Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. You're listening to Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim Stenoviek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: Earlier this month, we had some data out showing that
Speaker 2: companies are posting fewer job openings this year and employees
Speaker 2: are quitting less as unemployment has begun creeping out from
Speaker 2: low levels, signaling the end of the historically tight labor
Speaker 2: conditions that characterize the rapid recovery from the pandemic shock.
Speaker 2: We talked a little bit about some of the softness
Speaker 2: earlier with Michael McKenzie and Michael McKee about the labor
Speaker 2: market what we're seeing well.
Speaker 3: Our next guest has a take on the labor market,
Speaker 3: specifically on jobs and finding a job that is fulfilling.
Speaker 3: Let's get to doctor Tesso West, professor of psychology at NYU.
Speaker 3: Her new book is Job Therapy, Finding Work that Works
Speaker 3: for You. Doctor West joins us from New York City.
Speaker 2: Doctor West, great to have you here on Bloomberg Business Week.
Speaker 2: Why write this book?
Speaker 4: People are miserable at work, and quite honestly, they have
Speaker 4: no idea why. I think you know, if you ask people,
Speaker 4: why don't you like your job anymore, what's changed since
Speaker 4: the pandemic. They'll come up with a ton of little reasons,
Speaker 4: but they're actually really struggling to come up with the
Speaker 4: reason and more importantly, what it would take to make
Speaker 4: them happy at work. So this book is really about
Speaker 4: finding answers to that deep question.
Speaker 3: Is liking a job generational? And the reason I ask
Speaker 3: is because I remember.
Speaker 5: Early on in my.
Speaker 2: Career, this is going to be fun.
Speaker 3: Uh, you know, looking for a job that I would
Speaker 3: tell people that I wanted to find a job. This
Speaker 3: was before I was like when I was in college.
Speaker 3: I think, like I wanted to, you know, find a
Speaker 3: job that I liked. And I, you know, previous generations,
Speaker 3: earlier generations would say to me, it's a job. It's
Speaker 3: not supposed to be fun.
Speaker 5: It's a job. This is work.
Speaker 3: Is it like a millennial thing that we're supposed to
Speaker 3: like our jobs?
Speaker 6: Millennial gen z?
Speaker 4: I think younger generations they don't necessarily just want to
Speaker 4: like the jobs. They don't want to feel miserable at work.
Speaker 4: They don't want to have high blood pressure from their jobs.
Speaker 4: They don't want to get you know, all these kinds
Speaker 4: of pre existing health conditions from work. So I think
Speaker 4: the discourse around what your job can actually do to
Speaker 4: you and how it can affect your health has definitely
Speaker 4: changed with the younger generations, where they're not just looking
Speaker 4: for purpose, but they're looking for jobs that are not
Speaker 4: going to actually stress them out as much as I
Speaker 4: think the older generations, who are kind of just much
Speaker 4: more accepting of feeling miserable at work and then leaving
Speaker 4: it at work when they went home at the end
Speaker 4: of the day.
Speaker 2: All right, So wait, there's totally not liking your job
Speaker 2: and then there's being stressed at your job. I love
Speaker 2: my job, but I definitely have days where I'm stressed.
Speaker 2: So like, there's a are you telling about people who
Speaker 2: are like in a job and they're like, I hate
Speaker 2: every minute of it? Is that what we're talking about?
Speaker 6: I think both are true.
Speaker 4: So what's fascinating is I think there's a whole category
Speaker 4: people who are highly identified with their jobs. Their jobs
Speaker 4: define who they are, so good days make them feel
Speaker 4: good about themselves as a person. Bad days the opposite,
Speaker 4: but they actually hate that. They are high on what
Speaker 4: we call kind of identity centrality at work, my work
Speaker 4: defines me, but low on satisfaction I hate the thing
Speaker 4: that defines me, And I think that's the dangerous category
Speaker 4: to be in, is to feel like something kind of
Speaker 4: owns you, but you don't like it at the same time,
Speaker 4: and you don't know how to get out of it.
Speaker 6: You don't know how to break that cycle.
Speaker 3: Oky, are you saying like, if somebody doesn't like their job,
Speaker 3: the first reaction, you know, if they told someone that
Speaker 3: would be get another job. But you actually argue that
Speaker 3: there are some tools that you can use to stay
Speaker 3: at your current job. But do you like your job more?
Speaker 5: How do you do it?
Speaker 4: I think the tendency to kind of just want to
Speaker 4: jump from job to job isn't getting us anywhere. I
Speaker 4: think you need to first kind of understand why you
Speaker 4: dislike it, what is the psychological source of your own happiness?
Speaker 4: And in the same way you would evaluate a marriage
Speaker 4: that's going wrong, you would think to yourself, Okay, what's
Speaker 4: up is it that we aren't communicating? Am I not
Speaker 4: getting feedback? Have I drifted apart? Do I no longer
Speaker 4: recognize you? You know, my having an identity crisis? What's
Speaker 4: that kind of deep underlying meaning behind those feelings? And
Speaker 4: you need to understand those before you can improve your
Speaker 4: current job, or before you can even start kind of
Speaker 4: networking to figure out what you want next. And that's
Speaker 4: the step that most of us actually skip in this
Speaker 4: kind of job hunting process.
Speaker 2: That seems crucial, right. You don't just you're unhappy, just leave.
Speaker 2: You've got to figure out what is it that makes
Speaker 2: you unhappy, because you might actually like where you are,
Speaker 2: but just not the particular job that you're in. All right,
Speaker 2: so give us a checklist. I'm just thinking people are
Speaker 2: listening and they're like, okay, So that sounds like it's
Speaker 2: number one. If you're not happy, figure out why you're
Speaker 2: not happy?
Speaker 6: Yeah, dig deep.
Speaker 4: There's a couple of quizzes I give you in this book.
Speaker 4: You can start by figuring out how strongly you identify.
Speaker 6: With this career, if you still want this to be part.
Speaker 4: Of who you are, if you wanted to define you,
Speaker 4: Then what are those steps you're going to need to
Speaker 4: take to actually figure out why you're not getting ahead,
Speaker 4: why you can't get promoted, you know, why people aren't
Speaker 4: communicating with you. And I think one kind of crucial
Speaker 4: part of this is taking a look in the mirror
Speaker 4: and actually asking yourself critical questions like am I taking
Speaker 4: on roles and responsibilities that maybe make me known to
Speaker 4: the boss, make me visible at work, but aren't actually
Speaker 4: helping me get ahead? Little communication gaps can be closed,
Speaker 4: like was I promised a job that wasn't delivered to me?
Speaker 6: At what stage was that promise made?
Speaker 7: You know?
Speaker 4: Where was that miscommunication kind of coming from? Did it
Speaker 4: start at the hiring stage, onboarding later on? Really kind
Speaker 4: of figuring out in that timeline of your career those
Speaker 4: problems started to occur, and how much of that is
Speaker 4: you to blame and how much of that is your career?
Speaker 4: Really treating your career as a relationship partner that you
Speaker 4: can kind.
Speaker 6: Of negotiate with to figure out what those things are.
Speaker 3: What happens if you have you're in a position where
Speaker 3: you have a manager that you feel is holding you back,
Speaker 3: how do you address that?
Speaker 6: I love that question.
Speaker 4: A lot of people can't get ahead because they have
Speaker 4: managers who love them, but who don't have the social
Speaker 4: status and power to actually get ahead.
Speaker 6: You need to network with other higher status people.
Speaker 4: At work, and I like to kind of go up
Speaker 4: and adjacent, so talking to other managers, you know, even
Speaker 4: outside of your immediate team, even outside of your function,
Speaker 4: to find out how much social capital your manager actually has,
Speaker 4: you know, if they want to promote you, how much
Speaker 4: voice do they have in those rooms where those decisions
Speaker 4: are being made? And you can ask very critical questions
Speaker 4: during performance feedback, during interviews around what is the process
Speaker 4: through which people are promoted here? How long do they
Speaker 4: need to work here? How critical is it that their manager,
Speaker 4: you know, has the social capital to make those things
Speaker 4: actually happen for them, early early on in that process,
Speaker 4: before you get to the point where you're realizing I
Speaker 4: have a manager who loves me and wants to promote me,
Speaker 4: but they have zero ability to do so.
Speaker 2: You know, in this environment, I feel like you know,
Speaker 2: or I feel like for years people have said, you know,
Speaker 2: it's great when you can do multiple things, that's a
Speaker 2: good thing. You take on more and more responsibility, more roles.
Speaker 2: Is that a good, gooder pad thing you think?
Speaker 6: In terms, I think it's a very dangerous thing.
Speaker 4: Why yeah, I think because we are in a kind
Speaker 4: of movement of busyness right now. We think more is
Speaker 4: better and a lot of managers are asking us to
Speaker 4: do this instead of getting really good. In a couple
Speaker 4: a handful of roles and tasks. We are spread too thin.
Speaker 4: We are taking on multiple things that don't add up
Speaker 4: to a path towards promotion or towards a raise, and
Speaker 4: we end up having resumes that look like we are
Speaker 4: all over the place. And one of the main criticisms
Speaker 4: I've heard from hiring managers is people have those resumes
Speaker 4: that say, you know, twenty twenty two through present, twenty
Speaker 4: twenty three through present fourteen times in a row on
Speaker 4: their resume, and it really looks like they have no
Speaker 4: idea what direction they're going in. They just say yes
Speaker 4: to everything an attempt to get ahead. So you have
Speaker 4: to exercise some restraint when it comes to taking on
Speaker 4: these roles and understanding how these roles can actually build
Speaker 4: on one another to help you climb up instead of
Speaker 4: just spreading you out in a million different directions.
Speaker 3: Okay, so one thing that we like to talk about
Speaker 3: is lessons not just for people who are employees, but
Speaker 3: and you know, who are targeted in the book, like
Speaker 3: don't necessarily like their jobs. What about lessons for managers
Speaker 3: who may have employees who aren't feeling like they're fulfilled
Speaker 3: at work. What lessons for managers can be taken away
Speaker 3: from the book.
Speaker 4: I think one of the more surprising things I learned
Speaker 4: in research for this book is that the signs that
Speaker 4: people are struggling, that they're having an identity crisis, that
Speaker 4: they're spread too thin, that they're drifting apart, are often
Speaker 4: the opposite of what we're trained to see. We're trying
Speaker 4: to look for disengagement, quiet quitting, but often those early
Speaker 4: signs are actually the opposite. When people are struggling with
Speaker 4: their identity, they're actually thinking of taking on a new career.
Speaker 4: They go all in at work, they take on more,
Speaker 4: they show up later. It's like an extinction burst. It's
Speaker 4: a little like when you're married and you go on
Speaker 4: a million dates right before you get a divorce to
Speaker 4: prove to yourself that you did everything you could. So
Speaker 4: managers actually need to learn to look out for some
Speaker 4: of those warning signs that I talk about that are
Speaker 4: often kind of things that are not in the zeitgeist.
Speaker 4: We're not talking about being really engaged when you're questioning
Speaker 4: your job, or being sensitive to intermit and reinforce manner,
Speaker 4: being on an emotional roller coaster.
Speaker 6: Those kinds of things.
Speaker 2: Interesting interesting. One of our fans of our show has said,
Speaker 2: you know, the most recent grads over four years of
Speaker 2: only notable market and hiring and hoarding of employees. So
Speaker 2: how do you deal with the stress of life once
Speaker 2: that cycle turns and we see unemployment tick up? I mean,
Speaker 2: doctor Wes just got about twenty five seconds. I mean,
Speaker 2: this has been a tight market. How does this stuff
Speaker 2: change when it's not so easy to leave a job
Speaker 2: just quickly, very quickly.
Speaker 6: You really have to be ready to ride that roller coaster.
Speaker 4: Don't read too much into one emotion that you're feeling,
Speaker 4: and whatever you do. Don't chase a job just because
Speaker 4: of the compensation package that comes along with it. Those
Speaker 4: things go up and down constantly. That shouldn't be your
Speaker 4: primary motivator.
Speaker 2: All right, got to leave it there, Doctor Tessa West,
Speaker 2: professor of psychology at NYU. Her new book Job Therapy,
Speaker 2: Finding Work that works for You. That fan of the
Speaker 2: show also says, you might like your job, but not
Speaker 2: your co host cough cough.
Speaker 7: Wow.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week inside from the reporters and
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Speaker 5: It is Bloomberg Business Week.
Speaker 3: I think it's fair to say, Carol, that a lot
Speaker 3: of consumers experience with the supply chain comes from when
Speaker 3: you can't get something absolutely right. They're like, oh, wait,
Speaker 3: this is going to take eight weeks to get Now,
Speaker 3: I'm interested in supply chains.
Speaker 7: It is.
Speaker 2: We all just assume it just shows up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like during the great supply chain crunch that
Speaker 3: happened during COVID. As we know though, now, supply chains
Speaker 3: are incredibly complex and they're incredibly fragile.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Our next guest wants to modernize a specific part of
Speaker 2: the supply chain, material flow, the moving of raw materials
Speaker 2: and other components before they become things or those things
Speaker 2: that we all love to buy. And that's what he's doing.
Speaker 2: It's all happening at a company known as Maitra.
Speaker 3: It's a startup that's raised seventy eight million dollars. It's
Speaker 3: backed by companies including the food and drug retailer Albertson's.
Speaker 3: Chris Walty is co founder and CEO at Miitra, and
Speaker 3: he joins us from ore again, Chris, welcome. You've got
Speaker 3: a really interesting Yeah, you've got a really interesting career
Speaker 3: so far. Seven years more than seven years at Tesla.
Speaker 3: Before launching Miitra, you worked in mobile robotics. You ultimately
Speaker 3: worked for the humanoid, the Optimus humanoid robot during that time.
Speaker 3: What was the problem that you identified when you were
Speaker 3: at Tesla that you built Miitra to solve.
Speaker 8: Absolutely, yeah, so leading the material flow, specifically to help
Speaker 8: Model three off the production line, as you may have known,
Speaker 8: Elon called it production Hell.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, he was sleeping on the floor of the factory.
Speaker 8: Yes, I think I've tripped over him a few times myself.
Speaker 8: It truly was challenging. It was a multi month, multi
Speaker 8: year effort to really get that spun up. And you know,
Speaker 8: one of the most common activities throughout the process, the
Speaker 8: one that I was ultimately put in charge of because
Speaker 8: as it was falling behind, was simply getting parts to
Speaker 8: the Model three assembly line. Moving and storing material within
Speaker 8: the factory was a huge channel.
Speaker 3: Okay, so wait, wait, so hold on, let me let's
Speaker 3: understand this. Your job was to get the parts they
Speaker 3: would come in from their suppliers or they would be
Speaker 3: fabricated there, and they would be stored in a certain area,
Speaker 3: and your job was to facilitate the transportation of those
Speaker 3: from wherever they were in the factory to the actual
Speaker 3: supply chain where it'd be assembled exactly.
Speaker 8: Yep. Just you know, think pallettes, move it from palettes
Speaker 8: down to cases and tots, breaking those apart, and then
Speaker 8: using things like conveyors and elevators to get them to
Speaker 8: exactly where they needed to be on the line.
Speaker 2: How does this not already happen, Well.
Speaker 8: It happens today in many factories. It happens through a
Speaker 8: lot of manual processes. In fact, forty percent of the
Speaker 8: labor in any manufacturing facility is really just moving things around,
Speaker 8: and that's that number increases to about eighty percent in
Speaker 8: a warehouse, and most of that is done the way
Speaker 8: it was seventy five years ago today through forklifts or
Speaker 8: people moving things manually.
Speaker 3: So what's the way that you can solve this and
Speaker 3: bring this up into the twenty first century?
Speaker 8: Absolutely so. The goal of our company is to develop
Speaker 8: the simplest mechanism possible to do the most amount of work,
Speaker 8: and that is simply moving material up to three thousand pounds.
Speaker 8: And when you think of a factory or warehouse, it's
Speaker 8: a large, volumetric open space. I think everyone's been in
Speaker 8: a costco before, right, you imagine just that lots of
Speaker 8: airspace with racks and palettes and a lot of that
Speaker 8: doesn't really require the sophistication and you know, horsepower of
Speaker 8: a person to do a lot of that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that challenge.
Speaker 3: Amazon bought this company years ago, Kiva Systems, Is it right?
Speaker 3: Are you building something like if that's the image that
Speaker 3: people have in their head of how something moves across
Speaker 3: a warehouse floor, explain in the context of that, like
Speaker 3: use that as the reference point.
Speaker 5: How is your solution different?
Speaker 8: Certainly? Yeah, Kiva's a phenomenal System's really been beneficial to Amazon.
Speaker 8: What Kiva is really good at doing is bringing a
Speaker 8: lot of smaller bins parts to a particular area so
Speaker 8: that someone can pack it and put it in a
Speaker 8: parcel that is sent to probably your doorstep the next day.
Speaker 8: That said, in the supply chain, most of what moves
Speaker 8: around in the supply chain moves around on palletts. You
Speaker 8: look around, everything you see around you has probably been
Speaker 8: on a palette at some point or another. That's not really.
Speaker 8: You know Kiva's bread and butter, it's not really designed
Speaker 8: for what's called parcel fulfillment. Most of the supply chain
Speaker 8: needs palletts. Right our first customer, Albertson's, they run on pallets.
Speaker 8: Most industry runs on palletts. And so that's what we're
Speaker 8: moving around, and we're doing it in an extremely simple
Speaker 8: and efficient way using mobile robots that move in any direction.
Speaker 2: And it seems like your systems in terms of how
Speaker 2: they fit together, it's very simple, right, It's not a
Speaker 2: lot of moving parts to that.
Speaker 8: No, that was what I mean. It almost killed the
Speaker 8: company at Tesla. The amount of moving parts, the amount
Speaker 8: of things you had to plug in, commission, all of
Speaker 8: the motors, all of the sensors. At the scale of
Speaker 8: a warehouse, it's really challenging. And if you want to
Speaker 8: do full automation for these buildings today, that's kind of
Speaker 8: the state of the art. And that was what one
Speaker 8: of our biggest struggles at the company was led a
Speaker 8: team thereafter to try to build mobile robots to solve
Speaker 8: that problem at scale within Tesla, and now we're trying
Speaker 8: to do that for the rest of the industry and
Speaker 8: much more of of a green field approach effectively.
Speaker 2: Chris, you mentioned working with the Albertons. Who else are
Speaker 2: you working with? Give us an idea of kind of
Speaker 2: the different types of companies that you are working with,
Speaker 2: are planning to work with, our hope to work with.
Speaker 8: Certainly well, as I mentioned, every you know, supply chain
Speaker 8: moves runs on pallets. I mean every industry from consumer
Speaker 8: package goods to retail, pharmaceuticals of course, automotive, you know,
Speaker 8: home goods, you know, any of those folks can benefit
Speaker 8: from from our system at some point in their supply chain.
Speaker 8: So the folks that we're working with are you know,
Speaker 8: Fortune one hundred companies that have significant scale to apply
Speaker 8: this throughout their ecosystem.
Speaker 3: What type of investment does a company have to make
Speaker 3: if they want to integrate Mitra into their supply chain.
Speaker 3: Because I'm looking at the website. Carol and I were
Speaker 3: looking at it earlier in the day today as we
Speaker 3: were preparing for this. It's really really cool, but it
Speaker 3: also looks like it's a big investment.
Speaker 8: Sure, and that's one of the biggest challenges, right, I mean,
Speaker 8: if you're a supply chain company and it's challenging to
Speaker 8: know what what does your business. Look like five ten,
Speaker 8: even fifteen years from now, investing in a lot of
Speaker 8: these fixed automation systems like you know we had to
Speaker 8: put in at Tesla could be a bit challenging, and
Speaker 8: so what we've designed is a system that effectively, regardless
Speaker 8: of what your system needs to do five ten years now,
Speaker 8: can flex can change through software. You know, from a
Speaker 8: cost perspective, our north star was, look, you know, ninety
Speaker 8: five percent of these warehouses operate on pallets, pallette racks,
Speaker 8: and forklifts. You know, this has to be as easy
Speaker 8: to install and effectively as cost effective as a pallet
Speaker 8: rack and a forklift. So that is effectively our north star.
Speaker 8: That's what we're driving towards. And you do that through
Speaker 8: a very very simple system orders a magnitude more simple
Speaker 8: than than you know, the kind of fixed automation that's
Speaker 8: out there today. And so that's that's our north star.
Speaker 2: Chris, I want one of these for my basement. Basically,
Speaker 2: no like like you look.
Speaker 3: At how do you get it? How do you do
Speaker 3: you get it to the main floor? You got it.
Speaker 2: But it's this idea of like, you know, what you
Speaker 2: do in a basement with those metal shelvings and you
Speaker 2: try to like capital it's like this on steroids, And
Speaker 2: I understand it's a much more sophisticated system. Having said that,
Speaker 2: I think we're trying to get like what does this
Speaker 2: cost a company to do? And I understand this is
Speaker 2: one of those things that probably over time, but how
Speaker 2: expensive is a system like this?
Speaker 8: Certainly? So you know, when you look at on a
Speaker 8: cost per per pallette position or a cost per per
Speaker 8: palette stored, right, this is you know, our north Stars
Speaker 8: is pretty equivalent to what you would would need to
Speaker 8: spend to outfit your warehouse with you know, call it
Speaker 8: single deep pallete racking, which is I mean today those
Speaker 8: can be you know, one hundred to you know, seven
Speaker 8: hundred dollars a position. It's a pretty wide range and
Speaker 8: a lot of it depends on are you in an
Speaker 8: earthquake zone, are you you know, in an error area
Speaker 8: with hurricanes, et cetera. So it really, you know, the
Speaker 8: vast majority of the fixed infrastructure is just in a
Speaker 8: very simple steel rack. And that's a that's a it's
Speaker 8: a pretty well really it's just the cost of steel. Effectively,
Speaker 8: it's a.
Speaker 5: Pretty cool system, very very cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I highly recommend everybody check it out on
Speaker 2: the website. Well, keep in touch and let us know
Speaker 2: how things are going as you guys, as you continue
Speaker 2: to build it out like fascinating background and certainly interesting
Speaker 2: to see what you guys are up to. Chris, thank
Speaker 2: you so much.
Speaker 3: Chris really appreciate you joining us. Co founder and CEO
Speaker 3: at Miitra joining us from Oregon.
Speaker 2: All right, you're gonna thank us for this segment in
Speaker 2: a big way. Skin cancer, my own family having their
Speaker 2: own scare recently around this, many of my extended family
Speaker 2: have dealt with these concerns. I'm big. I gotta say
Speaker 2: tim on those full body checks. Do it every year.
Speaker 5: I got one on Tuesday morning.
Speaker 3: You did, so we get aware for the summer and
Speaker 3: summer sunning season with us. Is a Shawnee ware Atna,
Speaker 3: Chair of the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department at the
Speaker 3: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The Bloomberg School
Speaker 3: of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University is supported by
Speaker 3: Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropyes,
Speaker 3: a Shawnee welcome. We got lots and lots of questions
Speaker 3: for you, So we're so glad to have you with us.
Speaker 3: What I do want to start with sunscreen, though, because
Speaker 3: we know we're supposed to wear sunscreen every day, regardless
Speaker 3: of how much time we spend outside.
Speaker 5: But one thing I.
Speaker 3: Don't underst stand is is it okay to wear chemical
Speaker 3: sunscreens or should we move completely away from chemical sunscreens
Speaker 3: and instead use sunscreens with metals in them, like zinc.
Speaker 7: That's a great question, and it's a question that a
Speaker 7: lot of people have concerns about. The truth is that
Speaker 7: there's no real evidence showing that the chemical sunscreens are
Speaker 7: dangerous for your health. And what I advise people to
Speaker 7: do is if they are really concerned about it, there
Speaker 7: are so many great lines of upf clothing that are
Speaker 7: available now, including long sleeved T shirts, hats and that
Speaker 7: sort of thing. And as you just mentioned, the zinc
Speaker 7: oxide based sunscreens are fantastic.
Speaker 8: So I don't think.
Speaker 7: There's a need to move away from chemical sunscreens because again,
Speaker 7: there's no hard evidence that they are dangerous. However, I
Speaker 7: do think it's important to have other options.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, certainly the hats and the long sleeves,
Speaker 3: you should see me at the beach. I'm no fun
Speaker 3: to go to the beach with because I just stays.
Speaker 3: I'm or an umbrella and with long sleeves on the
Speaker 3: whole time, and I'm grumpy.
Speaker 8: You can get a gold star from me.
Speaker 3: But you know there are but we do have to
Speaker 3: put some block on our face and on our nose.
Speaker 3: Like do you recommend a zinc sunscreen over a chemical sunscreen?
Speaker 5: And we're not at that point.
Speaker 7: I honestly do not, because I use chemical sunscreens myself
Speaker 7: and on my children, and I don't see a need
Speaker 7: to switch. However, again, if someone is concerned, obviously we
Speaker 7: have great psynchoxide sunscreens.
Speaker 2: What about though, kind of like I'm someone who's embraced
Speaker 2: kind of the more natural or non chemical things. Are
Speaker 2: they they seem to work as well? Do they are? Like,
Speaker 2: what's some advice in terms of how we should pick
Speaker 2: a sunscreen, whether we you know, aren't so worried about
Speaker 2: the chemicals in there, or you know, we go, is
Speaker 2: there some way of kind of filtering through?
Speaker 8: Sure?
Speaker 7: So the most important speaking of filtering, the most important
Speaker 7: thing for a sunscreen is to make sure that it
Speaker 7: is a broad spectrum sunscreen. It needs to be able
Speaker 7: to block both UVA rays and UVB rays. So those
Speaker 7: are two different kinds of UV rays. They penetrate different
Speaker 7: layers of the skin, and it's really really important to
Speaker 7: block both of those. So, wherever you are looking for
Speaker 7: a sunscreen, no matter if it is you know, natural based,
Speaker 7: chemical based, physically based, make sure it says that it's
Speaker 7: a broad spectrum sunscreen. I would also stick with the
Speaker 7: sunscreens that are FDA regulated because you know they are
Speaker 7: safe and they have been tested to do what.
Speaker 2: They're supposed to.
Speaker 5: How do you know if a sunscreen is FDA regulated, it.
Speaker 2: Will usually say it, We'll say it on it. What
Speaker 2: about like you know, SPF ten, SPF thirty, SPF a million,
Speaker 2: Like is there a point where it's just ridiculous?
Speaker 7: Yeah, So actually, you know, we recommend anything that is
Speaker 7: SPF thirty is probably just fine. You'll see SPF fifty,
Speaker 7: SPF seventy. All that means is that you can stay
Speaker 7: out longer in the sun without reapplying. But the truth
Speaker 7: is SPF thirty is probably at this point in time,
Speaker 7: SPF thirty is a completely comfortable SPF factor with which
Speaker 7: to stick if you're interested in it.
Speaker 2: But if you're really fair, like would you go would
Speaker 2: you suggest that you go for a higher SPF?
Speaker 7: So no, because the higher SPF you go, it's not
Speaker 7: a linear increase if you will in protection. So my
Speaker 7: advice would be, rather than go for an SPF seventy
Speaker 7: by an SPF thirty, but reapply more often consistently. We
Speaker 7: suggest that you reapply, especially if you're sweating or swimming,
Speaker 7: at least every eighty to ninety minutes when you're out
Speaker 7: in the sun, which I don't think most people do,
Speaker 7: because I have so many people say oh, we put
Speaker 7: our sunblock on, but we still got burned, And then
Speaker 7: I asked them did you reapply? And often they say no?
Speaker 3: Is what this is a real question. I'm not just
Speaker 3: asking this because this is what I deal with every morning,
Speaker 3: but truly, why is it so difficult to put sunscreen
Speaker 3: on kids? And what are some good strategies to get
Speaker 3: kids not to screen at you when you're trying to
Speaker 3: put sunscreen on.
Speaker 7: The You know, honestly, it is a challenge. I remember
Speaker 7: when my daughter was in kindergarten. I got all the
Speaker 7: kids to the point in her class where they would
Speaker 7: just line up in front of me and I will
Speaker 7: cover them.
Speaker 5: And with son, can you come over tomorrow morning?
Speaker 7: What's that?
Speaker 5: Can you come over tomorrow morning?
Speaker 7: Yeah? Absolutely, I'll be there.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 7: So again with kids, you know, there's these great lines
Speaker 7: of the SPF clothing and that is a lot easier.
Speaker 7: But unfortunately, as with everything, getting them to eat, getting
Speaker 7: them to wear their sunscreen, it's just a struggle. And
Speaker 7: I wish I had a better answer for having said that.
Speaker 2: I actually had a pediatrician who was like, back off
Speaker 2: the sunscreen a little bit because kids were being so
Speaker 2: covered in sunscreen, concerns about was invitamin.
Speaker 5: Okay, I want to hear the answer to this, Yeah, okay, Yeah.
Speaker 7: So the truth is that to get the amount of
Speaker 7: vitamin D that you need for your body to function properly,
Speaker 7: you only need fifteen minutes in sunlight. And often we
Speaker 7: get that fifteen minutes even if we're wearing sunscreen, because
Speaker 7: nobody's going to reapply at the exact second they need
Speaker 7: to reapply, and so if you're out in the sun
Speaker 7: at all, you're getting the sunlight that you need to make.
Speaker 2: The vitamin D.
Speaker 7: So it's a little bit of a flawed argument to
Speaker 7: say don't use sunscreen because you won't get vitamin D.
Speaker 7: More of a concern is don't let your kids sit
Speaker 7: in the basement playing video games because then they definitely
Speaker 7: won't get their vitamin D.
Speaker 2: And I will say the caveat was you know, basically
Speaker 2: put it on when it's like supreme sun hours, like
Speaker 2: the peak hours, but you can you know, there could
Speaker 2: be hours a day where they're not slathered in sunscreen.
Speaker 3: Okay, do Carol and I really have to put on
Speaker 3: do we really have to put on sunblock every single
Speaker 3: morning when we leave our homes to come to the office,
Speaker 3: even in the dead of winter.
Speaker 2: I've got pretty thick makeup on that's not going to
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 7: So I actually have makeup that has an SBA fifteen
Speaker 7: in it and that's what I use.
Speaker 8: And you know, when you're sitting.
Speaker 7: Inside an office all day or as you say, you know,
Speaker 7: we get significant sun exposure, even in the winter. And
Speaker 7: if you are someone who skis, for example, that is
Speaker 7: you actually get a double exposure of the sun because
Speaker 7: if you're on the slopes, the sun bounces off the
Speaker 7: snow and eighty percent of it reflects.
Speaker 2: Back on you.
Speaker 7: So right, and just to your earlier points. The peaks
Speaker 7: and hours are between ten and four.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, good to know. Good to know, Shawnie, thank
Speaker 2: you so much. He's chair of the Biochemistry and Molecular
Speaker 2: Biology Department at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Speaker 5: Shawnee, we are at over.
Speaker 3: The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is supported by
Speaker 3: Michael Our Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP, and Bloomberg Philanthropies.