Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy, a majority of households only had one
Speaker 1: working parent, so the nine five work day made a
Speaker 1: lot of sense. One parent was always at home with
Speaker 1: the kids. That's not the case anymore, and yet the
Speaker 1: workplace hasn't changed. This is game Plan. Hi, I'm Rebecca
Speaker 1: Greenfield and I'm Francesco Weevie. This week we're talking about
Speaker 1: how much the working family has changed in the last
Speaker 1: few decades and how little the workplace has adapted to
Speaker 1: those changes. So those statistics I quoted at the top
Speaker 1: of the show are from an interesting Pew report that
Speaker 1: talked all about the changing family in America, and the
Speaker 1: exact statistic is that of all families have two working parents,
Speaker 1: and that's up from thirty in nineteen seventy. And then
Speaker 1: at the same time, the share of families with a
Speaker 1: stay at home mom and a working dad is on
Speaker 1: the decline. So it used to be that most of
Speaker 1: the workforce was men who worked with wives at home
Speaker 1: to take care of the kids, and that is not
Speaker 1: the case anymore. I'm actually kind of surprised that it's
Speaker 1: only around a fifty split, and popular culture you see
Speaker 1: a lot of representations of two working parents well, interestingly,
Speaker 1: also on the increase is single parents. I mean, divorce
Speaker 1: became more prominent and socially acceptable, so that's also on
Speaker 1: the increase. So there are all these different ways that
Speaker 1: the family looks. And also in that report, the parents
Speaker 1: all talked about how stressed out they were all the
Speaker 1: time and how they didn't feel like they had enough
Speaker 1: time for their kids or their careers. So clearly there
Speaker 1: is some disconnect with the way that our society is
Speaker 1: set up, specifically the workplace, that is leading to these
Speaker 1: unhappy people in the new family structure. Yeah, let's talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about why the modern workplace isn't set
Speaker 1: up for anything but that super traditional family structure. So
Speaker 1: I think one big thing is just the schedule of
Speaker 1: like nine to five, And I mean, I think you
Speaker 1: can speak to this specifically, but that, like I said,
Speaker 1: made a lot of sense when someone was at home
Speaker 1: to deal with anything child related or I don't have
Speaker 1: a family, but doing anything that needs to happen during
Speaker 1: business hours is impossible. I've been trying to go to
Speaker 1: the post office all week and I just can't write.
Speaker 1: Some might argue that if you have two working parents,
Speaker 1: you've got more income that you can use to cover childcare.
Speaker 1: But as you said, like childcare doesn't exactly solve all
Speaker 1: of those problems. You know, my husband and I both
Speaker 1: have to get up and get to work and negotiate
Speaker 1: dropping our son off at daycare and picking him up,
Speaker 1: and it kind of recks our mornings and afternoons. I mean,
Speaker 1: we've we've we figured it out, but it would be
Speaker 1: much easier and yes, much less stressful if I knew
Speaker 1: that I could stay a half hour later at work
Speaker 1: and it wouldn't blow up my whole family schedule. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you and you believe at five pm exactly or
Speaker 1: try to and are lucky enough to work a job
Speaker 1: where you can do that, and not everyone is that lucky.
Speaker 1: And yeah, these schedules are particularly hard on women basically because,
Speaker 1: as the Pews Right also found, they tend to still
Speaker 1: take on more of the childcare duties even if they're
Speaker 1: the ones working. I will plead the fifth on discussing
Speaker 1: that at length, but I definitely identify. And another thing
Speaker 1: besides the schedule is something that we've talked about on
Speaker 1: the show before, but the non existence of parental leave.
Speaker 1: Since there's so many more working women now, the reality
Speaker 1: is is that a lot of them are probably going
Speaker 1: to have children and need to work that into their
Speaker 1: working lives, but most companies still don't offer it. And
Speaker 1: I wrote this story recently about how the rise of
Speaker 1: parental leave policies is limited to a few high profile companies.
Speaker 1: So you saw places like Netflix and Amazon offering really
Speaker 1: generous paid leave packages, but some research showed that this
Speaker 1: wasn't a national trend and that most parental leave policies
Speaker 1: are actually getting worse. I believe that I've heard about
Speaker 1: a lot of people I know who are at well known,
Speaker 1: high profile companies that have kind of shockingly bad maternity
Speaker 1: leave policies, And but we've also talked about how it's
Speaker 1: not just about even for the companies that do offer
Speaker 1: a significant amount of paid time off, that's almost not enough,
Speaker 1: Like there are ways in which your career can be
Speaker 1: stalled just by taking that time. And reintegrating back into
Speaker 1: the workforce is something everyone sort of expects you to
Speaker 1: be able to just do without any help or not
Speaker 1: even that when you do reintegrate back into the workforce,
Speaker 1: there's all this judgment even though it's it's the norm.
Speaker 1: So many people are doing it and still there's this
Speaker 1: motherhood penalty that women have for having children because they're
Speaker 1: judged as just not as competent workers. Yeah. I don't
Speaker 1: remember if I told you this anecdote when we did
Speaker 1: our episode on parental leave a while back, but a
Speaker 1: colleague once talking to me about another colleague who had
Speaker 1: taken maternity leave said, sort of conspiratorially, like, can you
Speaker 1: believe that she didn't call once to check in with
Speaker 1: her team? Is like, yeah, I can't believe it. She
Speaker 1: was really busy. Yeah, it's just the workplace still assumes
Speaker 1: that people don't have families at home to deal with, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that that's not its own huge responsibility and job
Speaker 1: rivaling paid work in scope. And so since there are
Speaker 1: these two working parent families, a lot of the child
Speaker 1: care might also fall on men now, which is something
Speaker 1: the workplace also isn't set up for. So hopefully, if
Speaker 1: two people are both working, then they're also both shouldering
Speaker 1: the same child care responsibilities. But obviously that doesn't happen.
Speaker 1: And one reason also is because fraternity leave is not
Speaker 1: offered or acceptable. So I was writing a story about
Speaker 1: women at Adobe who took maternity leave, and multiple women
Speaker 1: told me that their husbands had the option to have
Speaker 1: paternity leave and just didn't take it because it's culturally
Speaker 1: unacceptable because of decades of that just not being the case. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so even and I know we have male colleagues here
Speaker 1: who didn't take their full paternity leave. And I've also
Speaker 1: heard men say to me, now, there's not that much
Speaker 1: for the dad to do in the very beginning, and
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking, uh, yeah, there's plenty there, there's plenty
Speaker 1: you can do. Yeah, Okay, So if our work culture
Speaker 1: is still basically organized around the idea of working dad's
Speaker 1: and stay at home moms, is the solution then for
Speaker 1: us to return to that era for moms to just
Speaker 1: be staying home, I know, you know what I mean that.
Speaker 1: But also and that Pew study there was the note
Speaker 1: that families with two working parents make a lot more money, obviously,
Speaker 1: and it's money that they need because life is expensive.
Speaker 1: And that also as more moms have entered the labor force,
Speaker 1: more of them have become the primary breadwinners and their families,
Speaker 1: so they're actually bringing in more of the money, so
Speaker 1: it would make more sense for them to stay in
Speaker 1: the workplace. So we're not going back, We're not turning
Speaker 1: this back. No, okay, So the working woman is obviously
Speaker 1: here to stay, and as you say, in a lot
Speaker 1: of cases, women are out earning their male partners. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and our guest today is going to talk more about
Speaker 1: how the world is not set up for that phenomenon.
Speaker 1: Ashley Ford is a senior features writer at Refinery twenty nine,
Speaker 1: where she wrote an article about being a female breadwinner.
Speaker 1: She interviewed one hundred and thirty women about how they
Speaker 1: feel about making more than their partners. Thanks for coming on, Ashley,
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. I'm really excited about this.
Speaker 1: You guys look fun. Thanks. So you wrote this great
Speaker 1: article about female breadwinners and for a Refinery twenty nine,
Speaker 1: and I want to know what made you decide to
Speaker 1: take an anthropological dive into that phenomenon. Um. I mean
Speaker 1: the same thing that makes me want to write about
Speaker 1: anything myself. I am of the breadwinner in my relationship.
Speaker 1: I am a female breadwinner, and I knew my personal
Speaker 1: feelings about it. But I also knew that I kept
Speaker 1: having these interactions with women, even women who like talking
Speaker 1: about money, that once we got to the part where
Speaker 1: I talked about being the breadwinner, they would start asking
Speaker 1: me these questions like, well, how does that make you feel?
Speaker 1: Or you know, does it bother you to be with
Speaker 1: someone who's less ambitious than you are? You know, like
Speaker 1: these questions that felt sort of like they were trying
Speaker 1: to figure out, um, what to ask to make me
Speaker 1: admit that I wasn't okay with it. So then I
Speaker 1: started thinking, man, like, maybe there's something to this, Maybe
Speaker 1: there are more women who are in this position who
Speaker 1: aren't okay with it, you know, But I didn't know,
Speaker 1: because all I know is my experience, and so I
Speaker 1: really just wanted to find out. I was shocked by
Speaker 1: the results. I thought there would be a lot more
Speaker 1: women who were just like no, why who cares? Um?
Speaker 1: And that wasn't the case. So you you ended up
Speaker 1: serving a lot of your peers. But before we get
Speaker 1: into that, can you just talk about how you how
Speaker 1: you did feel about being the redwinner? Oh? Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: I mean I felt pretty fine with it. It was
Speaker 1: I mean, it was my decision in a lot of ways, UM,
Speaker 1: to not just be the breadwinner, but also to combine
Speaker 1: our finances in such a way that, um, I was
Speaker 1: the obvious breadwinner and we shared all of the money,
Speaker 1: all of the to me, all the money is our money, UM.
Speaker 1: And I think part of that is because when we
Speaker 1: started doing this, noight, we were both broken ship, Like
Speaker 1: neither of us had anything when we got together. And
Speaker 1: I feel like so much of the success that I've had, um,
Speaker 1: you know my definition of success, but so much of
Speaker 1: what I've had, I see this direct line to my
Speaker 1: relationship with Kelly, with my partner. I I feel like
Speaker 1: so much of what I do I am able to do,
Speaker 1: and I feel empowered to do because I have this
Speaker 1: like safety net in a person, you know, and also
Speaker 1: because I know that if today I hated my job
Speaker 1: and wanted to quit, Kelly would say, all right, let's
Speaker 1: figure out how I can bring in more money so
Speaker 1: that you can do what you want to do. So
Speaker 1: you mentioned that you were both broke and then there
Speaker 1: was this moment where you became the breadwinner. What was
Speaker 1: that conversation? Like, UM, I don't know that we really
Speaker 1: had a conversation about me being a breadwinner. I have
Speaker 1: always made at least a little more money than Kelly.
Speaker 1: That has been true, like I've I've we've never like
Speaker 1: been in a situation where he out earned me. UM.
Speaker 1: Part of that is I'm a little older than him,
Speaker 1: I'm three years older than him. Part of that is
Speaker 1: the sort of work that I do. When you get
Speaker 1: to a certain point, you can make good money from it,
Speaker 1: and the kind of work that he does that's pretty
Speaker 1: much not the case. Like he works at a bookstore.
Speaker 1: He's a bookseller, he's a shift leader. He is also
Speaker 1: a poet. You know, we're both writers. But I don't
Speaker 1: know if you know this. There's no money in poetry.
Speaker 1: Nobody's getting like, nobody's getting paid a ton of money
Speaker 1: to come be the resident poet at refinery to at night.
Speaker 1: Like I'm sorry, Like that's not gonna happen. Um. So
Speaker 1: I always knew that there was a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: he was still figuring out, and also that I just
Speaker 1: wanted him to be happy as much as he has
Speaker 1: always wanted me to be happy. And I also feel
Speaker 1: like my breadwinner status is sort of this, Like, yes,
Speaker 1: I wanted to make more money. I wanted you know,
Speaker 1: I want to have certain things available to me by
Speaker 1: way of making more money. But I also don't have
Speaker 1: to do anything I don't want to do to be
Speaker 1: able to make more money. Like I don't I'm not
Speaker 1: at a job I hate I'm not you know, trying
Speaker 1: to get a promotion so that we can you know,
Speaker 1: pay off a house or so, you know what I mean. Like,
Speaker 1: it's that's not what our lives are like. It's like
Speaker 1: it's really almost like I just happen to make more
Speaker 1: money and I'm proud of that, you know, and negotiate it.
Speaker 1: I did my due diligence to get what I thought
Speaker 1: i'd deserved. But at the same time, it's just I
Speaker 1: guess it's just not super important to me that I
Speaker 1: make more money than him. So you're touching on a
Speaker 1: lot of the feelings that people mentioned in the survey,
Speaker 1: and some people had that attitude, but some people didn't.
Speaker 1: So yeah, to back up, can you tell us about
Speaker 1: some of the results of talking to all these women.
Speaker 1: The results were basically, um, came down to most of
Speaker 1: the women felt complicated about their bread winter status, and
Speaker 1: the complication came from not necessarily feeling like it was
Speaker 1: the man's job to have the job and like provide
Speaker 1: for everybody. Like they didn't feel that, like it didn't
Speaker 1: go back to like that traditional Um, that's that's what
Speaker 1: I got married for, was for someone to take care
Speaker 1: of me. You know, it wasn't that. The complication that
Speaker 1: they felt really came from things like, you know, they
Speaker 1: feel like they're walking a fine line between being a
Speaker 1: breadwinner and also trying to make sure, you know, manage
Speaker 1: the emotions of the men in their lives so that
Speaker 1: they didn't feel emasculated. Um, they were also in a
Speaker 1: lot of cases still coming home and doing the majority
Speaker 1: of housework and anything that had to do with children. Uh.
Speaker 1: And there's also the fact that you know, there's this
Speaker 1: societal expectation like it just it still means something for
Speaker 1: a man to say, my wife doesn't have to work,
Speaker 1: and that says something about his ability to provide, and
Speaker 1: it is a It could be a point of pride
Speaker 1: for a man, even if it's not a big deal
Speaker 1: to him, it can still be a point of pride,
Speaker 1: and society is not going to punish him in any
Speaker 1: way for that being the case. However, when you're a woman,
Speaker 1: if you walk into that, you know, my husband doesn't
Speaker 1: have to work. He doesn't work because he doesn't have to.
Speaker 1: I make enough for both of us. I'm make enough
Speaker 1: to support our whole family, So why should he work?
Speaker 1: Like people look at you like you're being duped and
Speaker 1: you're being taken advantage of. And so these women don't
Speaker 1: necessarily have the societal perk. They don't have the point
Speaker 1: of pride that comes usually from society's reaction to being
Speaker 1: a breadwinner, because that perk is reserved for men. It's
Speaker 1: not accessible to them. You make kind of a subtle
Speaker 1: distinction between the feelings that some women have about making
Speaker 1: more money than their partners and the feelings that they
Speaker 1: have about talking about it. Can you talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about that? Yeah, Um, I think well, from the
Speaker 1: data that I got, from the comments that I saw
Speaker 1: from these women, um, none of them really inherently felt
Speaker 1: bad about making more money. None of them inherently felt
Speaker 1: like there was something wrong with the fact that they
Speaker 1: were making more money. Even if that was their initial reaction,
Speaker 1: they would stop and sort of reflect on it and
Speaker 1: be like, wait a minute, I guess this. You know,
Speaker 1: it's okay, it's not such a big deal. When it
Speaker 1: started to feel like a big deal. Is sort of
Speaker 1: like the reactions like, the world does not adjust for
Speaker 1: women who are breadwinners. It just doesn't. It also doesn't
Speaker 1: adjust for men who become like stay at home. Um,
Speaker 1: husbands or you know, like or work with the kids
Speaker 1: all day. It's like, we still have all these systems
Speaker 1: in place where these women um feel even though they
Speaker 1: might feel pride and being a breadwinner, to express it
Speaker 1: is to invite other people's perceptions of your relationship into
Speaker 1: your life. And so when you do express it and
Speaker 1: people give you those perceptions, they throw them at you. Um,
Speaker 1: you absolutely end up taking some of that on and
Speaker 1: you end up it ends up becoming a thing that
Speaker 1: you know, if you don't want to talk about it,
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily because you're embarrassed or ashamed. Sometimes it's
Speaker 1: you don't want to talk about it for a lot
Speaker 1: of these women because you just don't want to have
Speaker 1: to defend it all the time. You don't want to
Speaker 1: have to constantly be telling people that is not my experience,
Speaker 1: That is not our experience of being in a relationship
Speaker 1: where I'm a breadwinner for us, it is working. I
Speaker 1: mean it's exhausting. It is exhausting to do something non
Speaker 1: traditional and have to explain to people all the time
Speaker 1: that you're not failing because of it. It's interesting because
Speaker 1: I think of earning money as liberation. Well, I mean
Speaker 1: a lot of women think of it that way. But
Speaker 1: reading your story, a lot of these women felt caged
Speaker 1: in and away. But can you talk about that a
Speaker 1: little bit. Yeah, it's the responsibility factor, to be perfectly honest,
Speaker 1: it's the feeling caged in. Is not so much about
Speaker 1: the actual um money. It's about the idea, uh that, oh,
Speaker 1: I am responsible for supporting another person. In some cases,
Speaker 1: if you're a sole earner and also the breadwinner, absolutely
Speaker 1: I am not. I am My salary is no longer
Speaker 1: responsible for just taking care of me. It is also
Speaker 1: responsible for taking care of another person. So shouldn't I
Speaker 1: be going for that promotion that I don't even want
Speaker 1: because it means more money, or shouldn't I be arguing
Speaker 1: for a raise that, you know whatever? Like, it's this
Speaker 1: idea for these women that um that they are stuck
Speaker 1: in the position of breadwinner. And I imagine anybody who
Speaker 1: is the breadwinner would would have those feelings. It's just that,
Speaker 1: you know, male or female, if you're the person supporting
Speaker 1: your family, you're gonna maybe feel trapped by that. But
Speaker 1: are there different ways that women like process that feeling
Speaker 1: of responsibility or given different messages about it? I think
Speaker 1: part of it is that we don't really have a
Speaker 1: template for the conversation. Now what this piece went up,
Speaker 1: a lot of men tweeted me or emailed me or
Speaker 1: messaged me, and there were a lot of men saying
Speaker 1: they had been talking with their friends about the fact
Speaker 1: that they totally expected to have to support a family someday,
Speaker 1: like off and on, you know, in different ways, Like
Speaker 1: maybe they weren't talking about expectably, they were always under
Speaker 1: the impression that at some point in their lives they
Speaker 1: were going to have to support a family. They started
Speaker 1: talking about these things that like eighteen seventeen, sixteen, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like, yeah, well one day when
Speaker 1: I you know, I'm gonna get married and you know,
Speaker 1: my wife, and I want to make sure my wife
Speaker 1: could stay home with the kids if she wants to.
Speaker 1: It's like they start thinking about those things and having
Speaker 1: those conversations so early, and that expectation is put on
Speaker 1: them so early that it's just sort of like in
Speaker 1: their minds, this natural thing of being a man right
Speaker 1: now out Women are basically raised with the expectation, the
Speaker 1: expectation that they will never make more than their husbands
Speaker 1: or that it'll be equitable. But not that they would
Speaker 1: make significantly more than their husbands, So there's no set
Speaker 1: up for like, how do we talk about that? How
Speaker 1: do we talk about the fact that I make more?
Speaker 1: If I make more, does that mean that I need
Speaker 1: to make more of the financial decisions? If I make more,
Speaker 1: does that mean I'm in charge of the money completely?
Speaker 1: You know, like a lot of women just don't know
Speaker 1: how to have those conversations with their partners. They don't
Speaker 1: know how to have those conversations with their friends, they
Speaker 1: don't know how to have those conversations with family members,
Speaker 1: because nothing in the media, nothing you know, in the
Speaker 1: conversations we have as young women, set us up to
Speaker 1: believe that that could even be a possibility. So I
Speaker 1: think it's just this lack of resources and this lack
Speaker 1: of you know, conversation that really contribute for these women
Speaker 1: to the idea that there is something off or wrong
Speaker 1: or shameful or embarrassing, or something that should be hidden
Speaker 1: or at least you shouldn't talk about it when you
Speaker 1: earn more than a male partner or spouse. I'm wondering
Speaker 1: if hearing from all these women and then men afterwards,
Speaker 1: did that change your perspective on being a breadwinner at all.
Speaker 1: It definitely made me stop and really think, like because
Speaker 1: in my mind, like I kept thinking about why I
Speaker 1: didn't feel the same way, and the thing that I
Speaker 1: kept coming to is I must not feel as complicated
Speaker 1: about it, because I know my partner, if I didn't
Speaker 1: want to be doing what I was doing that made
Speaker 1: more money, that he would step up and he would
Speaker 1: help me figure out how we were gonna either downsize
Speaker 1: our lifestyle so that I could do what I wanted
Speaker 1: to do, or he would help me figure out how
Speaker 1: he was going to make more money so that we could,
Speaker 1: you know, keep our lives up, you know, like whatever.
Speaker 1: Like I knew that he was not more committed to
Speaker 1: the lifestyle than he was to me. We would figure
Speaker 1: this out, and that might mean that he would be
Speaker 1: the breadwinner at some point or it might not, you know,
Speaker 1: But I just knew that we would figure it out together.
Speaker 1: But when I really stopped and thought about it, I
Speaker 1: was like, wait, how do I know that, Like we
Speaker 1: haven't really had that conversation, Like that's not something we've
Speaker 1: actually ever talked about. That's my assumption, Like I'm just assuming,
Speaker 1: like a lot of these women are assuming that their
Speaker 1: partners would not be helpful or would not want that
Speaker 1: to happen, or you know, or that they would be stuck.
Speaker 1: I'm just assuming I wouldn't be stuck. So it definitely
Speaker 1: made me go home and have that conversation with my
Speaker 1: boyfriend where I was like, hey, so, say I really
Speaker 1: hated my job, and or maybe I wanted to take
Speaker 1: some time off, or maybe I wanted to take a
Speaker 1: job that you know, made less money because that would
Speaker 1: make me happier. You know, how would you feel about that?
Speaker 1: And he was like, well, we couldn't stay in this
Speaker 1: apartment probably, you know. He was like, but I mean
Speaker 1: I can do jobs that make more money. I could
Speaker 1: have two jobs, like, I could do a lot of things,
Speaker 1: you know. Like he was like, like, I don't want
Speaker 1: you to be unhappy, you know, because my thing has
Speaker 1: always been I don't want to come home to a
Speaker 1: miserable man. I don't care how much money he makes
Speaker 1: because miserable. Here's the thing, and y'all know this is true.
Speaker 1: Miserable men need everybody else around them to be miserable. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they need that, but yeah, that that was one thing
Speaker 1: I really liked from your article was that you were like,
Speaker 1: this wasn't really about money. It's about relationships. It is
Speaker 1: about relationships, It's about communication. The crux of every single
Speaker 1: one of the problems that those women had who I
Speaker 1: surveyed or spoke to was that they either had never
Speaker 1: really talked about the fact that they were the breadwinner
Speaker 1: with a partner. Even though they had all these internal questions,
Speaker 1: they never asked them, Like, they never actually asked the
Speaker 1: person they were with, like do you feel emasculated? Do
Speaker 1: you feel like you could do more around the house?
Speaker 1: Do you feel like me making more money makes me
Speaker 1: less feminine? Do you feel like They had all these
Speaker 1: ideas and all these worries about how being the breadwinner
Speaker 1: would and could affect their relationship, and they never actually
Speaker 1: asked their partner. Well, hopefully that's conversation inspires some difficult
Speaker 1: conversations about money. I'm sure all of my friends listen
Speaker 1: to this podcast demand we talk about money. Um, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for coming on this interest having me
Speaker 1: so on the face of it, a lot of the
Speaker 1: women that actually spoke to have kind of achieved the
Speaker 1: feminist idea like not only are they working and they
Speaker 1: have working partners who are supportive, and yet they still
Speaker 1: had all of these negative feelings about it, and we're
Speaker 1: kind of weighed down by the cultural associations or what
Speaker 1: they believed to be other people judging them about their choices. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it seems like even if you as an individual do
Speaker 1: the things that you want to do, it doesn't really
Speaker 1: matter if you're still stuck in the old system. And
Speaker 1: it reminded me of the story that I wrote recently
Speaker 1: about Adobe and how they had offered flexible schedules for
Speaker 1: all their employees, but nobody was really taking them, and
Speaker 1: that was because they didn't really make it explicit. And
Speaker 1: so they have this new mandatory program where if you
Speaker 1: come back from eternity leave or paternity leave or any
Speaker 1: long leave, you have to meet with your manager and
Speaker 1: talk about that these flexible schedules exist. So it's it's
Speaker 1: kind of like we need to explicitly say this system
Speaker 1: has changed and we are going to let people do it,
Speaker 1: or else the cultural norms will just stick around. Right.
Speaker 1: If something is what's expected of you, you can't expect
Speaker 1: to do all of the work of seeking out these
Speaker 1: resources or putting themselves on the line to try and
Speaker 1: do something differently than all their peers. Are doing it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and now it's time for half big takes, half baked takes.
Speaker 1: You can call in with your own half bag take,
Speaker 1: or whatever else you want to tell us at two
Speaker 1: on two six seven zero one six six. This week's
Speaker 1: listener half bag take comes from Marissa Homer, who tweeted
Speaker 1: at me my half bag take is that non coffee
Speaker 1: drinkers deserves some sort of equivalent drink option in the
Speaker 1: office hashtag soda, hashtag crystal life. My response to her
Speaker 1: was that at Bloomberg we have at least thirty five
Speaker 1: other drink options and we're spoiled. I feel like I
Speaker 1: need a little bit more information about this half big take,
Speaker 1: because I want to know if she means other caffeinated beverages,
Speaker 1: like if you're if you're someone who still needs a
Speaker 1: caffeine kick, but you just coffee is not your thing,
Speaker 1: or if she works in an office where there's only
Speaker 1: coffee and like water and gets that that's a drag
Speaker 1: you should have fresca or something. Yeah, agreed, good, hapt
Speaker 1: big take. All right, Francesca, what is your not fully
Speaker 1: formed idea that you'd like to share with the world.
Speaker 1: I would like to talk about the vexing office etiquette
Speaker 1: around free office food. It feels like we just came
Speaker 1: to the end of girl Scout cookie season, which was
Speaker 1: like roughly eight months long. I don't know what happened
Speaker 1: where Girl Scout cookies are now available constantly, um, but
Speaker 1: there were within mints everywhere. And our office is very
Speaker 1: big and spread out, and there's a lot of parts
Speaker 1: of the office where like you might not know anybody
Speaker 1: that works in those few rows, but you'd be walking
Speaker 1: by those rows. There'd be a little bit, you know,
Speaker 1: some cookies, some whatever, saltwater taffy somebody brought back from
Speaker 1: like Virginia Beach, and it's sitting out there, and you
Speaker 1: want to take it because free food is more delicious,
Speaker 1: But then you have to you have to slow down
Speaker 1: and kind of fiddle with the rapper and get it
Speaker 1: out and eat it, and you start to feel really
Speaker 1: conscious that you don't know who put the food there. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I don't really have a solution for this. I think
Speaker 1: that whoever provides the food should be sure to add
Speaker 1: a sign that says please take maybe please take comma anyone,
Speaker 1: or plut the cookies out on a plate so you
Speaker 1: don't feel like a thief. I think that's your problem.
Speaker 1: You feel like you're doing something wrong when that food
Speaker 1: is make them more accessible, and as the taker, to
Speaker 1: be fair, I do think that you should hold yourself
Speaker 1: to a standard where you should at least know the
Speaker 1: name of the person or the occasion for which, like
Speaker 1: you should know it was someone's birthday, and maybe the
Speaker 1: name of the person's birthday. You don't know, wish them
Speaker 1: happy birthday, but at least know whose birthday was. Definitely
Speaker 1: take from an area of the office. I don't even
Speaker 1: know what they do over there. I try to sort
Speaker 1: of say, like, oh, whose birthday is it? And if
Speaker 1: nobody answers, I just describe it anyway, Becca, what is
Speaker 1: your heath day? Take this week minus so underdone but
Speaker 1: not really related at all. But it just happened recently
Speaker 1: and really got me going. Was that do not feed
Speaker 1: the pigeons. Pigeons anywhere anywhere, maybe like a pigeon. Don't
Speaker 1: feed birds at all. But you're okay the pigeons. You're
Speaker 1: feeding them. You're like having them come together in an army. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can't even straight face because it's so silly. I'm
Speaker 1: with you. Girls, don't give those pigeons, the strength of numbers.
Speaker 1: It's act like you're corralling them, You're giving them strength. Literally, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they can do anything, so they can then attack you
Speaker 1: and poo on you. Yeah. I hate pigeons and I
Speaker 1: don't think that's controversial. Please let us know listeners if
Speaker 1: you disagree. And this has been half big takes, half
Speaker 1: baked takes. Thanks for listening to another episode of Game Plan.
Speaker 1: You can find me on Twitter. I'm at rs Greenfield
Speaker 1: and I'm at Francesca Today. You can tweet at us
Speaker 1: with your half bag takes or any other thoughts you
Speaker 1: have about the show. You can also call us at
Speaker 1: two one to six one seven zero one six and
Speaker 1: leave as a voicemail. We might play it on the podcast.
Speaker 1: If you like our show, head on over to Apple
Speaker 1: Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts and rate and
Speaker 1: review and subscribe. The last review we got really great.
Speaker 1: It said that Rebecca was an articulate valley girl, which
Speaker 1: is a great label. So if you have a label
Speaker 1: for me, please put it in a review. We would
Speaker 1: love to hear it. Another cool thing you can check
Speaker 1: out as Bloomberg lens. It's this new io s app
Speaker 1: and Chrome extension that gives you all sorts of relevant
Speaker 1: financial information alongside your news check it out. Game Plan
Speaker 1: is produced by Liz Smith and Magnus Henderson. Head of
Speaker 1: podcast is Alec McCain. We'll see you next week. Bye bye.
Speaker 1: As a child, I literally ate like I love those
Speaker 1: of salt as a snack