solace during work calls + what happens when kids go back to school?
A RAINY, SAN FRANCISCO —
i’ve been thinking a lot about what will happen long after our baking trays get dusty, and after the canned black beans beans are pushed to the back of the cabinet. after we stop thinking of commutes as walks to the kitchen. after we stop singing happy birthday twice just so we can hear it again someday somewhere other than in our heads.
right now, i think i’ll remember the dissonance the most. how, as one journalist put it, this crisis doesn’t know a color, but it does know injustice. it knows that some people can’t afford to complain about wfh woes and dusty baking trays, it knows that quarantine becomes less of an option when you don’t have options, and it knows that the burden doesn’t pick and choose, but it weighs differently depending on who has to bear it.
and this unevenness? i have been struggling to make sense of it. it has been hard to phrase the guilt and the privilege that so clearly exists within my life right now. and i finally found the words about it after a, hear this, 35 minute conversation about startups, san francisco, and how termsheets work.
more later, including why i had to use termsheets in this lede, but first my words + reads:
my words: jonah liss, a 16-year-old student from a school in michigan, is learning from home right now. while he’s doing okay, he recognized that other students are experiencing some pain points; not everyone has access to the same technology outside of school, so they can’t complete assignments. the school, he says, isn’t giving tests because they have no way to prove students aren’t cheating. and learning doesn’t feel personalized. (read more)
learning lesson: the student perspective is one we don’t hear enough of in tech media. but it is important to care about this side, because it shows us the inner workings of our future workforce. that was proven true when the ceo of cloudflare, matthew prince, read my story last week and then announced he was doubling his internship class to admit more students that may have lost their chances due to a canceled internship.
etc: along with early startups and venture capital, i want to know more about how that looks within agtech and edtech. send me your smartest friends to bug!
unorganized tab time:
david remnick’s beautiful piece on new york during the coronavirus pandemic
watched this while cooking yesterday
why emma chamberlain is important
new york banned zoom for schools
anyways,
small talk these days sounds weird and fake and a touch dystopian if you respond to how are you with a “i’m doing great, you?” so don’t mind me, as i tell you all a story to try to convince us all to skip the curtsies.
last week, i was interviewing a woman for a story. we did the familiar dance of small talk before i launched into questions, and when i asked her how things are over in south bay she said:
“when i leave the house, i expect to see bodies and bombs everywhere. instead, i see bits of spring, and a bright sun, and clear skies.”
i was startled. i’m used to hearing, most times from myself, about back pains from your shabbily thrown together home office and aggressively lukewarm takes about tiger king.
instead she reminded me about the dissonance i was referring to above. that at least for mother nature, it looks business as usual outside. i mean, in some screwed up way, there’s a global crisis happening, the frontlines show heartbreaking scenes, and yet, there’s also the literal bloom of spring peeking through. i hear birds chirping as i type. and, while i don’t see the cherry blossom instagram posts, i’ll bet they’re there and in full force.
her candidness made me feel lame of starting every conversation off with a surface level complaint these days. it also made me realize that, while we’re all having wildly different experiences right now, those first few minutes of small talk during our zoom calls might be a moment to take advantage of.
we continued the conversation, which was entirely an interview about the inner workings of vc and startups, and hung up. and i can’t stop thinking about those first five minutes.
so, i want to start my conversations this week (and hopefully more, but let’s start there) being thankful. or at least, being thoughtful.
let me be clear, i am an avid participant of the food twitter, let’s-make-the-best-of-this -quarantine-twitter crew. i’m not saying to stop posting about your lovely creations (please, they give me inspiration to be a little bit more liberal with my garnishes). and i’m definitely not saying to stop processing the way you do (which might look like dramatically high days and aggressively low days). i’m saying let’s integrate all those thoughts into an area that isn’t clearly ripe for candidness: the small talk that exists in our work calls and zooms.
you never know, you might make someone feel more heard.
stay safe,
n
