GRIEF & EMPATHY @ WORK // Part 2
~ continuing the epistolary dialog with Michael Ventura—and You
In Part 1 of this short series, I sent you and my friend Michael an essay/letter (linked here) about being a human at work with a severely broken heart. In his reply to me and his readers (linked here), he grounded his ideas by relating a recent terrifying and beautiful close call he and his wife had with their beloved pup Darryl’s zoetic existence. Part 2—my reply to Michael’s reply—is here, below. And below that, in the comments section, you are invited to share your own work-and-grief related experiences and reflections.
Dear Michael,
Do you remember when Bring Your Daughter to Work Day first started? I didn’t either—but I looked it up. 1992. (The year I moved to New York City, coincidentally.) I’ve been thinking about that cultural artifact in the days since your reply because I’m sort of stuck on something you mentioned: the Bring Your Whole Self to Work (or Don’t?)1 thing.
Sure, they’re different. Very. I mean, one is a bona fide annual event with its own Department of the Interior page, and the other is a roiling debate between one me and the other me, and others like us.
The former was started by the Ms. Foundation for Women as a way of giving girls (and later, boys … then, by 2003, just kids) a window into labor and commerce. A day in the life of cubicle sitters, lab jockeys, and hard hat sites. I read that the Ms. team was hoping specifically to address girls’ self-esteem, and I’ll save us all from a tangent on that in favor of more quickly getting to the point because here’s the deal: I’m also wondering if and how Bring Your Daughter to Work Day impacted the self-esteem of the moms and dads who did the bringing.
Can you imagine that Bring Your Daughter to Work Day might have worked out—in some big or small way—as a kind of de facto Bring Your Whole Self to Work Day? Like, did it ever happen that Nancy in accounting went home after a mid-90s Thursday in April2 thinking, “Damn, I never knew Tony in building maintenance was a single dad. And that little Mary of his was a sweetheart, too”? Thereby increasing her empathy and regard for Tony, the building maintenance team, and maybe even all quiet, seemingly gruff men in boiler suits everywhere?
And did Tony, in turn, sense that somehow? Did he open up a little in the cafeteria—maybe linger a little longer after finishing his sandwich and chips? Did he walk differently out the door and into the parking lot? Did he feel more himself after he actually and factually showed up with more of himself at work?
Does seeing into each other’s lives a little help coworkers be better coworkers? A thousand and one lukewarm ice-breaking/team-building exercises would seem to suggest maybe so—but it strikes me that those lukewarm HR exercises aren’t designed for you to truly let anyone in. And of course, there are lots of folks who prefer it that way.
But for the others—for Tony? I hope that letting people in leads to being let in in return. Leads to more self-esteem. More empathy. More compassion. More good, honest days at work. And sure, more getting stuff done. More meeting those third quarter goals and whatever else we’d need to build the all-important business case.
Did I just walk my way into something like a Department of the Interior-sanctioned Bring Your Grief to Work Day?
I’m sort of terrified by what I just said (which is, of course, c’mon, not an actual proposition) and what I’m about to say next … but hey my entire raison d’etre here is to hold up the sacredness, the extraordinariness—f&ck it—the sublimity of grievers, so here goes.
Is it possible we're the only ones who can change the workplace? As much as I very much do not want us to hold all the emotional labor3 of empathy and compassion and connection, I think maybe we're the only ones qualified to do it. Caring enough to do it. Awake enough to get it. Capable of carrying the weight.
Don’t @ me. Seriously. I get it. I get that it goes against what I said in my first letter and in certain scenarios can be as problematic as all get-out. But. But.
I definitely went into this all but demanding to formulate an expectation of our workplaces, but my thinking now is, what can we expect of ourselves? I’m certainly not expecting us to be graceful or even capable or legible or cogent in the middle of the storms … but in those moments when things feel at least temporarily righted and we know we’re seeing the world as it is—the truth as you put it, Michael, “that life is in fact only about the experience of living and dying”—can we expect ourselves to just hold that simply, plainly, quietly, and powerfully?
And can we expect that quiet power to be telecast through our words and actions? Can we expect ourselves to radiate a kind of “this is where I am, and I am okay with where you are, but I need you to be okay with it, too”?
When I scan my past to look for versions of my on-the-job self when and where I was most ready and able to embody that calm and steady empathetic giving-and-taking stance, the first thing that comes to mind was a work situation in which my self-esteem was by far the highest. (I’m nodding at you, Ms. Foundation.) It’s weird for me to remember it much less share it here, but wow, those people affirmed me all week long. I was needed and I knew it. So, when my brother called me one morning to tell me that my nine-year-old nephew’s mom had ended her life, I promptly lost my shit and walked straight into the morning bustle of what we then would have called ‘the ladies room’ to lose it some more. And the thing I remember most about that moment was the coworker with whom I had the best and worst relationship—I mean, it was more awkward than rocky, but/and we made the raddest stuff together. In the very instant she saw me, her eyes were as full with tears as mine were. Mirror neurons, I’m sure, but … We still disagreed on set and had weird creative stand-offs heads from time to time, but it was different after that.
The other version of a working me most capable of holding her own grief and probably/maybe telecasting the same acceptance of others and theirs was when I absolutely had the least seniority, least leadership votes, least agency, least voice. And it was just last year, when I was working part-time at funeral home, trying to understand if and what I might want from death and grief as a professional landscape. I loved that job for several really good reasons, one of which was that I didn’t have to direct anything or design anything—other than, say, how the funeral sprays were arranged around the casket. I just held space. I just helped out. I was there. And when I was there, I had almost no ego at all. So when things got to me—and they did—I was fine excusing myself. But we all were. We let each other in and held each up in a really weird, sort of detached way. I suppose because we knew it was part of the day.
That’s what I want most. I want the all-pervasive, all-encompassing knowledge and acceptance that grief is sometimes part of the day.
So go rock that spreadsheet, Jenny. Go ahead and fire the entrees for Table 7, Lin. We all have to do what we have to, and right now I have to go cry in the restroom. Come check on me if I don’t come back soon—and be sure to take the time you need when you need it, too.
In my first note to you I went in kinda fast and loose with my side-eyes on everything. I went in wanting them to get their shit together for us. I don’t think I said it, but I went in with the fires of 2020 always fresh in my body, wanting to burn capitalism down and start over. I am positive that if humans are still here in 200 years they’re going to think it was straight ludicrous that we made up jobs like “senior editor” (hi, self) for people and then forced them to perform in order to have access to food and shelter.
And I still want “them” to get wayyyyy better at policies on leave and bereavement, and I still want “them” to think about leadership as a thing that people do with and on behalf of other people. Not to them.
But maybe, dear readers, what I really want is for us to take care of us. Don’t @ me here, either. I know. I know. I’m exhausted just thinking about and writing this, let alone actually enacting it. But we can’t wait around for them. We are who we have. And we are who I really care about. And if we keep seeing each other and letting each other in—one at a time and little by little, maybe the circle keeps widening. Maybe that’s the only way things ever do and ever will get better.
I’ll end not unlike you ended, Michael: This is too simple. This puts more onus on the already overloaded. And it’s romantic. And it’s idealistic. But it’s honest. And it’s me, showing up in my grief and in my love. Which really are one and the same.
Yrs,
Laura
Collages and pairings are mine; images from (top and left to right): Timon Studler, Photos from Past To Future, Yan Berthemy, Sergei Wing, Annie Spratt, and Duangphorn Wiriya via Unsplash
ICYMI: This Economist piece was cited in Michael’s reply. And wow the Brits are so British sometimes; it attempts to solve the should you or shouldn’t you Whole-Self-at-Work thing thusly: “You have to bring your role self.” (Italics theirs.)
Bring Your Daughter to Work Day—and now just Bring a Child to Work Day—is and has been observed on the last Thursday of April. Mark your calendars, April 27 is just around the corner.
REQUIRED READING: “The Concept Creep of ‘Emotional Labor’” from the Atlantic, in which we learn that the way we use that term now is not how the sociologist who first identified and coined it was using it. Ugh. Language! Concepts! Creep! (Italics mine.)