Jessica McMillan (JM): Welcome to Scratchpad Conversations, where we take a topic related to work and tackle three big questions around it to breathe some new life into our day-to-day work practices. 

Today, we are talking about work itself: What is work to us personally and our relationship to it? Why do we want something different than what we have experienced? What do we hope work looks like moving forward?

Steph, I’m gonna let you kick us off today.

Stephanie Espinoza (SE): Yes! The big question of work! I realized in preparing for this conversation, I guess this is nothing new between us as friends, knowing each other for a long time. But work carries a lot of weight. 

There have been moments in my life where I do the mental exercise of what if all my basic needs were met? Like I had housing and food and water and healthcare. What would I want to do with my life? And I think I would still want to work in that scenario! Maybe there’s a little bit of socialization under capitalism there. But I think, and what I want to say, is I actually think it’s a very human instinct to desire to create in some way. To be involved in an activity that takes mental or physical effort to achieve a purpose or result. And make positive contributions for the sake of the people around us. I certainly feel that way. I think you can get a similar effect in other ways, but I think labor and work, they just really stand out, I think, as being really fulfilling. Whether you’re part of a team or you do things individually, there’s a very distinct satisfaction that can happen when you have a vision or a goal propelling you and you figure out a way to make it happen. That’s just so exciting and that lands in a really particular way in me that it brings about a lot of energy, I think. So yeah, that’s work to me in a nutshell. 

To move on to, why do I want to think about work differently and maybe create something different than what I’ve known or experienced. I have a number of things that I could say about this. One thing that has bubbled up recently and that I wanted to share here has been stemming from conversations with my abuelito, my grandpa, my maternal grandfather. His name is José Trinidad Vallejo. I’m a very proud granddaughter of his. He’s at a point in his life and health where memory eludes him. That can be hard in a lot of ways, but every now and again there are conversations where he comes alive. Last month it was his birthday and when I called him on the phone and was talking with him, he was telling me about his work. In his mind he had just finished working, which was not true, but what stands out to me from that experience is the amount of life that comes back to him as he’s talking about his work. And it’s evident to me how proud he is and he is going on about the fields and getting them ready and he was so tired and the sun, but it was good and they got it done and they made it happen. This whole other side of him comes about. It was really beautiful to witness that clarity for him in his memory. There are so many things that are not that clear to him anymore. But work is so present in his mind right now. And there’s a risk here to romanticize the labor my grandfather did. I don’t want to do that. He had a hard life, he was exploited and he suffered a lot, I don’t want to make that seem anything more than what it was. But I think the takeaway in thinking about this is that at this particular stage of his life now, he has the ability to age with dignity and access to things because of the work he did. So that’s one thing. And two, it’s clearly something he is very proud of because he still has so much energy for that, at his 86 years of life. 

So that is such a motivator for me to think of what I want out of work moving forward. To reach a point eventually where I can look back and have that much pride and life and gratitude for the work that I did. And to be able to say that it gave me what I needed to live life well. That’s really become such a propelling for me with Indigo and with this space and to hopefully encounter more folks who are also ready to have work that doesn’t feel extractive or defeating but actually brings about good things that let us live our lives well. 

What about you?

JM: I feel like I’m tearing up.  

I think we were kind of like alluding to this right before we jumped onto the call and our prep. Work is such a personal thing for me as well. Very vulnerable. I think I was feeling a bit of pushback in myself, or like anticipated pushback, on some of the things I would say about work and what it means to me and my experiences in it. It’s so moving to hear that about your grandfather and the way that’s inspiring you. And what kind of work you want to have because I think that’s why we’re doing this together. And that’s why I love having these conversations. 

My personal relationship to work is that it is a very grounding element in my life. It wasn’t until recently that I gave it that language, and said that this is grounding. And so when things in work feel upended and feel chaotic and feel exploitative or any of the negative things that can come around work, I don't want to say it doesn’t impact other people in similar ways, but it feels very sensitive to me. It feels like it’s pulling up roots in me that cause me to feel really, loose-y goose-y came to mind. That’s such a silly term, but yeah. 

And I would say that work is world building for me. And in us talking about a lot of the foundations in Indigo, that has become to mean something more and more local that it’s world building. That it’s a large part of what I offer. To live in the kinds of environments that I want to live in and to contribute to my communities. Whether those communities are physically local or relationally local, whatever that means. I genuinely hate that I have to put a price tag on that to survive. That’s a really hard thing that I have to work through when it comes to my work, because it is such a grounding thing for me. It’s hard to say that has a monetary value. That’s one of the things that I do struggle with.

I think there are so many things I can say about why I want something different than what I’ve experienced, what we’ve experienced, because we’ve had a lot of those experiences together. I think the first thing I want to say about that, because there are a lot of things I could say about previous work experiences, is that I do truly believe that the places that I’ve worked and the people that I’ve worked with were really doing the best that they could do in those spaces. I’ve developed relationships that I've treasured and continue to treasure. Obviously that’s how we are here now, that’s how we have people in our lives like our dear mutual friend Ryan. It’s such a treasure trove of experiences and people. And I’ve laughed and I’ve grown and I’ve created my heart out in those spaces. 

Those have also been spaces of really unfortunate power dynamics, dysfunctional outlets for me and for people I’ve worked with. And I’m not sure that we could ever really rid ourselves of those things. I don’t want to set this up as if Indigo has some sort of magic potion or something to sprinkle into the workspace or like those things don’t exist anymore. I would love for you when we talk about this to comment on that a little bit more specifically maybe. But I would love more spaces that are looking to be aware and set up healthy ways of engaging with those particular issues, power dynamics, unhealthy ways of expressing ourselves. I think we’ve talked about this a lot, but when we come to work we’re bringing our whole selves, we’re bringing our families, we’re bringing our personalities, our past experiences, both good and bad. I don’t want to go too light on that, on how difficult and toxic some of the spaces I’ve been in have been for me. I just want to acknowledge that it’s so hard to change what is so firmly established. 

What I’m looking forward to, moving forward and what I hope work can be. I’m not looking for a balance. I don’t want a work/life balance. I’m looking for integration. I want work that feels free and challenging and good. And that when I feel things like resistance or creative lulls or even moments that bring up past workplace traumas–because there have been experiences in workspaces that are things that keep me up at night still if I think about them. They can cause me to spiral. And again, those power dynamics that exist there when our livelihoods are on the table. It can make some really unfortunate things happen. When those things come up, resistance, creative lulls, traumas, that I have a space in my work to navigate it without being policed or accused of being lazy or a procrastinator or not wanting to work or not show up. Similarly to you, I think if I had a choice of not working, I would still want to work. If it weren't dependent, it’s so pivotal to me and who I am. And I think this is where my brain started to go to all the places where people might push back on what I am describing. So I kind of started having a panicky moment when I was prepping for this to be honest. I think I love dreaming about what work can be, and obviously sometimes when we dream, that can push against other people’s firmly rooted experiences and needs for survival in the spaces that they’re in. So I think that can make me a little nervous.

That’s my thought.

SE: I think that’s really fair. And it’s part of–you hit the nail on the head of like what makes work dynamics so intrinsically complicated. It’s because it’s agreeing that my livelihood is embedded in yours and we have such different approaches to it. And then suddenly we’re expected to make it happen and that’s fundamentally–I mean that’s also maybe civilization. I don’t know. Not to get too far off track of what that means. 

I just want to also acknowledge that you said so many things that made me want to get up and clap or something. There was so much. But I love, love, love the image of work as worldbuilding. And I think I want to sit there for a second, of how that landed with me. I actually have never really considered work as worldbuilding until Indigo, and until your invitation. Which is such a gift that you brought. And I always considered work as just a tool or as a thing I had to do. Granted that’s still the thing for as long as we’re gonna live in capitalism, I’m going to need to pay bills. But the fact that I couldn’t even imagine work as a site for worldbuilding until you invited me to do this. That’s so cool. That you have that outlook for it and that you see it as a site where real effective things can happen and people can have a safe place and that the world can be made better if we just chose to do better things with the 40 hours a week that we spend toiling. I just think that’s incredible. It gave such a spark to me in thinking about work. And now, I have to say, work is the place where I see myself most effectively creating systems that I want to see in the world. In the way that we meet each other, and in the way we make room for how we come to a place, these virtual meetings we have, and idea things, and creative work sessions. That’s just been very fruitful and I think something that opened my whole world up and how I think about work. So I wanted to name that because that’s so special to have that ability to do. 

Yeah, I don’t know, to hear you say it in that very specific way, it made me feel so much more excited about what we’re hoping and trying to do here.

JM: I was thinking about something that a friend said in the past year or so, and I’ve been thinking about that a lot. I think there’s part of me, and again, like you mentioned romanticizing difficult labor and hard work that has been exploited. I think that there’s part of me that’s like, if we could just go back to where the physical work we did, we saw the actual contribution directly to our families and communities and what that brought about. That’s the kind of connection that I feel where it’s like you see this need in your community and you have a particular gift or talent to contribute to it and how so many of our jobs play with like made up things at this point. They just contribute to this made-up, digital world. And the thing that it offers us is money in exchange for the thing that we built. We don’t necessarily need to go fully down this rabbit hole but I just think we naturally feel very disconnected from our work because we don’t actually see the physical thing that it’s building. I don’t know what else really to say about that but I just remember a friend reflecting on their work in that way and saying i don’t really know what it’s connected to. And maybe I want something that is. I think I struggle with that, I go back and forth, where we’ve done a lot together of very mission-based, oriented work, nonprofit. And I feel a little, there’s all kinds of things I could say about that and that’s not what i’m talking about. I think that’s been hard to shift because that always felt very connected to a deeper mission, meaning, things like that. Is there…

SE: I think that’s also an interesting question about work in these days because it’s so true. For many people that have, I’m gonna say traditional job but maybe I mean corporate America. You're not seeing the direct impact of your work, necessarily. And that does aid or add on to the disillusionment with it overall. I think I've shared this with you before but my first job was at a restaurant. Not glamorous by any means. We served fried chicken. It wasn’t life-changing work in the slightest. But when I think about it, I think about it with so much joy. There was such, again when I talk about a distinct satisfaction of work, like a clear. I take the food, I serve it, the person says thank you, they eat, they are satisfied, they leave. Beyond that element there’s also the fact that at the end of the night the tasks in a restaurant are like, sweep floors, mop floors, clean bathrooms, restock. That feels so good. You saw the thing that was, there’s no more straws or cups or lids or napkins and then you fill them. Well that’s done. And you go and it’s great. There is such a distinct satisfaction that you don’t always feel nowadays because we are so disconnected, and we’re not grounded. Work isn’t grounding, it’s this ethereal thing out there. 

I think that there’s  a lot of possibility to be found in thinking about these things and asking what could be different and what else could I do to bridge that disconnect a little bit. And bring myself back into a space where the work does feel like it is serving something. Again, not in a necessarily mission way. Businesses can do good, they don’t have to be nonprofits to do that. Business can be a force for good in the world. The reason I believe it is because a lot of workplaces have been a site for bad things. You can turn it around! There has to be another possibility. There’s two sides to every coin. And to kind of go back to a little bit of what you were saying. We’re not going to fix it all here. We’re not even proposing that we have all the solutions. We’ve talked about this in other kinds of contexts. I can’t leave a particular way of knowing and doing things and act like that’s not going to influence this new thing that I've decided I'm starting here. That’s just not real. There’s a billion probably neurological, physiological reasons why that wouldn’t be true. And I am not an expert in those things so I'm not going to act like I know it. But just in my human experience I know that it’s not possible. And yet I also know that in our friendship and our relationship to work together, we have clocked things that don’t go well. And we have asked, can we do it different? And then we’ve done it and we’ve seen the effect. I just hope that’s what we can keep doing through Indigo.

JM: Same. yeah.

We could talk about this forever, but for the sake of time, I'm going to move us into the surprise little questions we have for each other. Not necessarily little questions. 

My question for you this week: I’m really curious, long-term, what would your dream role in Indigo would be?

SE: Oh my gosh, what a question. My dream role in Indigo. 

Oh. 

Maybe it’s a job title that hasn’t been invented. I’ll say that just off the bat. 

That’s like something I’ve been sitting with recently, I don't know that I necessarily fit into the boxes of what workplaces have deemed as job titles. But I'm hoping that my realm or sphere of influence or whatever is… I think I really noticed for myself, especially in work settings, how much I really love setting people up well. And I do that really well. And that’s been consistent feedback from people for me. I love a system. I love a process. We bond a lot over that. And I love showing people mechanisms that will then help them move forward and propel forward. I think on a large scale at Indigo, I do hope eventually it’s a place where I can be in a role that lets people find those things for themselves. What are those processes because it’s different for everybody. I can only share what works for me but sometimes there’s  a little magical moment where you share that thing for you and the other person has a connection of like, oh then this is what I can do! And it’s a special little glimmer at work and I would hope to do that for other people through Indigo for sure. 

That’s a really good question though, I'm gonna keep thinking about it. That’s just what came off the top of my head.

Well my question for you is, I mentioned my grandpa as being this pillar right now for me as I think about work. I am curious if you have anyone? You don’t have to know them personally but is there anyone that you currently look to and admire how they relate to their work? 

JM: I feel… a little speechless. 

Again, things that come to mind are different projects and things that are going on that I really have loved and been inspired by, similar to your question last week. 

SE: Maybe not even holistically, maybe it’s just a particular facet of what you can see that you’re like, oh i’m down with this. 

JM: I think I’m really curious about a lot of people who set up these alternative workspaces. What is your relationship to work and what’s the freedom that you have to create this space? I am thinking a lot of looking over CHANI [Chani Nichols of the CHANI app]. Their work practices, the different types of leave that they offer. I have a lot of curiosity around those things and practically how did they get to a place where they make that work in a system where most people would push back and say you can’t do that. Like you can’t offer menstrual leave, you can’t offer domestic violence leave, but those are things they’ve managed to work in and be very fruitful for their businesses. In terms of work, very practically I am very curious about people who have done it and are really pushing forward and pioneering. I don't know if I love that word. But like really going against the grain in some of those things and making it work in their businesses. 

SE: They’re world building.

JM: They’re world building. They’re world building. 

You’re often sending me resources and stuff like that of different places that you found. I still have a lot of interest and follow Helpscout for customer service. I think he’s their CEO, I love reading his articles. I am thinking of an article he wrote about him taking a sabbatical and how that allowed them to see where he was kind of creating a funnel block on some of the workflow and things. He was able to step back and that’s so inspiring to me to be able to put your ego aside enough to say, I don’t need to be necessary in this thing. I can just step back, figure out where I am causing a roadblock in this through our processes. I would say those are some of the people. There are so many people out there.

And then similarly, my grandpa is such a hard worker. When you were talking about your grandpa, I was thinking about how much my grandpa talks about his work these days. How proud he is of that. And the things that he’s done. Driving around with him in Louisiana, he can point out all the buildings he’s built. He’ll tell you all the stories, and the people that he met, and the different roads that they took time to drive down and look at while they were going from structure to structure to build something. And I just love that. I love that there was a sense of leisure built into, like they knew how to do leisure and work really well. That’s very inspiring to me. So yeah, thanks for that question. 

SE: That’s beautiful. Good examples there for sure.

JM: It took me a minute to get there but I love that question and I’m gonna be thinking about it a lot. 

Well thank you all for joining us today. This is our conversation around work and what that means to us. We hope to see you again for the next one.