Cat HicksNov 27, 2024

Many, many conversations I have had recently and interviews for my book have touched on this: there are so many people who have an impact by making other people's work better, yet our systems are so individualized and we're so alienated from each other that these people get punished for it.

I truly wish I had an answer, I do not, but I feel this deeply and reflect in my own life on the forms of work that I feel have the most impact and go the least recognized, and what we do about that

Show threadCat HicksNov 27, 2024
I think sometimes there is this fearful friction, fear of speaking outside of the usual systems of recognition, fear of doing it wrong. But I think this is a situation where people need our advocacy, and advocacy always feels profoundly uncomfortable and even subversive, because you are directly telling the system that it is wrong, that it is missing something
Show threadCat HicksNov 27, 2024
This would not feel so important and would not be so pervasive if solving it were easy and obvious. But that does not mean it's inevitable, and that does not mean we cannot give voice to this as a form of both injustice and incompetence in our systems.
Show threadCat HicksNov 27, 2024
I help run a brunch club for a group of my friends where we meet to talk about careers. Salaries. Adversities. We come from very different fields and industries and benefit from that. I have learned a lot in this practice about what it's like to have a conversation inside of a third space, what we all learn about the real work and the patterns we could only learn to see by comparing notes. I think this is very fundamental to change, these safe spaces where we help each other.
Show threadCat HicksNov 27, 2024

I had a psychology professor back in college who used to say that in psychology, every single conversation you have could keep going and end at the deepest human needs that there are: am I safe? Am I ok? Am I loved? Are my people ok?

This is also true for doing psychology about software teams. These profound questions about how our abilities are seen and what is valued in our society, they are planet-level questions. Sometimes it overwhelms me because I feel the pressure to have answers

Show threadCat HicksNov 27, 2024
Nevertheless I remind myself, my goal is for my work to create this *space and safety*, so that many other people can work together to find answers I never could have imagined. That is my goal.
Show threadCat Hicks
In my brunch club, sometimes all we do is say "this sounds so hard," and "it sounds like you've been so brave," and "they're gaslighting you." It's not a Hallmark movie, I end a LOT of conversations feeling a kind of agony about not having a plan or a solution. But then it is also true, just as true, that sometimes we have affirmed someone's sense of self in a way that is untouchable by their current context. That is magical that we can do that, and that is power.
Nov 27, 2024 at 6:21pmWeb
Show threadFernando M. S. 🇵🇸Nov 27, 2024
@grimalkina what many people need is just validation, just being heard. That can be much more important than "having a solution".