Speaker 1: This is On the Job, a podcast about finding your
Speaker 1: life's work. On the job is brought to you by
Speaker 1: Express Employment Professionals. This season, we're bringing you stories of
Speaker 1: folks following their passion to carve their own career path.
Speaker 1: For this season finale of On the Job, we talked
Speaker 1: to Leonette, a second career lock clerk who works daily
Speaker 1: to help relieve student debt for people who have been
Speaker 1: misled by bogus colleges. We talked to her about the
Speaker 1: surprising accessibility of the profession itself and the importance of
Speaker 1: new voices being represented within it. As a radio producer,
Speaker 1: I feel like one of the most confusing and out
Speaker 1: of reached lines of work for me is any job
Speaker 1: in the field of law. I'm recording, um, you're recording
Speaker 1: on your voice memo? Okay, awesome. Luckily I got to
Speaker 1: demystify that world a little bit by talking with Leonette.
Speaker 1: My name is Leonette Rainy Hammett. I am forty two
Speaker 1: years old. I keep having to think about that. It's COVID.
Speaker 1: Leonette is a lawyer, technically a law clerk for the
Speaker 1: Department of Education Borrowers Defense Group. If you're like me
Speaker 1: and do you hear someone's a lawyer, you immediately think
Speaker 1: they're duking it out in a courtroom and working directly
Speaker 1: with clients. But what we do is we actually are
Speaker 1: more administrative. We take and we process claims. The Borrowers
Speaker 1: Defense Group where Leonette works, is part of the Department
Speaker 1: of Justice, a government job, and the claims that they
Speaker 1: process are from people who say they've been tricked into
Speaker 1: taking on massive amounts of student loan debt, so it's
Speaker 1: off fraudulent debt. Basically, these people have gone to for
Speaker 1: profit school they've been charged an exorbitant amount of money,
Speaker 1: like predatory colleges. Yes they were predatory. Most of them
Speaker 1: are for profit and they made misrepresentations. So these are
Speaker 1: those sketchy schools you might have heard about in the news.
Speaker 1: Some of the more well known ones are the Corinthian
Speaker 1: Schools and I T. T. Tech, both now shut down,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot more out there, and they market
Speaker 1: themselves hard to people who might not have had a
Speaker 1: shot getting into more reputable schools. So these schools where
Speaker 1: telling people like, I am going to give you this
Speaker 1: amazing opportunity to go to this wonderful school. We have
Speaker 1: all of these great businesses and companies that we work for,
Speaker 1: and they will give you a job and you're going
Speaker 1: to get paid and you're going to have a wonderful
Speaker 1: life after this. And they're talking to people who are
Speaker 1: sometimes first generation high school graduates, and um, a lot
Speaker 1: of people are don't have English as the first language.
Speaker 1: That's really predatory, like they are going after a certain demographic.
Speaker 1: Needless to say, these promises the predatory colleges make are
Speaker 1: often not true, but people enroll because these colleges offer
Speaker 1: a better future opportunity. And if you're someone who hasn't
Speaker 1: gotten a lot of opportunities, you take the chance and
Speaker 1: you sign on the dotted line, hoping you don't think
Speaker 1: about the money though, as you know, i'd say out
Speaker 1: of mind until six months after you graduate. And then
Speaker 1: wait a minute, they knock on your door. Yes, when
Speaker 1: these enormous amounts of debt come knocking after students received
Speaker 1: their certificate, they don't have the high paying jobs to
Speaker 1: pay them off, and they file claims with Leonette at
Speaker 1: the Department of Justice. We adjudicate these cases to give
Speaker 1: them some relief. On your day to day what that
Speaker 1: looks like is Leonette and a team of law clerks
Speaker 1: going through all these claims, so we look at whatever
Speaker 1: they've claimed the school has done wrong. We look at
Speaker 1: all of the cases, we look at them together and
Speaker 1: we see if there's any uniformity, like as as everyone
Speaker 1: saying the same thing, is the school misrepresenting on this
Speaker 1: one point. So if you went to a regular college
Speaker 1: and you claim that you left with crazy student loans
Speaker 1: like many people do, and you just didn't get the
Speaker 1: job that you wanted to afterward, your case would probably
Speaker 1: be denied by Leonette. They are looking for trends and
Speaker 1: usually find them when ten or more similar claims are
Speaker 1: made about a singular school. Now, for most schools, we
Speaker 1: have thousands of cases. Some of these schools have been
Speaker 1: shut down, some of them have been sued, a lot
Speaker 1: of them have been fined by the government. They've had
Speaker 1: to pay back into the government. But Leonette isn't actually
Speaker 1: involved with what happens to these schools, and she isn't
Speaker 1: involved with the people claiming that got defrauded, never meets them.
Speaker 1: It's her job to be unbiased and either approved the
Speaker 1: claim or deny the claim. We just adjudicate the case
Speaker 1: on the merits. You know, it's just the law, the case,
Speaker 1: what we found, that's it. Even though she's impartial behind
Speaker 1: the desk, she is personally motivated to do the job
Speaker 1: and help when she can because of the staggering amount
Speaker 1: of debt that has come to define recent generations of Americans.
Speaker 1: She's fired up by how huge this problem is. Even
Speaker 1: for people who went to non predatory schools, it's still
Speaker 1: so heavy. Like the amount of debt to go to
Speaker 1: school is rediculous. It doesn't even make sense, is it worth?
Speaker 1: I mean, there's just so many there's so many arguments
Speaker 1: to be had when you're talking about student debt and
Speaker 1: people's ability to pay, and you have doctors and lawyers
Speaker 1: who haven't paid their student debt, and you you kind
Speaker 1: of come to terms with that. You can't fix everything,
Speaker 1: but you can fix what you can fix. And that's
Speaker 1: what I work on. That's what that is what I
Speaker 1: have to focus on, because it gets heavy. It's a lot,
Speaker 1: it's a lot. Working in law is actually Leonette's second career,
Speaker 1: and her trajectory to get there isn't as clear cut
Speaker 1: as you might think. But talking with her a little
Speaker 1: bit about her upbringing, it starts to make sense how
Speaker 1: she ended up there. So I am originally from New Haven, Connecticut.
Speaker 1: New Haven pretty small city, great pizza. Leonette was really
Speaker 1: active in sports. She was popular. Her parents were hard
Speaker 1: working churchgoers, so they made sure that she was on
Speaker 1: the straight and narrow. So I won't say I didn't
Speaker 1: do much, but I wasn't able to, like, you know,
Speaker 1: like hang out with my friends. That wasn't really a thing.
Speaker 1: My parents were like, no, you can stay in the
Speaker 1: house and read a book. So you were forced to
Speaker 1: be a nerd. I was forced to be a nerd.
Speaker 1: I was still a little cool though, Like I was
Speaker 1: a little cooler than most of my friends, you know,
Speaker 1: in school. Anyway, Leonette was really inspired growing up by
Speaker 1: her parents being entrepreneurs. Her mom ran a hair salon
Speaker 1: her dad owned an exterminating company. Neither of them went
Speaker 1: to college, but for a few reasons, Leonette never questioned
Speaker 1: that she was going. No, there was never an option
Speaker 1: college for in My family. Was like thirteenth grade, like,
Speaker 1: you just have to keep going. There's not an option.
Speaker 1: You're going to college. So I was also very excited
Speaker 1: about leaving home. Um, I knew I was going away
Speaker 1: to school, so I was excited about that. The other
Speaker 1: thing she knew is that she wanted to go to Howard,
Speaker 1: a historically black university, which she got into in her
Speaker 1: all girls high school. She was one of four black
Speaker 1: girls that graduated in a class of over a hundred.
Speaker 1: She had grown up in a black family, went to
Speaker 1: a black church, but in her whole life up until college,
Speaker 1: she had never once had a black teacher. Never ever.
Speaker 1: Like sitting down my first day in class, my professor
Speaker 1: her name was Dr Hamilton's and she wrote that on
Speaker 1: the board, Dr Hamilton's not Miss Hamilton's, not Mrs Hamilton.
Speaker 1: I have Dr Hamilton. And I was like wow, Like
Speaker 1: this is this is it? Like I made the right decision.
Speaker 1: I'm so happy I'm here, Like it just felt like home.
Speaker 1: After graduating, she came back home to New Haven and
Speaker 1: started to figure out what she wanted to do. She
Speaker 1: had a few jobs, started testing the waters. My parents
Speaker 1: wanted me to be a doctor. I knew I did
Speaker 1: not want to be a doctor. I was not going
Speaker 1: to medical school, Like I was like no. She ended
Speaker 1: up substitute teaching and became a vision specialist, basically helping
Speaker 1: blind kids in school developed curriculum that worked for them. Eventually,
Speaker 1: I was supposed to learn how to like do breo,
Speaker 1: but I didn't stay long enough. I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: what was your degree in biology? Okay, no, it still
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense. I'm trying to make the connection. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean I have a sculpture degree. Here we are
Speaker 1: right right, listen, stranger, things have evan right. She got engaged,
Speaker 1: called off the engagement, and realized she'd always wanted to
Speaker 1: live in New York City, so she moved there. She
Speaker 1: hired a head hunter. Initially wanted to go into pharmaceutical sales,
Speaker 1: and she couldn't find anything in that realm, so she
Speaker 1: just started applying to anything at all, like any kind
Speaker 1: of job, Like I just want a job. I want
Speaker 1: an office job. I have a degree. Someone should hire
Speaker 1: me because that's what I was taught. You know, you
Speaker 1: get a degree, you get a job. Her head hunter
Speaker 1: eventually got her an interview for a financial endless job
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg. And I did that. I studied for the
Speaker 1: broker license and I was like, I can do this.
Speaker 1: I can do finance. Like this is great. I love it.
Speaker 1: It's interesting. I'm me up. She liked it, but she
Speaker 1: wanted to use it as a stepping stone and get
Speaker 1: hired out by other companies Bloomberg worked with. But then
Speaker 1: the two thousand and eight financial crisis hit and no
Speaker 1: one was hiring. And it was at that time, you know,
Speaker 1: people were like walking in Time Square with their boxes
Speaker 1: in their hands from like Lehman Brothers and like, you know,
Speaker 1: all these other funds. I was like, I have to
Speaker 1: figure something else out. She pivoted again, moved to North Carolina,
Speaker 1: trying her hand at being an entrepreneur like mom opening
Speaker 1: a hair salon. The only difference is Leonette salon lasted
Speaker 1: about eight months. This was right after the crisis, right
Speaker 1: after the crisis, and we were selling like a we
Speaker 1: were trying to do like this upscale salon and there
Speaker 1: North Carolina, no less, like right after the mortgage crisis.
Speaker 1: It was just like ridiculous. She ended up back home
Speaker 1: in New Haven, got back into the educational system, facilitating
Speaker 1: tutoring systems for kids, just constantly going and constantly switching
Speaker 1: up her work. And that's when, um, when I decided
Speaker 1: to have my daughter. I was like, Okay, now you're
Speaker 1: like a real adult, like you have a whole another
Speaker 1: person here, and like prior to that, I was like
Speaker 1: I'm probably gonna move to l A. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: I was just ready to go all the time. I'm
Speaker 1: just ready to go, just enjoy life, Like I'm like,
Speaker 1: we only get one shot here. I'm going to do
Speaker 1: everything I want to do. But then I had another person,
Speaker 1: and so I was like, uh, do I want to
Speaker 1: go back to school? Leonette was thirty three. She knew
Speaker 1: she was done with finance and business, so she wasn't
Speaker 1: going to go back to school for an m b A.
Speaker 1: This is when she really started to zoom out and
Speaker 1: think about what her life would look like from then on,
Speaker 1: done hopping around, the next move being the one that
Speaker 1: she was going to stick with for a while. And
Speaker 1: I wrote down the things that I wanted to do.
Speaker 1: I wanted to help people. I wanted to be an
Speaker 1: asset to my community. I wanted to be a role
Speaker 1: model for the other little girls in my family, like
Speaker 1: you know, my daughter included, but also my little cousins
Speaker 1: and you know now my niece and just everyone else.
Speaker 1: The moment she figured it out, she was on an
Speaker 1: Amtrak train after visiting her mom with her infant baby
Speaker 1: in her arm, and she asked herself a pretty big question,
Speaker 1: what don't we have in our family who has a
Speaker 1: professional degree. Well, went on one attorney and black women
Speaker 1: only represent two percent of all attorneys in the United States.
Speaker 1: That's it. I thought about how the I could help
Speaker 1: my community with that, and that was my reason. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do it. I have to be an attorney.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back to Leonette's story after the break.
Speaker 1: Navigating the professional job search is hard. You know the
Speaker 1: perfect job is out there, you're just not sure how
Speaker 1: to find it. The good news is you don't have
Speaker 1: to go it alone. You need the Specialized Recruiting Group.
Speaker 1: We're here to guide you and help you find a
Speaker 1: job that fits all without costing a dime. We're the
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Speaker 1: s r G express dot com for free support and
Speaker 1: get on the right course. Now back to on the job. So,
Speaker 1: at thirty three years old, Leonette had a daughter and
Speaker 1: started going to law school. She thrived in all the
Speaker 1: work that she'd done before that, and she says things
Speaker 1: always did come easy tour. That really set me up
Speaker 1: for law school because that's where it ended, like nothing
Speaker 1: comes easy to you in law school, like that's a
Speaker 1: totally different game. You were a big fish growing up
Speaker 1: and then oh I turned into an amiba maybe, Like
Speaker 1: I guess what really shocked me talking with Leonette is
Speaker 1: that once you go through three years of law school
Speaker 1: like she did, there are so many different opportunities after that,
Speaker 1: so many opportunities. You learn everything. Like you don't specialize
Speaker 1: in anything in law school. You learned the ends from
Speaker 1: you know, beginning to end, soup to nuts. You learn everything,
Speaker 1: and you can basically the world is your oyster. You
Speaker 1: can do it with that what you want, Like to
Speaker 1: the point where someone will call you because they just
Speaker 1: know you're a lawyer and say, I got hurt on
Speaker 1: the job. Do you know anything about personal injury? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can tell you about personal injury. And I can
Speaker 1: tell you something about estates, and yeah I know a
Speaker 1: little bit about like antitrust. So you know, we have
Speaker 1: to learn the gamut. So so not only is getting
Speaker 1: your law degree more accessible than you might think, but
Speaker 1: you can just always have a job. After having her
Speaker 1: second baby, a little boy, Leonett graduated and took the bar.
Speaker 1: She started looking for work to line up after spending
Speaker 1: time with her new baby and thought that a government
Speaker 1: job might be perfect because of the reasonable hours. You know,
Speaker 1: I found out that I'm not actually a workaholic. I
Speaker 1: thought I was, but you know, I am not a
Speaker 1: live aholic, right. But I love a kations. I like
Speaker 1: enjoying my kids. I like, you know, putting food on
Speaker 1: the grill and just sitting out. I enjoy my life.
Speaker 1: In Late Howard University's Career Services Center of posting for
Speaker 1: this job that she is now at the d o
Speaker 1: J with the Borrower's Defense Fund, helping people who were
Speaker 1: defrauded by predatory colleges get their money back. She got
Speaker 1: the job and they threw her right into the deep
Speaker 1: end working on cases. Immediately. They teach you how to
Speaker 1: judicate these cases, and you just start doing it, you know,
Speaker 1: based on the merits. It's just like law school. You
Speaker 1: look at the law, you look at you know, what
Speaker 1: what's required, and then you look at this application and
Speaker 1: see if you can plug these things in. Does it
Speaker 1: fit or does it not fit? Has it approved or
Speaker 1: is it denied? That's it. She initially liked it. It
Speaker 1: was a job, but the more she got into the
Speaker 1: gravity of her work and how big the problem of
Speaker 1: these schools really was, she became way more invested. What
Speaker 1: schools you know have misrepresentations and what exactly does the
Speaker 1: law mean when it says misrepresentation, and what was on
Speaker 1: the mind of the framers when they wrote this law
Speaker 1: that that's off started making me, you know, I was
Speaker 1: way more interested. So for the last couple of years
Speaker 1: she's been adjudicating as a clerk, doing your job and
Speaker 1: doing it right. Still, she really wanted to be personally
Speaker 1: helping people who needed it, which can be hard to
Speaker 1: feel when you're simply at your desk saying yes or
Speaker 1: no based on a law that just exists, a law
Speaker 1: that is meant to do some real good in the world.
Speaker 1: But Leonette wanted to feel that she was doing something good.
Speaker 1: I think the day that that actually happened, it was
Speaker 1: probably about maybe three months ago. Leonette was adjudicating a case,
Speaker 1: and for all cases at her job, there are two
Speaker 1: other people called seers, who are basically quality control. So
Speaker 1: after Leona approves or denies a case, it still has
Speaker 1: to go through another set of eyes before it just
Speaker 1: passes through. Yeah, which is a good that's a good thing. So, um,
Speaker 1: one of my cases I approved and the person who
Speaker 1: sent in the claim was I would say that maybe
Speaker 1: English wasn't their first language, so some of the language
Speaker 1: and the claim actually went against what we would approve.
Speaker 1: By this, she means very basic language barrier stuff using
Speaker 1: negatives instead of positives, like instead of saying the school
Speaker 1: told me I would get a job making a hundred k,
Speaker 1: writing the school told me I would not get a
Speaker 1: job making a hundred k. And I think you and
Speaker 1: I could both agree that that person probably meant the
Speaker 1: schools told me, right, we we I mean, you use
Speaker 1: basic common sense, and you imply you use it. You
Speaker 1: just make a basic inference. It's not that you understood
Speaker 1: this and you gave it your stamp of approval. Of course,
Speaker 1: Lena identified a lot with the claim and story understood
Speaker 1: the perspective. She wrote it. The report explained, this is
Speaker 1: what they meant by this, this is what they're trying
Speaker 1: to say, and she approved it and she passed it
Speaker 1: along to her sears. Well. It was sent back to
Speaker 1: me um as a denial, like now the person absolutely
Speaker 1: didn't say that, and I'm like, this is problematic, Like no,
Speaker 1: they did say it, and this is how I know,
Speaker 1: and so you know and I so of course I
Speaker 1: went to bat for it and then it ended up
Speaker 1: being fine. It was approved, and um, that's good work, like,
Speaker 1: and that's something that you know, I'm proud of. I'm
Speaker 1: proud that I was able to be that voice in
Speaker 1: the room because otherwise it would have absolutely been denied,
Speaker 1: and you know, I don't think it should have been.
Speaker 1: When you first started telling the story, I was like,
Speaker 1: I thought you were going to say that they you know,
Speaker 1: you went to bed for it and it was still
Speaker 1: denied and you know, and that made you be like,
Speaker 1: you want to keep fighting and doing what you do.
Speaker 1: But they approved it, which means that you speaking up
Speaker 1: and being there fundamentally changed whoever this person who's claiming
Speaker 1: this you that changed their lives just you being there,
Speaker 1: it changed their life. And if I wasn't here, there's
Speaker 1: a possibility. I mean, that's huge. And it's like, I
Speaker 1: mean it's I don't feel like I'm huge because I
Speaker 1: did that, but that that representation It when people say
Speaker 1: representation matters, no, it really matters, Like that's one person, Yes,
Speaker 1: but that's a it's a big deal. It's a big
Speaker 1: deal for someone, not a big deal for me. It's
Speaker 1: a really big deal for that person though, because the
Speaker 1: people who denied it, you you made your case again
Speaker 1: and they thought, oh, I didn't think of it like that. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's like that's that's really scary. It's scary. It's really
Speaker 1: really scary. And I was like really, I was like
Speaker 1: really like upset about it. Like I was like fired
Speaker 1: up because I'm like, I know because this is the
Speaker 1: stuff that we hear about all the time, you know,
Speaker 1: And I mean I know that it happens, but I
Speaker 1: saw at firsthand and I'm like no, like no, like
Speaker 1: this is this is wrong. This is why black women
Speaker 1: and like minorities and other people like, this is why
Speaker 1: we need to make up more than two of any field.
Speaker 1: Like there always needs to be someone in the room,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like that represents everyone, Like
Speaker 1: everyone should be represented. This is this is what we
Speaker 1: look like. Everyone doesn't have the same vernacular. There should
Speaker 1: be someone there who can say, maybe we need to
Speaker 1: take a closer look at this. That's that's probably when
Speaker 1: I just really felt like, Okay, like I'm here for
Speaker 1: a reason. It's not just me passing through in her workspace,
Speaker 1: Leonette brought the perspective of someone from a family of
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs in a minority community, she empathized with the people
Speaker 1: whose files were on her desk, And meanwhile, she says
Speaker 1: that she'd hear people around her basically say how can
Speaker 1: someone fall for this? Like who would be crazy enough
Speaker 1: to go to a school that's saying blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: And I'm like a lot of people and it's not
Speaker 1: that they're crazy, but you have to look through their eyes,
Speaker 1: like you cannot stand here as you and say, who
Speaker 1: would be crazy enough to do this? A lot of
Speaker 1: people would. It's not crazy, it's something that it's it's
Speaker 1: logical as people actually trying to make a better way
Speaker 1: for their family and this is the only opportunity that's
Speaker 1: presented to them. That's it, and it sounds better than
Speaker 1: all the other opportunities. It's not that crazy. And the
Speaker 1: person who is adjudicating those cases, if they don't have
Speaker 1: the ability to see through that lens or have the
Speaker 1: empathy to even try, then that could completely change someone's
Speaker 1: life for better or for waters, without a question. Leon
Speaker 1: And says a big reason why there's such a small
Speaker 1: percentage of minorities in the legal system is because of
Speaker 1: its reputation. The word lawyer itself has an elitist air
Speaker 1: to it that makes people think that they could never
Speaker 1: do it, even I I have a couple of friends
Speaker 1: who are lawyers, or if I meet someone who's who's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I went to law school, I'm a lawyer, and be
Speaker 1: like oh, because it just has them in the same
Speaker 1: even when um, you know, I was I read just
Speaker 1: your title and what you do to me just fundamentally
Speaker 1: felt like, Wow, that's something I couldn't do. That's fundamentally
Speaker 1: not accessible. And I think that keeps a ton of
Speaker 1: people who should be doing what you do from even starting.
Speaker 1: A ton of people, a ton who would be so
Speaker 1: good at it, would be so good at it, and
Speaker 1: would bring an empathy to the job that is so
Speaker 1: desperately needed. It's just I can't even put into words
Speaker 1: how desperately needed it is. A lot of people just
Speaker 1: don't think that they qualify, like I couldn't do that,
Speaker 1: Like that's for I have no way you could. You
Speaker 1: absolutely could, and you're needed today, at least in her workplace.
Speaker 1: Leonette fills that need and her family they're no longer
Speaker 1: missing an attorney for her daughter, for her cousins, her niece,
Speaker 1: They've all now got someone to look to and say
Speaker 1: she does that, I could do that. Every little black
Speaker 1: girl should have someone that they can ask, like right
Speaker 1: at arms reach, you know, that they can ask about
Speaker 1: anything that they want to do, and that should be
Speaker 1: someone that looks like them like that. This should not
Speaker 1: be an anomaly, Like, there's absolutely no reason it should
Speaker 1: be an anomaly. In the same vein, Leonette also recognizes
Speaker 1: there's no reason she should have to do what she
Speaker 1: does every day. A college education, even a non fraudulent one,
Speaker 1: should not put people in debilitating death for the rest
Speaker 1: of their lives. And it really shouldn't be that easy
Speaker 1: for a school operating illegally to look like the real deal.
Speaker 1: The reason that they can do it is because the
Speaker 1: legal way it is kind of just as crazy. Um,
Speaker 1: these loans are a regular thing that we've all just accepted. Um,
Speaker 1: So it's not that different. I mean it is, but
Speaker 1: it's not, you know, it's semantics. It feels like that's it.
Speaker 1: So just you philosophically when you're going to work, like
Speaker 1: you're obviously doing something that needs to be done. Um,
Speaker 1: but does does it ever get to you that Wow,
Speaker 1: Like I wish I didn't have to do this, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you shouldn't have to, right, there should be no need, yeah,
Speaker 1: or it should never have happened, but here we are.
Speaker 1: That doesn't get you down every day though, No, no,
Speaker 1: I can't let it because I have so many I
Speaker 1: have so many issues that I care deeply about and
Speaker 1: none of them should exist, and yet they do. And so,
Speaker 1: you know, like it's like I'm going to live and
Speaker 1: I'm going to be happy, and I'm going to you know,
Speaker 1: try to give my children the best of me that
Speaker 1: I can every day. And that requires like some level
Speaker 1: of of shutting that down, because otherwise it would it
Speaker 1: would just be too heavy, like too much, it's too much.
Speaker 1: As we end the season of On the Job, I
Speaker 1: think it's important to note what this show is about
Speaker 1: in the first place, jobs and the people who work them,
Speaker 1: because oftentimes the right person working the right job means
Speaker 1: so much more than that person having a stable income,
Speaker 1: having a place to go every day, clocking in and out.
Speaker 1: The right person in the right job can change the
Speaker 1: lives of the people that they deal with every day,
Speaker 1: saving them from a lifetime of debt. By simply being
Speaker 1: in the room to share their own perspective, it can
Speaker 1: change the lives of the generations that come after them
Speaker 1: when they look up and see someone is doing a job.
Speaker 1: They were made to believe that they could never do.
Speaker 1: The right People in the right jobs level the playing
Speaker 1: field and over time helped to fix the enormous problems
Speaker 1: of wealth disparity, gender pay gaps, and representation in the workplace.
Speaker 1: They aren't problems that should exist, and if you think
Speaker 1: about them too much in the grand scheme, you'll probably
Speaker 1: go crazy. But if you like Leona and you genuinely
Speaker 1: want to be part of the solution, what you can
Speaker 1: do is put your head down and get to work.
Speaker 1: It's chunking it. It's taking a little chunk and trying
Speaker 1: to fix this fear because the system as a whole,
Speaker 1: it desperately needs to be revamped and it's a lot.
Speaker 1: Do you feel optimistic that you're affecting that? Yes, I do.
Speaker 1: I definitely feel aptimistic about that. For On the Job,
Speaker 1: I'm Modus Gray. Thanks for listening to On the Job,
Speaker 1: brought to you by Express Employment Professionals. This season of
Speaker 1: On the Job is produced by Audiation. The episodes were
Speaker 1: written and produced by me Otis Gray. Our executive producer
Speaker 1: is Sandy Smallens. The show is mixed by Matt Noble
Speaker 1: for audiation studios at The Loft and Bronxville, New York.
Speaker 1: Music by Blue Dot Sessions. Find us on I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Apple Podcasts. If you liked what you heard,
Speaker 1: please consider rating and reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen. We'll see you next time. For
Speaker 1: more inspiring stories about discovering your life's work, audition