Mastodawn

airi_Nov 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

Cat Hicks Nov 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

Cat Hicks Nov 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.

Cat Hicks Nov 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.

Cat Hicks Nov 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

Cat Hicks Nov 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.

Cat Hicks Nov 27, 2024

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.

Fernando 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".

Tyler Cohen Nov 27, 2024

@grimalkina important work

J. Nathan Matias 🦣Nov 27, 2024

@grimalkina thank you for this work, and for sharing your values and your ongoing process

Cat Hicks Nov 27, 2024

@natematias big big same to you

J. Nathan Matias 🦣Nov 27, 2024

@grimalkina I have all but given up on changing cultures that do not reward care and support work, and I have accepted that I will never be valued much by those cultures. That has freed me to do what I can to cultivate spaces that aspire to different values.

To manage my envy at the resources that go to toxic endeavors, I try to be grateful for what has been possible at a sustainable pace - and watch with sadness and distance as more flashy things eventually flame out.

Cat Hicks Nov 27, 2024

@natematias I feel this deeply. I think there's some kind of cultural relay race we need to perform -- perhaps you are able to reach & change academia in a way that I was not for example 🥹, sometimes across life stages and where we are and what we're capable of. And even for whatever mysterious reason, the way that some of us can metabolize the stress of certain imperfect systems better than others. I have tried to dial into my sense of what only I can do and do well and sustainably...

Cat Hicks Nov 27, 2024

@natematias ... And agreed, there is often that envy monster and the feeling of sadness at being left out or ignored for making these choices, yet at the end of the day I really think we're playing a different game and our game wins in what we want to win? But I mean, I feel it. It's genuinely really hard and we also deserve resources. One of my particular areas of strength has often been in marshalling resources for things folks thought were ludicrous and I'm curious to keep doing that :)

J. Nathan Matias 🦣Nov 27, 2024

@grimalkina thank you so much for this. I love the relay race idea, and I have found it to be true. Supportive cultures acknowledge that people have ebbs and flows of capacity and have faith over the longer term, which is part of what makes them so sustainable. 💙

Heading out to get some sunlight and will ponder further replies later

George Dinwiddie Nov 27, 2024

@grimalkina I often think of those people as catalysts. They don't show up in the equation representing the work, but the help it go faster, or perhaps make it possible, by their presence.

They are the platinum.

Cynthia loves masks Nov 27, 2024

@gdinwiddie @grimalkina Before I was laid off for the final time back in early ‘17, I was spending a chunk of my time making sure we had the consumable items needed to keep a variety of electron microscopes and focused ion beams up and running as well as renewing the service contracts for all the equipment. The goal was to minimize down time for the whole department, but it also bit me in the ass if all the company was looking at was the revenue I was generating on my particular system.

Lê Fê is back Nov 27, 2024

@grimalkina three years in the US coming from Australia and Brazil, and a have a depressive view of individualism in research. It simply is the culture, no point in fighting. All orgs and departments want a leader who could bring funding. It doesn't matter if it was a collaboration, in the end a name or lab is requested by stakeholders. Work environment here is not the worst, but it is far from the best. Australian research environments acknowledged better the work done together.