 All right, you ready to do this, co-host? Oh, I'm ready, co-host. Let's light it up this Monday morning. All right, then. Welcome to the Educator Rising Voices podcast, where we amplify the voices of young professionals in higher education. I'm Wes Johnson, and I'm joined by the amazing. Sarah Buska. All right, and today first, Sarah, how are you doing? I am doing so well today, Wes, and the topic of today's conversation, I feel, is so apropos because we're coming off of a holiday weekend. Things get it. So I'm feeling great. I've been away from work for four days. So life is good. It's great to see you this Monday morning. How about you? How are you doing? So the feeling's mutual, great to see you. Still got a case of the Mondays, no matter how long I've been away. I still, it still feels like a Monday, but feeling good also after the break, looking forward to the next break, where I got it set up to be a little bit longer Thanksgiving, because I'm very much in need of the recharge this year. It's been a busy year. It's been a very busy year. Well, no. I feel like my brain is still somewhere in July. I don't know what happened. I don't know how it's December this month or this week. It's just, it's crazy. I don't know. I feel like ever since pandemic times, each year since 2020, I feel like it's just been better, just even more so than we've, you know, had historically. And I always find myself at this time of year feeling like, how did all of that happen in such a short amount of time, even though it's the same calendar time? Ain't that the truth? Yeah. I start my weeks by looking at my list, my to-do list, which is a bit of like my wish list more than my actual to-do list on whether I get it done or not. But I was looking at it and just how many things I had marked as December. I'm like, okay, but I got to December. It's like, oh yeah, okay. December next week, all right. Yeah. I feel that. I feel that. All this work on our plate and talks a break, I guess it makes this a very timely topic for us, which is why recharge is important and how to reconnect and reintegrate after the holidays. I can definitely preach on why recharge is important. So maybe we'll start there. I'm actually very interested in the reintegrating part because I feel like that's just a bunch of walking in the dark until I get back into my pace. So I'm very interested in that plug. Let's start with why recharge is important. I'll tell you now for me personally, kind of what you were speaking on since COVID, but it feels like IT's been speeding up for forever and whatever they were doing with 30 years ago, we're at a much faster pace now because we've automated the thing that they were dealing with, right? And to be able to, like we're always problem solving because that's what we're fixed to do, at least in the IT, the technology space. We're fixed to problem solve. So we're always jumping from one thing to the next to the next. And I just can't keep up if I don't completely separate from the process. I think to recharge one, of course, it helps me have time for my family, have time for myself, but also gives me a moment to remember why the heck I'm even coming into this, eight to five to begin with. When you get caught up in the work, at least for me, I lose sight of that. I'm just going from problem to problem, forgetting sometimes forget the bigger picture of why I even come in today, why we're here, why these jobs exist. So it's nice to just step away and be able to look at it for a sec, not touch it. Just look at it for a sec. Just look in the distance. Yeah, just gotta look out and say, you know what I mean? So what about you? Those are, I mean, I love what you're saying, Wes, and it's so true. I think what I was hearing a lot from your comments are on perspective, right? And just being able to recognize that ourselves and in work and in our work bubble are not the only places where we exist. And we need to take a step back and see yourselves outside of that space, but also see ourselves in other spaces as well and make sure we're setting time for that. And I think a lot about, you know, when I was an undergrad, this was a wool, wool over a decade ago, but I remember some advice I got my freshman year from my Russian professor. It was more like a mentor and a friend to me who I still talk to this day, but I remember I was studying for my first Russian exam. It was so hard. I had never taken Russian before. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I just thought it was cool and wanted to sign up for it. So there I am. It was awesome, but it was hard. It was very hard. And I remember my first exam, I was studying and I was thinking, okay, I'm gonna pull an all matter. I'm just gonna stay up and just pack all of this into my brain and keep going until I just can memorize basically every page, every verb conjugation, every vocabulary, you know, all of that. And I was telling my professor the strategy and he was just looking at me and smiling and nodding. And I have to give him credit to this day. He let me go on and on about how I was going to memorize everything when he could have just cut me off. But he just looked at me and he's like, you will literally not be functioning tomorrow to take this exam if you're going to stay off all night. And he's like, I can tell you, you will not pass. And he's like, just go to sleep. Just go to sleep. Just get a good night's rest. Just relax. You have to learn how to do this if you wanna be successful in college and in your life. And I had never pulled an all matter. Never in my college career, even though I was a grad student, well over a decade later, we'll never do it. I always prioritize sleep. And that kind of just woke me up. But I think it's something that we all implicitly know and are aware of. But sometimes we just don't make the time for it and we don't really prioritize it. And it's not so simple to get some sleep, but it's something that I think is a skill to learn. Just like recharging is a skill to learn. Just like happiness is a skill to learn. Yeah, and I think about that often. Even when I'm convinced I'm in grad school to stay up and finish my work. I hear my teacher telling me to just go home and go to bed. Yeah, what a great professor. And I'd say there's also a lesson in that in like the, it sounds like the professor was kind of setting up an environment to say, hey, look, that whole all nighter thing is not gonna work. I mean, hey, you're an adult now, you're gonna do what you want. But I'm telling you, I don't think that's gonna work. Go get some rest, come back. If you've been doing what you've been supposed to been doing this whole class, I think you'll be good to go. It's kind of what I'm teasing out in there. And that's very similar in our roles, right? Like I hope that I set an example with my staff and my teams to take advantage of time taking off. And I know that some of that can be as much cultural as it is like individualized. But to your point, it's also learned. Like you have to get, some of us have to get comfortable with even saying like, hey, I'm gonna be, for lack of a better term, selfish this week. I'm not gonna, I'm not checking. I'm not gonna be very easy to contact. No, I'm not gonna be problem solving this week, at least not here. I got some other things that I wanna prioritize for the next week. And it's not here this week, I'm taking my time. And that could be quite the space to be in sometimes, especially when you have a large amount of people depending on whether it's direct report lines or a project you're leading or just a process that you know you're the most knowledgeable about. Yeah, yeah, it's so true. And what I'm hearing you say in another thing, I think is a really essential skill for all of us to learn, especially during the time of holidays when we want to disconnect and then later reconnect is how we state boundaries and how we hold them. And I think those are two very different things and require different skill sets, right? It's one thing to say to our teams, say to our staff, say to our leaders, I'm not available during this time. I have been taking vacation, right? Or I'm celebrating my anniversary, what have you? For whatever reason, if you're saying I'm not available, that's one thing. But if you're contacted when you're not available in response, well, you're not holding your boundary and you're just teaching that person that you are available. You know, and that is something I think is a true skill too, because I think a lot of us, myself included, sometimes struggle with that guilt, right? Like you said, if you're the only person who knows something and something happens when you're out, you feel this kind of intense guilt or some of us, you know, might feel it this intense drive to jump in and just problem-solve and fix. You know, being folks in IT, we love to do that, right? It's almost like this like adrenaline-pinching experience to just solve a problem and fix something. But if we've said that, hey, I'm out of office, or even I'm just taking a personal day, thick of day, what have you, then take it. You're not at that point being held accountable and the only person who's holding you accountable to that is you, to show up when you've said you're not going to be available. Yeah, absolutely, you know, there was a lesson I learned from a previous leader, his name's Mike Lucas, when we were at the University of Georgia and I was working the help desk at the time. And I was one of those folks, we just got the help desk kind of running smoothly at the time and we didn't, you know, we didn't want that to stop. And so I had none of us, me or my team had taken much time off over a good one, two year period, just trying to get everything going. And Mike Lucas, who was our CTO at the time, he came to me and he actually, if I was like, hey man, holiday's coming up, you know, I think just want to encourage you and your staff, take advantage of the time, whatever, and I was just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever, you know, I got some stuff I need to get done. So I might just take advantage of the quiet time, like we all like to say. And he stopped and he looked at me, he said, look Wes, I get it, cause you know, things are going good and you and your team should be proud of that. This university's been here a very long time, Wes, both before you, it'll be here after you. And there's been a lot of stuff that's broken along the way, yet the university's still here. Just remember that, as you think about it, you should be in for that extra few days to get that little bit more work done. You know, the university will be here regardless, I think you're good. So I took some time off during that time and that's how I like to frame it sometimes, even with my own staff and just like, look, I get it, you might be the only person that knows, but you've been the only person for a little while, the university's been here for a long while. Right, right, and I can't- It's yeah, it will still be here when you get back, I promise. And if it's gone, it's not because of what you knew, I promise you, it's not. It's not, you can't forget you're there. That's such a good point. Yeah, the problem will still be here when you come back. I actually, I want to touch on something, because you mentioned the help desk and I started my technology career working in a help desk. So I have a very special spot in my heart and respect for folks who work in a help desk, just because I think we all know who've been in it, at least, how much of a grueling role it can be, just being front lines, working with folks directly who are calling because something's wrong, right? They're upset and typically those folks who are dealing with, you know, hundreds of calls a day of just really upset people. I'm saying new things, right? And, you know, and that's an essential service, right? It's something that even if there's a holiday, even if there is a break, those services don't stop just because there's a holiday or a break. It's a freight train moving, you know, hundreds of miles an hour and it needs to run to support the university. And so I just want to kind of call this out because I want to tease this apart a little bit on the show because those folks in those positions, sometimes they can't take off, right? Sometimes they don't have the luxury of taking two weeks off, three weeks off. Sometimes they need to work to support their families, right? Sometimes they just are willing to make that sacrifice to make sure that they have more money coming in if they're not in a salary position. And, you know, when we're thinking about recharge and how you kind of disconnect, if you really can't maybe physically leave work or physically take that time off, how do you do that, right? How do you find that respite or that recharge when you still have to come and show up? Do you have any recommendations? Yeah, that's always one of the challenges in the, at least in the frontline areas likely and some others, but I know frontline feels that a lot. One is, you know, the typical times a year to take off on the only times is the thing I used to do at my staff, like, sure, we might have to cover during the Thanksgiving or the New Year's and we rotate on who can, we keep track of who's here this year, but some people, like you said, they'd rather work and get the time. But, you know, middle of June, when, you know, most of your campus is gone and there's no holiday is also a great time to recharge. I mean, sometimes, you know, it gets to some of your own individual values, I think you do, like for some people, you know, you pick a certain field, a certain job and in my personal opinion, there are certain sacrifices that come with anything you choose to do and say, if you choose to go into IT and your past start, sorry, is at the help desk, then I think it's best to have an understanding of, okay, here's the sacrifices that come with that. If this help desk is 24 seven through holidays, then that means that the typical times I expect to be off, I may not be able to get off, but what can I do to adjust if I still value this time for myself and then work around that, but then I still keep in mind that if it crosses the line, then maybe there's another field or another place, not every help desk is 24 seven. I've worked this song where we did get the holidays off. So, you know, there's a lot that goes into that and I don't want to hog the whole episode. Some of it's individualized, some of it is just, you know, take advantage of other times that are slow and I'd say the leaders, like particularly those who are in management are those that run, you know, you understand the business, I hope, you know, you advocate and push for your staff to take advantage of the times that you know they can take advantage of, even if it means they can't take a month off, like maybe some of their faculty partners or some of their other individuals who have that advantage in their role, they are, take it when you can. What about you? What are your thoughts on that? I first, I just want to say, I think those are great comments and I really love how you're framing it from, you know, an individual lens and there's things that are under your control and your agency and that you are responsible for. And then there's of course, you know, the situation and the role and the company, the organization, what have you. You know, there's responsibility there as well, it's shared, it's not on one entirely or the other entirely, it's shared and I think it's all of our responsibilities as workers, as leaders, as managers to know how to advocate for ourselves, for our roles, for our university, for our team and how to negotiate and compromise, right? I mean, I think there's so many of us and maybe we learned, at least I learned this a lot during the pandemic is think up and flow, you know? Even if you started the year off by saying, we will do X, Y and Z, while a global pandemic comes up and well, you kind of have to throw that out of the window. So how are you going to adapt and reframe and recognize that, hey, maybe we need to take a step back a little bit and give everyone some time off? But we also are expecting folks, if they're working in front lines, like you said, help Jess, maybe there's something that they need to be working on too and taking some agency and accountability for. Like you said, if they had a realization that that's not their role, that's okay, right? I think so many of us maybe have felt that or are feeling that now and I think it's okay to say, hey, this isn't for me or this isn't working out or I don't feel like I'm getting recharged in the way that I should, because I think if we really are in a role that we like, we may not like all the tasks that we do, but we should be getting recharged or at least fueled in getting some wins in ourselves from the work that we're doing, if we're really enjoying it, if it's aligning with our skills and our personality and our career goals and all those types of things. So I think it's multifaceted, right? But I do think that individual component is huge. And I wanna switch gears a little bit and bring up something that Joseph Cottle from Notre Dame, he's our YPCG co-lead, recommended for some ways to recharge as well. And it sounds maybe simple and obvious, but he recommended finding some hobbies, doing exercise, just doing something to focus your attention on something else that you love or that you enjoy or that you care about, be playing with your dog, being with your family, going outside, going for a walk, right? Those little things, I used to do that when I worked in the help desk all the time, I would take 15 of the breaks when I could and just go for a walk outside. And it was so helpful, just kind of profiting everything, getting exposed to nature, getting that perspective. And I think that's a really, I think helpful tool to remember that we all have to be intentional in practicing that. And it doesn't mean you have to go and like, spend a lot of money and join some fancy gym and all that kind of stuff. It is within grass, if you're willing to to make the time for it and to at least bring folks along who you care and love about to help hold you accountable too. Yeah, absolutely, definitely a double one down on the walks, we used to, I used to do that also. I still do it today, but not as much with this new kind of COVID work environment, I guess post COVID work environment. You do wear wops at home. Oh, ain't that the truth? Yeah, so I walk, start the coffee, you forget about the coffee at the thing. Usually my walk. But yeah, I used to walk a whole lot on campus, particularly around this time of year. It's a beautiful time if you're out east and some other areas too, but I know back home, east and south, it's a very beautiful time of year to go walk your campuses. Also gave me perspective where mommy is this big place that we support and help solve problems, solve for. So I definitely just want to double up on the walks. I used to tell my staff all the time, hey, every 10 minutes on the hour, get away from the desk. I don't care if you just walk to the back of the building or take a walk outside, stop looking at that screen for 10 minutes every hour, please. That's all right, let's please save our eyeball. Yeah. Let's see, so going up next, I think we had a couple more pieces of feedback. So have something to put on your mind when you're away other than work. I think you kind of spoke on that, but are there hobbies that you do outside of work? I have a couple actors here, but what about you, Sarah, are there things that you do when you do get that down time for you? Yes, I do, I can't wait to hear your hobbies. I think I know some already. Actually, I think two of our hobbies might align. So I'm curious to see what it plays out. But one hobby I love, and I've been doing this since I was in second grade, it's been a long time, I play violin. And I've been just playing for so long in orchestra by myself with friends, just to kind of the whole Shimura's board, if you will. And right before the pandemic, I was playing when I was working at the University of Wisconsin, playing in the University of Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra. And I was loving it. I was fully committed. I was spending way too many hours a week with it, which was good and bad for different reasons. But when the pandemic hit, that's when everything shut down. So I couldn't play with the orchestra anymore. And it was something where I was thinking, okay, well, what's keeping me playing this, is that the orchestra is because I really, really like it, because at this point, I'm busy with the career, all these other things. And I still kept playing. And I did many little orchestra concerts and playing sessions like on Instagram and all that kind of stuff for months, just playing by myself. And I still, I still am playing, even though I'm in grad school now, I don't have as much time, but I still play just not for the orchestra. And that's one thing I think that's always been very important to me and just an escape and just a way that I can kind of focus my mind in a different way is through music. And I know that's for you too. Oh yeah, yeah. Want to do a mash-up? Yeah, we should, yeah. We should. We could add you to the intro, Sarah. Yeah. Although I think our intro for this show is really awesome, thanks to you. For folks in the audience who may not know, Wes created our intro music. So that's why it sounds so cool. Thank you for that, yeah. Speaking of, I do do music. That is a big one. I rap and produce. And so I was actually writing some songs a little bit this weekend, just for the fun of it. I think the trap that I've sometimes fallen in is because music was my first love. And go back 10, 15 years, I was gonna be a rap star, none of this high teen stuff. Who was gonna work at nine to five? I was gonna go be a rap star. That's what I was gonna do, or at least a big time producer. Life didn't necessarily work out that way, but it kind of put me at this line of, is music a hobby or is it my other job? And I haven't quite landed on the answers to that question, and I go back and forth on what that is. So really the lesson in the tale is, it's helpful to know what that hobby truly is, because it can easily turn into work too, which is happening to me. But it doesn't have the same recharge effect once you go rap for it. But the music definitely, I like getting lost in it. I do, sometimes during my lunch breaks, I'll make a couple beats as fast as I can, and then throw it up on my Instagram or something. So definitely music, but also enjoy just hikes. So I go on a lot of hikes, so being in the Bay Area, I'm getting to explore a bunch of new hikes that I've never seen before, and it's very beautiful out here in this state. So I've been exploring a good bit on that, and it's just real cool to, when you get to one of the hikes you're trying to go to, to realize that you're just kind of out there, probably don't have say a reception. Yeah. Unreachable, oh no. Yeah, right, right. It's a beautiful thing. So me and the family do that a good bit too. Yeah, that's really good. I have to say, so even though I'm at Stanford, and you're technically our enemy in Berkeley, I have to say, I love Berkeley's campus, the Botanical Gardens there, I've gotten lost there, just wandering around, spending time there. The views are just incredible. That Redwood Grove is just whimsical and magical, and I feel like I'm literally spirited away when I go there, and it's amazing. So that's another hobby of mine too. We have the same hobbies, music and like getting outside. Yeah, yeah. Who knew? I don't know. The co-host. All right. I like the vibes here. See, who got us folks? Get outside and play some music, your recharge. There you go. I have a buddy that, I can't remember his name, I can't think of his name right now, but he also does production. And one of the things he does, he currently lives, I think like out in Tokyo or something like that. And he'll go on hikes and then do a video of him producing or doing some beat at like the point of the hype. So there's been a couple where he's like sitting on a mountain edge in the youth lane or something. Blending the tear together, I like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not quite that blended yet. I don't really care all the year. Actually, this is quick 30 seconds story during the pandemic. I think we all might remember this, 2020, like March, April timeframe, people were all, you know, quarantining or in their homes kind of stuck, right? And there were so many people going out on balconies and playing their instruments. And I was living in downtown Madison at the time. And I did that. I went out on my balcony, played my violin. I played Hallelujah. You know, it's kind of like a Melancholy song, but I think we were all feeling that at the time. And it was just, it was so interesting because there was kind of this like cacophony of people who kind of poked their heads out and then also started playing whatever their instrument was or stinging along or something. It was just in this really small and accurate era, probably only a handful of people actually heard, but it was just kind of fun. It was just a liberating thing to like just go outside and play your instrument. So I don't know, maybe that's our homework. Maybe that's our new level of recharging less. Yeah, so I caution y'all, maybe there was a little bit of COVID effect. I can also see a scenario where you go out there playing your instrument downtown and they're just like, hey, stop, I'm working. I feel like now I feel like I'm gonna get yelled at and people are gonna be like, I'm good, you know, but then I don't know, people were like, okay, this is incredible. So we talked a good bit about things we can do, hobbies that we've done outside, making like blocking time to take time, but what about like once you've got that time, right? So you're in your hobby, what have we done to your point earlier about making sure folks know that, hey, I'm not actually available for your daily operation and stuff, I'm away, I've took it some time for myself. What's some stuff that you've done to make yourself unavailable? One thing I've learned is if I know that there's something where I'm the single point of failure, if you will, or the only person who knows something, before I leave, I make sure I write down whatever it is that someone might need to know and I work with my boss and or members of my team directly and say, hey, if this comes up when I'm out, here's what you need to know. Here's the history, here's the situation, here's some of the background, this is kind of what's been happening and background information that you need to know, names of people, what the project is, things like that, maybe some history if there is anything to share. Here's my, right now, my current assessment of the situation, what I think is happening, what might come up and here's my recommendation, if something does come up, what to do? And almost like somewhat of a decision tree, like if it does come up and it's not urgent and you can wait until they come back, do nothing, just let me handle it, make sure you make me aware, right? But if it is something where you've tried all these steps that I've outlined and you've gone through everything and it's still not looking good, then you can contact me or then you can contact my boss's boss or something like that. It's a little framework I call an SBAR because I highlight a situation background, assessment and recommendation and it's literally only supposed to be one page or less, right? I mean, it could be one sentence for each, but it really helps someone readily orient themselves to what's going on and to be able to take some type of action. And sometimes an action is just telling whomever is reaching out, sorry, we'll get to this next week, right? That's not an action, but it's at least acknowledging someone and saying, hey, we can't get to this today, here's one you can expect to hear back by, if not, here's what to do. And I found that that, and not even only for unplugging and leaving work, but that communication tool for any type of communication is so helpful. So that would be a recommendation, I think to this podcast and our listeners, it's to try that out, try highlighting a situation background assessment and recommendation the next time, some problem or challenge comes into your lab as a way to communicate to your boss or your leaders for what to do. But another thing that I like to do is to make sure that I let the people I'm working with know before I leave, especially if I'm anticipating something coming up, hey, I'll be out here so you can talk to. So just proactively telling them that and then telling them when I'll be back and telling them that I will be away and giving them an email or contact for someone else and letting them know, hey, if this is a true emergency, here's who you contact. And that helps a lot too, because most folks understand most folks are reasonable, right? If I say, hey, like this year I got married this year and I was like, I'm going on my wedding, I'm going to my wedding and I'm going on my honeymoon. Do not contact me, that's what I've done. And you know, it's fair and people get that, right? People are reasonable, no one's going to do that. And I would be thankful. You didn't take your laptop to the wedding? What do you mean? Oh, no. No, I didn't and I took my email off my phone, everything and to be fair, my team was amazing. I had just had a new teammate start. He had been in their role for maybe like a week or two and was already reaching out, trying to like get all these things off my plate and help me out. And you know, it was just this wonderful camaraderie and making sure that I didn't pick up any new projects when I knew I would be out for a month, which I was out for a solid month. So, you know, it's things like that too. It's being strategic. Like you said earlier, like your individual agency I think is really important and I think that shows like leaderful skills when you're thinking ahead and say, you know, for me, I left in March and if my boss or someone came to me and said, hey, we need to do this project, I may or may not volunteer for that. I'll try to negotiate, you know, what my level of commitment looks like and what I start and what the expectations are knowing that I will be gone for a month. And I think that helps a lot too. But I'll stop there because I'm curious what you think. Yeah, no, those are great at, within Berkeley IT, we actually have a process very similar in regards to when you were mentioning like naming who to contact for this. They have a process that all of us, as part of the executive leadership team have to do, we have to go into this document, put the dates and then name who our backup is. And then if there is an emergency, like is there any way to contact you? There's been a couple of times like, nope, I'm hiking in the mountains. You won't be able to contact me at all during this period of time. So there's been stuff like that that we do and I do similar within my teams. We all share our calendar, et cetera, et cetera. But speaking of, so something I've noticed, I'll be curious after I share if you've seen the same is as I've moved up into work, what constitutes as an emergency becomes more and more great. Like it's really not always clear when you're starting to be like a leader of directors and their managers and their staff. Like it becomes a little more blurry on what that emergency is. It's very unlikely to be just some specific, like this X stopped working, West, what do I do? It's usually like X stopped working and has broken these other downstream systems, West, how do we want to communicate while I'm out in Malibu or something? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know, figure it out. Bye. It gets a little challenging. At least in my personal experience, the more I've moved up that balance because it does feel like there's a expectation as you move up where you're a little bit more available in some of these scenarios versus where when someone's more individual, contributor focus, it's more, at least in my experience, more tied to like the specific service or system. And so the scope of the problems tend to be a little bit more narrow. So I have found some struggles in my, I've only been in this role for a couple of years now, some struggles in knowing when to jump in. So a lot of it comes back now to my own view on things as an individual with a sense of the team, right? You got to keep the team in mind too. But I have found that the biggest thing for me as far as keeping myself as free as possible when I do take time is that's really set that time long before the time comes to actually take time off. Like the way back to what we were discussing earlier, the way that I've supported other folks taking their time off, they'll hear me and me. I've all individually joined meetings because they thought the meeting was super important. But it was the day, the first day they decided to take off for the week. And I kicked them out the meeting, not to be rude, but to just... You're holding boundaries. Yeah, yeah, I'm off to do that with you. And part of it is to make sure they understand like, hey, look, I appreciate you being here, but you don't have to be here. We scheduled the meeting on a time when you were out. So we made a decision that we could still have this meeting without you or we'll cancel it. So part of it is that. And then the other part of it is, so when I don't show up to meetings, when I'm out for a week, it shouldn't be a surprise to you because I don't support anybody doing that. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, great point. You kicking someone out of a meeting. Yeah, it's been a, it's been surprisingly more than I thought I'd have to do in my career. I thought most folks were more like automatically, like, yeah, whatever's on the calendar, I'm not coming, but there's been a few times where I've had individuals that show up for, you know, in their defense, they were trying to support, they, you know, they were the ones that were most knowledgeable about something. So they just wanted to make sure it was successful. But no, I kicked them out and just say, look, if we weren't successful at this meeting, we'll schedule another one or, you know, shame on us for not canceling it. We'll do it. Right, right. It's all a learning experience. And when you're bringing this up, I have a few thoughts that what came to my mind initially was Fria Parker's book, The Art of Gathering. And I know she was the keynote speaker at the Edge of Cause annual conference last year in Denver. And I just thought it was amazing that she was there because what I read her book a few years ago, and it really helped inform a lot of my wedding planning, actually. And there was a passage that she has in that book where she talks about your responsibility for your guests, for people in your meeting, you know, is to make sure that they're protected, right? And they're having a good time that they're set up for success, all of those things. And if you just open the floodgates and let everyone and everything end, well, you're not doing your job, you know, stewarding that meeting in a leader or someone hosting a wedding, right? If you're just letting the floodgates open and just letting everything happen and hoping that it'll be okay, right? Hope is not a plan. And what I learned from Fria Parker in her book is it's actually your responsibility to be able to make those decisions and to be able to stand up for what you want and to recognize your role in that, right? And if you think that adding one person to a meeting may or may not help or bringing one person to your wedding might spoil it for the rest of the folks. Well, if you have 300 people going to your wedding and one person you're worried about, well, why would you bring that one person who could potentially spoil the time of 300 people? You know, but it's a hard thing to do. It's a hard thing to stand your ground and to say no. But sometimes saying no is the kindest thing we can do. Not only for ourselves, but for those 300 guests, for those folks in your meeting, but also for the person themselves, right? Because if they're on vacation and coming into a meeting, well, chances are they probably don't have good reception, right? Probably don't have what they need in front of them to be effective, right? They have all these other things in their head. It's like no one's set up for success at that point. And the only thing that that's going to do is have that person coming to the meeting without the right things that they need, maybe fail. You know, as a leader, it's our responsibility to make sure that they're set up for success. And if we feel like we can have this meeting without you, then we can have this meeting without you. And it's no reflection on you, your character, your ability to do something or not. And it's not that we don't think you don't care. It's just that we need to move this forward. And, you know, it's a hard thing to think about because I grew up in the Midwest. I'm Midwest, like modest, nice, to a tee. And it's something that when I was raised, it was everyone to have to be included, be nice to everybody, invite everybody and everybody's welcome, right? And I think I had to realize that there's a distinction between that mentality being welcoming and hospitable and also being respectful and caring. And they aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, but you are being respectful and caring and welcoming if you do close the door on certain people and certain things in specific occasions or places. And it's okay to do that because otherwise you're perceived as the person who just gets walked all over or lets everybody else walk all over each other at your own venue, right? If you didn't have a good time, the likelihood of being successful in any of the situations is probably low. So, yeah, so I think about that a lot and I think it's a really good thing to do that. And back to your comment actually about what an emergency is. I love this, I love this one because when I was working at the University of Wisconsin, my previous role was to lead a team who was responsible for critical infrastructure services. So, fixed life and health safety services, one of them was the door access system for campus. So, that included all doors on the university's campus and the hospital. So, this is in the thousands. And one of the challenges with that system is, if it goes down, well, people could be trapped, right? People could be stuck in places even though the doors should fail open, right? For safety reasons, sometimes things happen, right? And there is always a lot of kind of fear, I think with that team I was with of the worst possible outcome happening, which is a good, I mean, it's a good thing. I think we should be aware of the likelihood of that. We should be aware of what we're up against and what challenges may come. But the likelihood of those happening, especially how great the team was, were really low. And if something did happen, it would have probably been out of the team's responsibility, right? It would have been some extreme things. We had thought of everything. We had redundant systems, separate networks. I mean, you name it, the DR plan for all of these services was just phenomenal, right? And that's the credit to the team, right? We had thought everything through. There was backups upon backups. We had a lot of funding supporting all of it. It was solid. But still, it's easy and our brains are just kind of designed to go into this, kind of doom and gloom place, right? The worst outcome possible. And when you're working with a team of 16, 20 people who focus on that all day and their primary role is to keep critical infrastructure running, well, it's very easy and, you know, it makes sense that they're thinking about those things because they're getting paid to think about them. But the challenge is like, how do we put that in perspective and context, right? And I think what worked well for us in that space is because we would literally talk about scenarios where, oh, is there blood on the floor, right? Like, did something happen in the hospital where doors can't, failed shut and no one can get out and there's blood on the floor, right? Like, we would literally talk about that. And I know it sounds kind of like crazy because we're an IT and what does blood have to do with IT? But, you know, in that scenario, that was a potential outcome, right? And so I think from my lens, anything that doesn't have blood on the floor is not an emergency. Right. Wow. And I know that's an emergency, but I use that as a perspective all the time because there's so many things where, you know, it's like, yes, the system went down. Somebody can't get to the portal or access something, but it's typically not an emergency unless it touches like payroll or finance or like life health safety things, like everything else can wait. It really can. Yes, will there be an impact? Of course. But there is no blood on the floor from this impact. And that's how I frame it and just work backwards from there. Because my first thought always, and I think it probably will be this way for a long time, is someone hurt? If someone isn't physically hurt, it can wait. Typically in my mind, you can wait, unless like I said finance or things like that, people need to get paid, all that kind of stuff. But if someone isn't hurt, if there's no blood on the floor, I'm like, we're good, we can figure this out. You know, it's a completely different headspace. And I think folks who've worked in emergency services or anything like that might understand kind of the headspace that I'm coming from when I share that. It's not from a place of insensitivity. It's just from a place of perspective, really. Yeah, that's helpful. It's actually, I actually use my health safety colleagues as my example of non-emergencies with my non-health safety colleagues. I actually use that metaphor a part of it. Just like, well, y'all, we don't work at a hospital. So is it really an emergency? It's interesting that you actually have direct experience in that field. And so I've always wondered, what is it that you all say to make it a non-emergency? No, I know. Yeah, it's pretty much like, is there blood on the floor? No, okay, it's fine. Like, we'll figure it out. And honestly, but I also want to say, just because something isn't an emergency doesn't mean it's not, like, important or necessary work or anything like that that has nothing to do with it. And I think that's a distinction that sometimes can be blurred or confused. And like you said, that gray area is, oh, if you're not dropping everything, it means you don't care. You're not willing to drop everything and come and fix this. And, you know, in the grand game of things, the museum completely out, and you're outside of your department, you're outside of even the university, and you're looking at just a bigger, broader picture of the world. Like the world will continue moving and circling if we don't get to this in four hours. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I know that that's kind of an extremely, and I know I can't generalize everything, but I think that helps at least keep me calm in those scenarios because there's been many scenarios in my career and experience where shit really did hit the fan. Where it truly was an emergency. And I was up, you know, at 2 a.m. trying to figure something out, calling my deputies just at the time at 2 in the morning for something, you know. And it really was. And, you know, sometimes it's like hard to make that call in the moment, but the only thing I felt like really was my role was to remain calm and make sure everyone else felt like they had what they needed and could get it done. And maybe that's a... Maybe that's a 2 a.m. call. Yeah, I know, right? And maybe that's a future episode. Maybe we share some stories that got the viewers, listeners, you have to let us know, share some stories about some efforts that didn't go so well when shit hit the fan. What did we do? We have one new story. We have one new story. So then I guess now we get towards the end of this, I want to ask one question, right? So we talked about, you know, taking time, protecting your time. We've talked about some of the fun things that we do. So we have, you know, this is going to be episode after the holiday. So let's tell folks in review, right? Your holiday season, your December is now over when January. What did you do if you don't mind sharing? What's one fun thing you did during the holidays if things go according to the syrup of master plan? Well, actually my husband and I are going to Mexico. We're going to Puerto Vallarta for Christmas. And the one thing I will be doing is laying on a beach somewhere with a pina colada and not being disturbed. I don't want to look at anyone, I want to talk to anybody. I just want to listen to music, drink my cocktail, and be by the water, and relax. That's like... Bring the viola. You want to bring it out? Actually, not in this trip. Not in this trip. But that's, you know, everything goes to plan. You know, I haven't had like a true beach vacation and just a time where I've been able to just turn my brain off in so long. And it'll be my winter break from grad school. And I won't have classes. So I will have finished 10 classes by then. I know, right? So I'm like, I'm ready just to, you know, I don't know if you've ever seen Severance, that show on Apple TV. Yeah. When I first saw that show, it was before I started grad school and how they just like separated, you know, work from non-work, just literally in like a blink of an eye, just moving out of the space. I really didn't understand that until I started grad school. Now I feel like I can do that better. And I think that's the skill too. Yeah, almost feels like the show was written by a grad student. And now I'm wondering, what's going on with you? Some days are easier than others, but sometimes I'm like, I'm just shutting this and I just can't think about anything more. Like I feel like my brain is so stuffed that there's just literally nothing else to do, but to like focus on something else or just not even think about it. And it's really hard to describe if it's a new feeling for me for sure because I've always kind of struggled with shutting that off. But I'm going to be shutting off on a beach in Mexico in a few weeks here. But what about you? That sounds very, very nice. So I will be going to a beach, but my hope is here in Oakland at the Oakland Zoo, they do a thing every year called Glofari where they light up the whole zoo in holiday lights and festive stuff. I have not seen it yet. So my hope is that we sign up for one of these nights. It's extremely hard to sign up for, but they slow down the website and put you in queues during the holiday season because they get so much activity early on in the season and then folks book it all the way out. So fingers crossed, we didn't make it last year. Fingers crossed we make it in the list this year and get to go, yeah. My fingers are crossed. It's like you're trying to get Taylor Swift tickets for the arrows to wear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, maybe odds be over in your favor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're thinking it'd be this hard to go to the zoo, but here we are. I know, really, I hope that works out for you all. That sounds like it'll be fun. Yeah. Well, with that, thank you everyone. Happy holidays to you and yours, Sarah. Happy holidays to our viewers. Thank you to the whole Rising Voices podcast team for all of our work. This will be episode number, what, four? So we're four deep. We're keeping them down. We hope you all are entertained. I'm Wes Johnson and... And I'm Sarah Buska. Thank you all for listening.