for."  

Sarah [00:03:56] Yeah, well, and it's such an interesting experience where you see organizing happening at a job you were in, where you never thought like, oh yeah, I should be treated better. Or you thought that and you never saw any sort of organizing or thought to organize yourself. That's the experience I had with Hill staffers. That was a poorly paid job when I did. It's part of the reason I left. And then to see people organizing, you're like, yeah. But I just think honestly, post-recession in particular, where the message you heard all the time was, you're lucky to get an unpaid internship, you're lucky to get this job, you're lucky to have this opportunity, did not lend itself to an environment in which you said, I demand better because I'm in short supply. But now that the labor shortages are so extreme for a lot of reasons: we have an aging population, the Trump administration shut down immigration for several years. We're only just now getting back to where net migration was before the Trump administration, which I think is a huge component of the labor shortages. And for all those reasons, you have people that say, like, no, you need me. Whether I'm a UPS driver, you don't want me striking. Or a train operator, or a pilot, there's all this demand and they have an enormous amount of bargaining power and I am thrilled that they're claiming it.  

Beth [00:05:12] Well, and of course, you cannot factor out COVID where a lot of people died. A lot of people retired early. A lot of people heard a message that you are critical to our economy; we need you doing what you're doing, and they worked under conditions that were terrible, constantly being told how valuable they were. And they saw that value was not reflected in their compensation or their treatment. And so, I think it's not surprising that as things are starting to settle down a little bit in the world, people are saying, "Okay, you told me I was valuable. You told me I was critical. I would like to be treated as though that's true."  

Sarah [00:05:50] Yeah. Don't just tell me this is a family here. Pay me. That's what the money is for. It's my favorite quote from Mad Men ever. And I think we did have for a long time this sort of, like, emotional we're a family. We're a team here. But it's like, no, that needs to show up in some concrete ways, especially with inflation, especially with the cost of living going higher and the interest rates rising, making it harder to own a home. Student loan payments now being unfrozen and people looking at that strain on their pocketbooks coming back, that there has to be more money. There needs to be more money on the check I get to do this work. Let's not dress this up or make this more complicated than it is. You are paying me for my labor and you need to pay me more if I'm going to continue to do it.  

Beth [00:06:33] And I think money is a symbol of respect. And often these strikes are both about the money and about other forms of respect, about realizing that we don't have good enough policies around family leave, bereavement leave, medical leave.  

Sarah [00:06:48] We don't have air conditioning on trucks. Hello.  

Beth [00:06:52] Much of what you hear people saying is just, "I'd like you to do better by me." And I think watching the parties adjust to this is pretty interesting because the Republican Party has always been thought of as sort of the party of the wealthy, protecting business, opposing worker rights, opposing labor unions. But you do see a swell in the party from people like Marco Rubio, Tom Cotton, who they want to become the new working person's party in some ways. And on the Democratic side of the aisle, you have such a pro-union messenger in Joe Biden, who also confronts the reality of being a president who cannot have the USPS go on strike while he's in charge. And so balancing the considerations that, yes, we want better for these workers and we cannot have the economy continue to be beaten down by these enormous disruptions. So it's just a time of a lot of adjustment for people depending on where they sit in the political structure.  

Sarah [00:07:53] Well, and it feels to me like the American populace is going through a time of transition and an adjustment to how they feel about labor. I feel like we're finally sort of aging out of those old ideas from the seventies. My stepfather still gets mad about a union at this place he worked in the seventies, and I'm like, "Dude, that was a long time ago. Unions are different now." You see new unions forming. I think you see unions in places people don't expect them. The New York Times has a very dramatic union labor dispute right now about scanning their tags to make sure people are coming into the office. I think that the coming back to the office component of labor disputes is super, super interesting. But I think you see there's just so many new places and conversations- be it Amazon warehouses, Starbucks, where people are able to take a fresh look and think more carefully about who else is going to negotiate on behalf of the employees individual negotiation, which is what we were sold as the answer to so many things didn't really work for a long time, and we need a better solution.  

Beth [00:08:56] It's especially interesting to me in workplaces where people have mostly worked remotely or don't have a lot of colleagues because on the one hand, work shouldn't be a family. It is work. There should be some boundaries around that. The relationships are different. On the other hand, we do have a loneliness crisis in this country and work is where we spend an awful lot of our time. And you do want to have good, solid relationships there and feel supported. And so I think especially in situations where people are more distributed throughout their day, are unions coming in to just fill some of that relational gap?  

Sarah [00:09:30] I think it's the shift from that individual mindset to a collective mindset. And I think that, yes, culture is always upstream of politics and lots of things, but I just think some of it was just economic. Like, you could not have a collective mindset when it was like this dog eat dog competitive environment where you felt like you were lucky to get what you got. I think it's so interesting right now that the labor shortages are such that people aren't even paying attention to minimum wage because nobody's paying it. They have to pay way more to get workers at basically every place. And I think, well, isn't that an interesting manifestation of I think we beat ourselves up and we talk about politics and societal norms and we think so much of that is just, intellectualizing and coming out of our own brains, but some of it is just the environment where in. And the environment we're in right now is very conducive to conversations about labor and real negotiations. I mean, the pilots right now are killing it because everybody wants to travel and so they are in demand and a ton of pilots retired over COVID. It's like all those components come to play where they say you need us and so we want more money.  

Beth [00:10:44] And I think it's great for people to realize there are lots of different ways to exercise power in a country where the government, at a minimum, is supposed to allow you to exercise your power culturally. So even where something like the minimum wage doesn't go as far as progressives had hoped to see that power shift into the private sector, that's really healthy that people are taking up that power and figuring out how to navigate it.  

Sarah [00:11:10] Well, this environment of labor shortages is an excellent transition into your conversation with Misty. Why don't you tell the people a little bit more about Misty before you share that conversation, Beth.  

Beth [00:11:19] We learned about Misty from a listener who has worked with her. Misty is the founder of the Critical Labor Coalition, which is a lobbying group supporting bipartisan legislation to address the post-COVID labor shortage that we've been talking about. And this coalition has partnered with the Second Chance Community, which is something that I have a lot of passion for. In addition to just thinking really broadly about who else is out there, who can help make our economy go and how can we connect to those people through meaningful policy efforts with employers. So I loved this conversation with Misty, and I hope that you all enjoy it as much as I did.  

[00:11:54] Music Interlude.  

[00:12:10] Misty, I'm so glad that you're here. And I would love to hear about the founding of the Critical Labor Coalition. How did this come together? Who brought it together? What was the impetus?  

Misty Chally [00:12:20] Thank you, Beth, and thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Yeah, I have been representing franchisees and franchisee associations for over 15 years. And I was the executive director of the Coalition of Franchisee Associations, which is 22 different franchisee association groups, everybody ranging from Planet Fitness and Burger King to Meineke and Supercuts. So regardless of industry, they're all small business owners and their trade associations are members of the coalition. So in heading up the CFA, we were talking about different issues we could get involved in regarding legislative priorities regardless of industry, like what are they all facing? And the number one issue was the labor shortage. And so I started poking around and we wanted to start with the retiree community and how to get them back to work. So I reached out to AARP. They seemed like a logical first step. And we talked about some legislation that they were working on. And one of the bills was expanding the earned income tax credit.  

[00:13:29] Because right now, if you're over 65 and you do not have a qualifying child that you're taking care of, you are not eligible to receive the earned income tax credit. So we started working together on legislation that would get rid of that top tier. And actually that tier was eliminated during COVID as part of some of the COVID legislation, but expired at the end of 2021. So we started there. And being a government relations person in D.C., I got the attention of other groups like the National Restaurant Association that I work with, and Hotel and Lodging Association, and other groups like that. And they were like, oh, this is really good. We were also facing labor shortages. This is a huge issue. And that's kind of how the critical Labor coalition got started really with the retirees. And our main goal is to focus on bipartisan legislation that would focus on certain communities to incentivize them to go to work or return to work. Whatever we can do to help those communities is really where we're focused.  

Beth [00:14:36] I'm so curious about how you decided to start with retirees. Is that just a demographic? Is that like the sheer volume of people that are available or what made you start there?  

Misty Chally [00:14:47] That's a good question. We had already been working with other coalitions and organizations on ways to get guest workers over to the US and work on those programs. And to be honest, retirees are great employees. They are reliable and hard workers and some of them retired early and then because of COVID and other factors really needed to return to work. So that's where we focus, because we hadn't heard of any legislation really providing those incentives. And that's why we started there. I mean, our franchisees love having retired workers come back to work.  

Beth [00:15:28] I wonder if that's also legislatively an easier lift than immigration and some of the other issues that you're working on.  

Misty Chally [00:15:36] I will tell you, even saying the word immigration on Capitol Hill is kind of taboo because nobody wants to touch that.  

Beth [00:15:48] Yeah, it's such a shame.  

Misty Chally [00:15:49] It is because everybody knows it needs to be addressed, but it is so politicized at this point that really it's a shame. And there are a lot of really good bills out there that people are willing to touch.  

Beth [00:16:04] Well, let's do our part on that issue today then. Can you talk a little bit about why, from a business perspective, immigration reform is necessary and what are some specific things you'd like to see in that category?  

Misty Chally [00:16:15] I think everybody can agree comprehensive immigration reform is needed. The question is how to do that. So there are different ways to address immigration reform. Some people want to make it very limited on who can come over and for how long and whether there's a pathway to citizenship. And then others are more open to bringing a lot more people over. During COVID, as you probably know, there were a lot of restrictions on who could come over and when. And as a result, that negatively impacted the labor shortage even more because now we have less workers that we can bring over. So some legislation that we're working on is there's a bill called the Essential Workers for Economic Advancement Act. It was introduced last session, and for many of my members there's not an applicable visa program to bring potential employees over. It's either in the agricultural field or for more skilled workers. So what this bill would do would be to create a brand new H-2 visa guest worker program and allow service workers to come over and work. And it's not a permanent program. They would return back to their country after the specific term that it's deemed. But they can come and work. If they don't like that job, they can go to another job. They're not required to stay in that job forever, but they get good experience that they can then bring home and they can earn money for their families or however they'd like to spend it.  

Beth [00:18:00] Okay. I think that sounds great.  

Misty Chally [00:18:02] Another bill that we're really excited about is the Asylum Seeker Work Authorization Act. And this is a bill that is introduced in both the House and the Senate. In the Senate, it is bipartisan. Senators Collins, Sinema and King have introduced it. And what this bill does is that it expedites the process in which an asylum seeker can start working before their application is approved or they have their hearing. So what this bill does is it shortens the window from when an asylum seeker enters the U.S. to 30 days. So within 30 days they can be processed to make sure that they are not a threat and then they can work. As opposed to the current process where they can't work until they receive a hearing and are approved. So right now you've got asylum seekers sitting in hotel rooms unable to work in that hotel and waiting for their hearing.  

Beth [00:19:07] Well, And it seems to me that compounds the political toxicity of the issue, right? Like, our system is playing into some of the negative views the population has on immigration. And if we fix the system, we might start to soften some of those views that make it so difficult to do this work. It's kind of a chicken and egg thing, it sounds like.  

Misty Chally [00:19:27] Absolutely. And it's just streamlining the process. I mean, the process for refugees and asylum seekers entering the US can take years and we don't have that kind of time. We need the labor now and I think they want to work. So it makes sense to speed up the asylum process while making sure that these applicants are not a threat to the US.  

Beth [00:19:54] Yeah, it affords a greater sense of dignity to everyone in the process. I would think much more humane and much more practical.  

Misty Chally [00:20:02] Yes, and it eliminates that extra government assistance that they would need to have while they're just sitting around and waiting, so it actually saves money.  

Beth [00:20:10] Sounds like a win across every dimension.  

Misty Chally [00:20:13] I wanted to make the motto of the coalition, Well That Makes Sense.  

Beth [00:20:18] Yes, I love that.  

Misty Chally [00:20:20] Seems to be I'm hearing that a lot lately. So we're looking for legislation that just makes sense. And hopefully we can get these pieces of bipartisan legislation passed this session.  

Beth [00:20:33] I am very interested-- in addition to thinking about retirees and guest workers-- in your Second Chance hiring work. So will you tell me a little bit about that and what are the primary obstacles to Second Chance hiring right now? I feel like there was a time when the primary obstacles were non regulatory, like it was just an issue of stigma. And I'm wondering if that's changed for your members and if you can talk about the regulatory obstacles as well.  

Misty Chally [00:21:02] So the Second Chance Worker is just really interesting because we're really looking at that not from a legislative standpoint really, but more of an outreach and education standpoint. There are plenty of second chance workers that are looking for jobs. And, you know, most of them are eager and want to work, but they're faced with this stigma of having a criminal record. And some employers are concerned about the stigma associated with them hiring those workers. So I contacted the Department of Justice-- and you'll see a theme here, me contacting whoever I think might be able to help and eventually works out. And they were very interested because they have a second chance program. They connected me with the American Probation and Parole Association, and obviously their members are probation and parole officers. And I think that's a great way to kind of eliminate the stigma, because what we're doing is connecting employers with the probation and parole officers. So those individuals have a better idea of who's ready to enter the workforce.  

Beth [00:22:12] Alright. Okay. I love that. That makes me.  

Misty Chally [00:22:15] So what we're trying to do eventually is create an outlet two ways. One, to create job fairs during their meetings where they're having a meeting in August in New York. And we're going to, at a minimum, have a panel on it. But find ways to connect probation and parole officers with the employers in their area. So at least they have the contact information and they can say, look, I'm looking for this and I have this person available. And the other way is to create just kind of information on our website to connect so that employers can just go on our website and say, okay, I'm looking for somebody in my area, put in the zip code and that will pop up. So eventually I'm really trying to get that up and running. In the meantime, I'm working with DOJ and EPPA on a webinar just to give information to employers on how to find second chance workers. Are there additional steps they need to take to hire these workers? So we had a call on Friday, and I'm working a webinar for that, just as kind of a first step in the process for that demographic.  

Beth [00:23:29] Well, I would be so curious to hear about any test cases or what you learn after we have this conversation about whether that relationship with probation and parole officers supports retention. Because I feel like for businesses, getting people hired is one thing, but it is so expensive for it to not be a successful hire.  

Misty Chally [00:23:49] A hundred percent.  

Beth [00:23:50] And I wonder if that might be a really supportive way to bring people back into a work relationship that will last.  

Misty Chally [00:23:58] I completely agree. And it is a challenge in the service industry because these are no skilled worker jobs. These are first jobs, entry level jobs that some people don't want to stay in. But the truth is this industry is in such need of workers that I can give you a million examples of people that came in as a dishwasher and now are a franchisee and are very successful and wouldn't have otherwise been given those opportunities if they hadn't started where they started. So, yeah, the retention question is very pervasive in the service area. So with Second Chance Workers, that would be the same concerns.  

Beth [00:24:41] Well, as we're talking about retention, tell me about your focus on caregiving.  

Misty Chally [00:24:45] Care givers, I think that was such a hugely affected demographic during COVID from both sides. First, a lot of the caregiving institutions, preschool and nursery school and all of those places had to shut down because for obvious reasons related to COVID and haven't been able to start back up. Additionally, as a result, people that were caregivers that had to go back to work couldn't find and still can't find places to put their loved ones or people to watch their loved ones, whether it be their children or family members, what have you. So we really wanted to address that issue head on, but wanted to add an employment component to it. So we're very supportive of a bill called the Credit for Caring Act that would provide tax credits for those that have to work. So there is a minimum work requirement, but who then go home and have to take care of-- and it's a very broad definition, but take care of a loved one. Any dollar amount that they're spending over- I believe it's $2,000, they can get a tax credit for that. So things like that. And they're pretty much tax credit related. So we're looking in that area for caregivers. We're also looking kind of outside the box. What can we do to provide incentives for employers to have a daycare in their building or within a certain area or where they are providing incentives for their employees or credits for them to have their children or loved ones in childcare? So we're kind of looking outside the box to think of other ways that we can help support people that have to work and also take care of a loved one.  

Beth [00:26:45] That's an ambitious agenda that you've described. And so I'm going to ask you about a couple of things that I don't see in your agenda today. Not for the purpose of saying you should be conquering the whole world, because I really applaud your focus and prioritization. I just want to know how you got there. Because as I was thinking about obstacles to work, substance abuse came up for me, poverty, access to transportation. When you're talking about obstacles to work, it's just a huge field. And like my question about starting with retirees, how did you decide, okay, these are the communities that we're going to start with. These are the initiatives that we're going to push for. What's your process?  

Misty Chally [00:27:23] Yeah, great question. So when I formed the coalition, I was all over the place. Everything was related to the labor shortage, everything from transportation and housing to you name it. What I had to do, honestly, because I'm just one person at this point, was really focused on what is legislation that is directly related to working. So my ultimate goal for this coalition is to really have three different areas that we have an education piece where we can do kind of data and getting the word out to members of Congress and to outlets like yours. A legislative piece that we're working on and then an outreach piece so that we can work with groups like the Second Chance Workers and the Parole and Probation Association, groups like that, so we can have events and really have in-person contact with those demographics that we're trying to help. So that's my end goal. But to answer your question, we really needed to focus on specific demographics and what we thought that we could get done.  

[00:28:40] The way we're narrowing our focus is we're looking at legislation that can actually get passed, which is why we are only supporting bipartisan legislation. I think on behalf of myself and a lot of my colleagues on the coalition, we don't want to introduce a bill just to introduce a bill. And that's why some of the legislation has not yet been reintroduced, because there's no point in introducing a bill that isn't going to have a chance of moving. So that's how we're narrowing it. And really based on the interest of some outside organizations, is how we're narrowing what we're doing outreach wise. So we have a great relationship with DOJ and EPPA now, and I think that's only going to grow. And I think as we're moving into the guest worker program, we're forming relationships with refugees and asylum seekers on that front, and hopefully we'll grow our relationships that way. But we're not limited to that. If for some reason a bill gets some traction that will affect the labor shortage that we support, we'll certainly change our priorities accordingly.  

Beth [00:29:54] So you sound extremely pragmatic and maybe like a partisan to me that this is just a need that everyone would benefit from being addressed and we'll take the measures that we can get to make progress along the way. Is that a fair summary?  

Misty Chally [00:30:08] Yes, I have been in government relations for 25 years and I want to get things done. And I think there are certain organizations in D.C. that feel the same way. I am a big proponent of a group called the Problem Solvers Caucus.  

Beth [00:30:23] I was just going to ask if you've worked with No Labels.  

Misty Chally [00:30:26] Oh yes. No Labels. But Problem Solvers I am a big fan. And for every Republican member, they have to get a Democrat member. So there are even numbers, and I've been very impressed by what they've accomplished and their attitude towards getting things done. So groups like that, we're working very closely with the Republican Governance Group, the Blue Dog Coalition, those types of groups that want to work together across the aisle to get things done.  

Beth [00:30:55] Well, do you have a call to action for our listeners? If someone is hearing this conversation thinking, "This really speaks to me, I would like to be more involved," what can they do?  

Misty Chally [00:31:05] Yeah, I would encourage them to look up Critical Labor Coalition on our social media and look at our website www.criticallaborcoalition.org. We have a lot of information and ways to contact me directly. If you are a restaurant tour or hotel owner or any small business owner and want information, I encourage you to reach out to me. As these bills move along, our individual member associations will be holding action alerts. So if you're a member of those organizations, please respond to those alerts and we can all get this labor shortage eliminated.  

Beth [00:31:45] Well, Misty, thank you for your work and thank you for spending time telling us about it.  

Misty Chally [00:31:48] Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. And I look forward to talking to you soon.  

[00:31:53] Music Interlude.  

Sarah [00:32:04] Thanks to Misty for sharing all of her insight and expertise with us. Now, we're going to continue the labor conversation in a more fun way for Outside of Politics segment and talk about our very first jobs. Beth, I don't know your first job. I'm so excited to learn this.  

Beth [00:32:17] My first job where I got a paycheck-- so not babysitting. I mean, babysitting was really my first job, but my first job I got a paycheck was in a bank. I was a bank teller--.  

Sarah [00:32:24] Oh, I knew this.  

Beth [00:32:25] At First Security Bank and Trust in Island, Kentucky.  

Sarah [00:32:28] Love it.  

Beth [00:32:29] I worked the drive through window some, which my daughter Ellen thinks is so cool because that little drawer is still a very exciting feature of the drive through window.  

Sarah [00:32:39] Or the tubes. The tubes are super exciting.  

Beth [00:32:41] We didn't have a tube, we just had the drawer.  

Sarah [00:32:43] Okay.  

Beth [00:32:44] It's a small bank. One of my big jobs every single day was to hand sort the canceled checks and file them. Everything was pretty manual there, so I can still hear a name from my hometown and picture their checks because I touched the checks so many times a day.  

Sarah [00:33:02] Oh, my gosh.  

Beth [00:33:03] What was your first job?  

Sarah [00:33:05] My first job was the receptionist at the Kentucky Department of Highways. The summer after my freshman or sophomore year of college. My mother worked at the Kentucky Department of Highways for many, many years before she went back to school and became a librarian. It was really fun. These people had worked with my mother when she was pregnant with me. Everybody knew me. It was the easiest job on planet earth. I just sat at the front and the lobby answered the two to three phone calls a day and directed the three to four visitors who didn't already know where they were going. I spent a lot of time reading, cross-stitched several things, I think I taught myself needlepoint at that desk. I would go out to my car sometimes and just take a nap. It was the best cushiest gig ever.  

Beth [00:34:00] It will surprise you not at all to hear that I brought a very different energy to my job at First Security Bank and Trust. And I felt terrible when there wasn't something to do.  

Sarah [00:34:10] Why?  

Beth [00:34:10] It was really important to me that there always be something to do. I'm pretty sure, looking back, that I was quite annoying to the career bank tellers who were fine with some downtime during the day because I was always like, "Is there a project we could work on? Does something need to be organized?" I just felt like they're paying me to be here, I should be doing things.  

Sarah [00:34:30] That's hilarious.  

Beth [00:34:30] So I did things as much as I could do them, and I still ended up with a lot of downtime. I can remember so vividly walking to get a chicken salad croissant sandwich from a local gas station for lunch and bringing it back to the breakroom and doing my little punching in and out and sitting and reading my book during lunch and just kind of thinking, like, is this what it is? Is this what happens when you're done with school? I don't know how I feel about this.  

Sarah [00:34:57] Yeah, I love a nice office gig. I'm not mad at it. Those have primarily been my main jobs. I worked at the Kentucky Department of Highways. I worked at Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina, which I think now has a new name [inaudible]. And that was my first job where I thought I would go in and there would be so much to do. I would turn around and be like, "Oh my gosh, how's it 4:30? I got here 5 minutes ago," which was always a nice feeling. But I never felt the pressure to fill the time. If there wasn't something to do, that was my job, I wasn't searching it out. Does that make me lazy or do I just work smart? I don't know. Tough Call.  

Beth [00:35:30] It's a tough call. I think that bank was so good for me in so many ways. I learned a bunch of different skills. I learned a lot about people and money and how they manage their money. And I also felt a tremendous sense of responsibility. When your drawer is like $0.05 off at the end of the day, when you're doing the balancing at the end of the day, that is stressful. It is so, so stressful.  

Sarah [00:35:53] Oh my gosh.  

Beth [00:35:54] And so I think it was a cushy gig in some ways. And then in other ways it was kind of a lot of pressure to work around that much cash and to be in transactions that were really high stakes for people. People are coming in and their loan payments are in arrears, and you're kind of having that interaction as a 16, 17 year old. It can be pretty intense.  

Sarah [00:36:17] I think I learned from that job that that's not the kind of job I wanted. I think I learned that I want to do work that needs to get done, but I really don't like busy work. And so I was not going to thrive in an environment where there was busy work. That was not the case of the Planned Parenthood. That was very rarely the case at Capitol Hill. But I thrive in an environment where I can organize my time with my own priorities. And I always felt bad about that. I felt like it was like a character flaw. And my husband was, like, you don't like having bosses, it's okay. There's nothing wrong with you. And then I looked around at all my family members who also don't have bosses. Both of my parents are one of four. And my uncles still snap on tools, so they're their own boss. My aunt was an interior designer and then a real estate agent. My stepfather's a real estate agent. My mom was a librarian who technically the principal is her boss. But the librarians in our audience know that really it's their own kingdom and they're in charge. And so I just was like, oh, I think I just never had a model for that sort of work. I only saw people who kind of did what needed to be done, controlled their own schedules. Outside of the Kentucky Department of Highways that one summer, I didn't really have a good model for that.  

Beth [00:37:25] You got to that a lot faster than I did in life, even though it is true for me as well that I don't like having a boss and that I think that that's generationally connected for me too. The bank was good preparation for being an associate in a law firm because everything is very particular, it's highly regulated, there's a lot of hierarchy in the staffing, there are a lot of dynamics in the office among people. You can tell that everybody has a feeling about each other. No one's neutral really on anyone else there. There's a feeling about everyone. I think that a struggle that I had in my career, both at the bank and at the firm, is that the skill set that makes you a good underling is entirely different than the skill set that gets you to leadership. And it's hard to make that turn. And you can't have the leadership opportunity unless you're a good underling. But then all of a sudden you've got to go from questioning nothing and doing everything exactly as you've been told, to deciding how things should be. And that's a rough transition.  

Sarah [00:38:23] Yeah. It's interesting as I work back, I always struggle not just with busywork but I would push-- because I'm an Enneagram one. So if I felt like there was something that was wrong and that needed to get done, even if it was way below my authority, I would push for it. So there were times when I saw like, no, this needs to happen and no one's doing it. And that's part of our job and we need to do it. But it has to make sense to me. Like, I'm not going to just fill the time. It has to really be important, I guess, as I see it, which is the risk in a workplace where lots of people might see important things differently. But, listen, I still look back fondly on that gig. That was a good first gig. Just a lot of good, important life lessons there. It was also hilariously the beginning of the Internet, and so I remember teaching the other receptionists all these fun websites. I think we played around with that website that would let you change your hairstyle quite a bit. So really important work getting done that summer.  

Beth [00:39:20] I was so lucky to have the bank job too. That was a great first job and I was paid really well. I made $7.25 an hour.  

Sarah [00:39:27] Nice.  

Beth [00:39:27] My mom sent me a pay stub of mine that she found in a book the other day, probably one of those books I sat and read on my lunch break, and I sent it to Chad to show him and he was, like, "$7.25? I made like $5 an hour at the grocery store that same year." So it made me feel even more grateful for that experience.  

Sarah [00:39:47] I have no idea how much I made. I'm sure I have a paycheck there and I can dig it up. I think I might have like a Kentucky retirement account from that one summer. I wrote a couple other things sitting somewhere, I probably should check out that. Well, happy Labor Day to everybody. Thank you for joining us for this wide ranging conversation about the different ways that jobs and labor shortages and labor movements are present in all our lives. We look forward to hearing from you in our email inboxes and on social media. We will be back in your ears on Friday, and until then, keep it nuanced y'all.  

[00:40:20] Music Interlude.  

Sarah: Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. 

Beth: Alise Napp is our managing director. Maggie Penton is our director of Community Engagement. 

Sarah: Xander Singh is the composer of our theme music with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima. 

Beth: Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers. 

Executive Producers: Martha Bronitsky. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Katina Zuganelis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Molly Kohrs. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lily McClure. Linda Daniel. Emily Neesley. The Pentons. Tracey Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Amy Whited. Emily Helen Olson. Lee Chaix McDonough. Morgan McHugh. Jen Ross. Sabrina Drago. Becca Dorval. The Lebo Family. 

Sarah: Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Joshua Allen. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller. 

Maggie PentonComment