Speaker 1: Welcome to game Plan, a show about our lives at work.
Speaker 1: I'm Rebecca Greenfield, a reporter at Bloomberg, where I cover
Speaker 1: workplace culture. And I'm Francesca Leavy, editor of the game
Speaker 1: Plan section at Bloomberg dot com. This week, having a
Speaker 1: baby and trying to be good at your job at
Speaker 1: the same time. Later, we'll talk to Jordan's Salcito, who,
Speaker 1: in the middle of studying to be a master somalier,
Speaker 1: a job that involves a lot of wine, found out
Speaker 1: she was pregnant. But first, there's something that Francesca has
Speaker 1: to tell you. Yeah, I guess I have some news,
Speaker 1: something that you might not be able to identify from
Speaker 1: my voice. But I am myself pregnant, and and I'm
Speaker 1: very pregnant, which means that you're leaving us. This is
Speaker 1: the last you'll hear from me for a while. I
Speaker 1: am going on maternity leave pretty soon. In theory, could
Speaker 1: have this baby any day, and we're going to talk
Speaker 1: all about how that makes you feel and that makes
Speaker 1: me feel. Yeah, we're going to make this about me later,
Speaker 1: but first, there is a broader context and a reason
Speaker 1: to talk about this, Like it feels to me that
Speaker 1: this has been the year where parental leave policies blew
Speaker 1: up as a political issue and gender equality issue and
Speaker 1: really got talked about and examined in a bigger way
Speaker 1: than before. You know, we hear all about how the
Speaker 1: US falls way behind other developed countries in its protections
Speaker 1: for pregnant women and also the benefits offered to pregnant
Speaker 1: women by private companies. But there have also been a
Speaker 1: lot of strides toward fixing that deficit, both in a
Speaker 1: policy way and companies. San Francisco passed a fully paid
Speaker 1: printal leave law, and New York State also passed a
Speaker 1: family leave law, two things that were pretty groundbreaking, which yeah,
Speaker 1: is sad and and myself, but great for lots and
Speaker 1: lots of parents and companies. Private companies have also been
Speaker 1: certainly in competitive industries, typically white collar industries, private companies
Speaker 1: have been trying to do more to address the issue
Speaker 1: of how crappy benefits tend to be for and dads.
Speaker 1: There's this kind of arms race that's happening. Uh it
Speaker 1: is to just hire more people and keep them to
Speaker 1: stay your company. But it has a great effect that
Speaker 1: lots of big tech companies in particular have added parental
Speaker 1: leave policies. Right, So it's been a it's been a
Speaker 1: pretty good year for acknowledging this problem in a lot
Speaker 1: of companies and municipalities and governments kind of taking steps
Speaker 1: to address it. But there's also another level to this.
Speaker 1: It isn't enough necessarily to offer better benefits or better
Speaker 1: job protections. There are two articles recently that shed a
Speaker 1: lot of light on this subject for me in moving
Speaker 1: it past just sort of offering people more time, and
Speaker 1: one of them is actually one that you wrote on
Speaker 1: paternity leave policies and how men, even when offered generous
Speaker 1: leave policies, are reluctant to take them. Yeah, so one
Speaker 1: big effect of giving men time off is to even
Speaker 1: out the gender wage gap, and that the career penalty
Speaker 1: that women get for taking time off to take care
Speaker 1: of kids or having kids. Because if women are taking
Speaker 1: time off, if moms are taking time off, but dad's
Speaker 1: are just carrying on working for most of the time
Speaker 1: that they're infant, children are born, it's obviously going to
Speaker 1: take a toll on one another. And they're all sorts
Speaker 1: of effects that that has. So a lot of companies
Speaker 1: are giving men time off to hope to even that out.
Speaker 1: But this survey found that men are scared of taking
Speaker 1: time off because they're worried that it will hurt their
Speaker 1: careers bingo, which is exactly the point. But yeah, it
Speaker 1: sounds counterintuitive, but it's like, right, everybody should get the
Speaker 1: same penalty. Yeah, it's suppose you need to be out
Speaker 1: of the workforce to take care of your kids, just
Speaker 1: like a woman, right, But they don't want to, and
Speaker 1: they're correctly identifying that probably their careers will suffer, which
Speaker 1: is something that primary caregivers have known for a while.
Speaker 1: But they can't necessarily opt out. Someone's got to change
Speaker 1: the Yeah, so it is unfortunate. And another story that
Speaker 1: really helped me see this in a different light was
Speaker 1: one that was published in The New York Times not
Speaker 1: too long ago that pointed to a shift in academia
Speaker 1: and how academic institutions address the parenthood penalty. That you
Speaker 1: have a limited amount of time to obtain tenure at
Speaker 1: a certain point in your academic career once a clock
Speaker 1: starts ticking. I think it's like seven years, and obviously
Speaker 1: parenting a child would cut into that. So this study
Speaker 1: that the Times reported on looked at policies that try
Speaker 1: to address that by adding a year of extra time
Speaker 1: per child, and the findings from the study where that
Speaker 1: that extra year per child actually benefited men their rates
Speaker 1: of tenure went up, but not women. Their rates of
Speaker 1: tenure actually went down. Yeah. One of the researchers said
Speaker 1: she knew that that wasn't working, but that she was
Speaker 1: shocked at how much a penalized women. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: this unintended consequence of a gender neutral policy. And one
Speaker 1: of the theories was that men were using this time
Speaker 1: to just publish a lot more and get a lot
Speaker 1: more done towards obtaining tenure, and women were not necessarily
Speaker 1: doing that. And you can infer from that that they
Speaker 1: were using that time to spend more time with their
Speaker 1: families and take on more parenting duties. Yeah. And one
Speaker 1: of the professors said something that I think was kind
Speaker 1: of controversial, and she said that giving birth is an
Speaker 1: agenda or neutral event. You know, she was throwing up
Speaker 1: all the time, and her male colleagues were getting the
Speaker 1: same time off when they weren't having those experiences, right,
Speaker 1: And I don't want to advocate for men getting less
Speaker 1: time off, but it really isn't interesting how to think
Speaker 1: about how we deal with the different ways that being
Speaker 1: pregnant and having a child has an impact on men
Speaker 1: and women. Giving people more time off isn't gonna isn't
Speaker 1: going to shift that right away. And one thing I
Speaker 1: think is really interesting is we spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time talking about the period after you have the baby.
Speaker 1: Rightly so, because we need to fix all of the
Speaker 1: policies where people don't get enough time to raise their
Speaker 1: infant child and keep their jobs intact. But pregnancy itself
Speaker 1: is something that has an impact on your job performance.
Speaker 1: And it's kind of controversial to say it, but I
Speaker 1: know that that's certainly true for me. I mean, you
Speaker 1: are going to be sick and in discomfort for the
Speaker 1: better part of a year, and you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I certainly remember my first time MR. The period where
Speaker 1: you get the sickest in pregnancy is ironically at the
Speaker 1: same time where you tend to not be telling people
Speaker 1: that you're pregnant, so you look at best, you're sort
Speaker 1: of mysteriously absent a lot of the time, and you know,
Speaker 1: at worst your your green and wretching every day, and
Speaker 1: you feel better as you're underling. I didn't I didn't notice,
Speaker 1: I didn't I didn't think that you weren't performing, but
Speaker 1: it does seem very impossible and difficult. It's I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, even in the even in the ideal pregnancy,
Speaker 1: not everybody gets sick during pregnancy. And so even in
Speaker 1: these magical unicorn pregnancies where nothing goes wrong and you
Speaker 1: feel fine the whole time, you're still going to have
Speaker 1: more document doctor's appointments than you would normally. You're just
Speaker 1: going to have more things to attend to in your
Speaker 1: life than you normally would. And it's almost scary to
Speaker 1: say it in a recording, but being pregnant has affected
Speaker 1: my job performance. I'm not able to work at certainly
Speaker 1: not at the stage of pregnancy that I'm in now,
Speaker 1: and there there aren't really any systems or allowances in
Speaker 1: place to to acknowledge that. And also, as a pregnant person,
Speaker 1: you're very almost defensive about being treated any differently because, yeah,
Speaker 1: because you don't want to be. And we grew up
Speaker 1: in a time, or at least I did, when we
Speaker 1: heard that, you know, men and women are equal and
Speaker 1: you can you can't raise a family and have a
Speaker 1: kid and you can do it all. There's no difference. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there is, But I think that this is a good
Speaker 1: time to introduce our guest, Jordan's Salcito, who had a
Speaker 1: job that was very diametrically opposed to what we think
Speaker 1: of as being a pregnant person. Yeah, I mean her
Speaker 1: job is a big part of her job is tasting
Speaker 1: wine and her life's pursuit of becoming a master somlier,
Speaker 1: and that is just about the most stigmatized thing you
Speaker 1: can do during pregnancy, short of having a job as
Speaker 1: a professional cigarettes poker. Our guest, Jordan's not only is
Speaker 1: the beverage director at Mama Fuku and founded her own
Speaker 1: wine company, but studying to become a Master smalier is
Speaker 1: a demanding and rare qualification that requires ten exams and
Speaker 1: multiple years of preparation. Thanks for being here, in Jordan's
Speaker 1: thanks so much for having me him honored to be here.
Speaker 1: So you're obviously really ambitious, really successful, and on this
Speaker 1: very difficult career path. At what stage in your career
Speaker 1: do you feel like you were when you got pregnant? Okay,
Speaker 1: So I found out I was pregnant just a few
Speaker 1: days after not getting my Master similier accreditation. I had
Speaker 1: just so that final exam is made up of three exams,
Speaker 1: a service portion, a theory portion, which is like a
Speaker 1: hundred questions about anything relating to wine anywhere in the world,
Speaker 1: and then the blind tasting exam. And I had passed
Speaker 1: the blind tasting exam, and I had passed the theory exam,
Speaker 1: and I missed the service exam by a few points.
Speaker 1: So I was really sort of sad about that, and
Speaker 1: I was thinking to myself, Oh, it's really too bad
Speaker 1: because now I can't get pregnant. I need to pass
Speaker 1: this exam before I do that. And then lo and behold,
Speaker 1: I was six weeks pregnant at that time. And were
Speaker 1: you worried about how it was going to affect the
Speaker 1: coming Yeah, I was, because I think one thing. When
Speaker 1: I first found out, my first thought was like, oh, dear,
Speaker 1: this is not good timing. Did you have to delay
Speaker 1: your studying for this Master's Masters smally and all? Did
Speaker 1: it change your trajectory? It did this past year because
Speaker 1: the exam is only offered once a year, so I reset,
Speaker 1: you get three years to pass all three parts, and
Speaker 1: everyone I know thinks that they're going to like knock
Speaker 1: it out right away. And then you go in and
Speaker 1: it's some things are in your control, and some things
Speaker 1: are not in your control. So you know, three years ago,
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, great, you know, I'm going to
Speaker 1: study really hard and I'm going to focus really like
Speaker 1: singularly on this, and I have three years to knock
Speaker 1: it out, no problem, And it's really a humbling experience
Speaker 1: in the best way. And what I found, I truly
Speaker 1: do believe this. I remember like driving back from Aspen
Speaker 1: to Denver, where my family is. Um the exam is
Speaker 1: offered in Aspen every year and that's the only place,
Speaker 1: so it's on that drive back and I could obviously
Speaker 1: sad that I had not passed, and I had not
Speaker 1: passed because of one table in one part of the exam,
Speaker 1: So if he had gone like a few points to
Speaker 1: the other direction, then I would have passed. And I
Speaker 1: was thinking about it and I was obviously disappointed. But
Speaker 1: then the flip side is like, Okay, you know, this
Speaker 1: is like a community that all understands how hard it
Speaker 1: is to sort of even just be there and show up,
Speaker 1: and you make these friendships that are very they're very genuine,
Speaker 1: and they're very real, even though you know these people
Speaker 1: for like fewer hours or a short like because you
Speaker 1: sort of have this common experience and you're all in
Speaker 1: the trenches together. So even though like there were um
Speaker 1: there were two women that I studied with and actually
Speaker 1: another guy as well, like the day before the exam,
Speaker 1: and we decided we were going to do this thing,
Speaker 1: which was successful and enabled me to pass the theory part.
Speaker 1: But you basically like hold yourself up in a room
Speaker 1: and you just go through the world of wine, and
Speaker 1: like everyone asks ten questions in that way, Like you know,
Speaker 1: there were like certain questions that I wouldn't have remembered
Speaker 1: to study, but they had come up in this conversation.
Speaker 1: And I know that some of the things that I
Speaker 1: had had in my log book came up and those
Speaker 1: ended up on the exam. So and we should say
Speaker 1: about that bond that you form with this like small
Speaker 1: group of people that's doing the same thing as you.
Speaker 1: It is a really small group of people, right, Like
Speaker 1: there are only a couple of hundred Master Simmons in
Speaker 1: the world, yes, exactly, and I want to say it's
Speaker 1: like a hundred and seventy or something. In the US
Speaker 1: there are a hundred. And then more shockingly, there are
Speaker 1: only twenty three women women, which I wanted to ask
Speaker 1: you about you're kind of on this path, and you
Speaker 1: said you mentioned this community, But I wonder how much
Speaker 1: that community thinks about someone might get pregnant in the
Speaker 1: middle of this journey. It's so interesting. So when I
Speaker 1: found out that I was, I don't think that there.
Speaker 1: I think I might have been the first person to
Speaker 1: put in a request. My thought was, Okay, while I'm pregnant,
Speaker 1: that's going it's going to be easier to study and
Speaker 1: take this exam if I'm pregnant as opposed to if
Speaker 1: I am taking care of a small child. So there's
Speaker 1: also an exam in London. So I did ask the
Speaker 1: court if they would be open to me taking the
Speaker 1: exam in London. The court is the Court of Master
Speaker 1: som I love that too. I just imagine you bowing
Speaker 1: before the court homecoming like a long road. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of tradition in there. But I asked
Speaker 1: if I could take it in London, and I guess
Speaker 1: it was determined that that would maybe put me at
Speaker 1: an unfair advantage, so I was not granted that request. Um,
Speaker 1: that's kind of funny. They're worried about putting it an
Speaker 1: unfair advantage when you're at maybe a theoretically huge disadvantage.
Speaker 1: That was, what would the advantage that you could take
Speaker 1: it sooner? That you could take it sooner exactly, And
Speaker 1: and there is that it vantage. I think the counter
Speaker 1: argument as well, you know, you're also not sleeping as
Speaker 1: much and you can't keep any down. Yeah, and you're
Speaker 1: about to prepare for like the most physically and emotionally
Speaker 1: traumatic moment of your life. So there's there's also all
Speaker 1: mail no, no, no, it's not there are there are
Speaker 1: the twenty three women in the US gun Court, and
Speaker 1: there I think of a handful also from the London
Speaker 1: branch um, but there are far fewer women to be sure,
Speaker 1: as you just mentioned. And then the other option was
Speaker 1: to take it in this year when it was offered again.
Speaker 1: So the way that now they've restructured it a little bit,
Speaker 1: and the way that the exam is organized as everyone
Speaker 1: has the opportunity to take the first part of the exam,
Speaker 1: which is the theory part now, So whereas before you
Speaker 1: could sort of take them all through at the same
Speaker 1: time and pass in whatever order you wanted to pass,
Speaker 1: now you have to sort of get through the gates
Speaker 1: of theory and it's an insanely intense exam. So what
Speaker 1: I did before the like, before that day of being
Speaker 1: old up with the three other people, I spent the
Speaker 1: week beforehand completely by myself. I went to my parents house.
Speaker 1: I have a house in the mountains in Colorado, and
Speaker 1: I was the only one there, no no anyone else,
Speaker 1: And I just studied for that entire week. And it
Speaker 1: was like, it's things that you're already studying the whole
Speaker 1: year before that and the year before that too, but
Speaker 1: it's just there's so much and everything is fair game.
Speaker 1: So I found it very helpful for me to just
Speaker 1: sort of like focus entirely on that. And then I
Speaker 1: had this vision that I would take that theory exam
Speaker 1: this year when and Henry, my son, who is now
Speaker 1: four and a half months, he was four and a
Speaker 1: half weeks at the time, and in my mind, um,
Speaker 1: I was sort of like, oh, that's no problem, Like
Speaker 1: baby sleep a lot, it's not going to be a
Speaker 1: big deal. I'll just like hop on a plane and
Speaker 1: maybe I'll bring him and maybe I won't, And then
Speaker 1: of course you get to sort of that was like
Speaker 1: an unrealistic idea in my in my head, I think
Speaker 1: it would have been one thing if I had a
Speaker 1: private jet and could have that by myself. But ye,
Speaker 1: and maybe a team of helpers. Is somebody who did
Speaker 1: not have a private jet or a team of helpers,
Speaker 1: then then it just and also it just didn't seem
Speaker 1: like it made any sense. It was sort of like,
Speaker 1: why would I do that and put this tiny baby, Like,
Speaker 1: either I leave the baby at home, and I'm the
Speaker 1: way that this baby gets fed, and so like do
Speaker 1: I want to really and and also those four weeks
Speaker 1: leading up to the exam, I really like it was
Speaker 1: simply not my highest priority. It was sort of like
Speaker 1: you immediately have this this tiny little being who depends
Speaker 1: on who was a hundred percent dependent on me for survival.
Speaker 1: So you've delayed, You've delayed it. Now delayed it now? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I will wait until next year? Yeah, because you
Speaker 1: only have one. There's only one time every year that
Speaker 1: it's offered. I think it's so important when you say,
Speaker 1: like I'm the way the baby gets fed, and that
Speaker 1: your priorities automatically shift and there's not much you have
Speaker 1: to do with it. Because one of the cultural issues
Speaker 1: that women tend to wrestle with around maternity leave is
Speaker 1: that your colleagues kind of think you're on vacation when
Speaker 1: you're not there, and all they're really aware of is
Speaker 1: that you're not there. And no amount of human resources
Speaker 1: trainings can really train people to understand that there's a
Speaker 1: reason you can't take their emails and you can't even
Speaker 1: really prioritize work questions over this human being you're trying
Speaker 1: to keep alively totally. And I think what I what
Speaker 1: I believe is that anyone who has a child is
Speaker 1: immediately empathetic, and anyone who hasn't had a child, but
Speaker 1: at some point in the future will will then get
Speaker 1: it immediately. You know. The thing that I was worried
Speaker 1: about it was sort of like, what what if I
Speaker 1: stopped caring about all the things that I care about now?
Speaker 1: Like what if I, like, I know, I'm going to
Speaker 1: prioritize this baby because I'm biologically programmed to do that,
Speaker 1: but what about all of these things that I've cared
Speaker 1: about up to this point. Or That's exactly what I'm
Speaker 1: going through right nowtally. And the best analogy that I
Speaker 1: heard was that it's like discovering a room in your
Speaker 1: house that's your new favorite room. So it's like your house.
Speaker 1: It's not like you have to move houses and downgrade
Speaker 1: houses or that like your house goes to pieces or disarray.
Speaker 1: It's that you just have this new discovery and you
Speaker 1: sort of love spending time in that room. And I
Speaker 1: love that. Yeah, So I want to talk about that
Speaker 1: time for you, the time when you're pregnant, because we
Speaker 1: often talk about having kids in the workplace after the
Speaker 1: kid is born, but pregnancy is also a big part
Speaker 1: of that. And your job being someone who not only
Speaker 1: is studying to be a master smell a but beverage
Speaker 1: director and you have a wine company. Alcohol is a
Speaker 1: part of your life. So how how did you deal
Speaker 1: with that at the time? Such a good question. Okay,
Speaker 1: So for me, I guess the first thing I did
Speaker 1: is I wanted to read all the studies. I think
Speaker 1: up until you're drinking something crazy like five drinks a day,
Speaker 1: there's actually no impact on intellect or i Q or
Speaker 1: behavioral problems. For me, I simply lost my appetite for it,
Speaker 1: so I didn't enjoy drinking. How Ever, the other piece
Speaker 1: totally totally, And the thing about it is that that's
Speaker 1: that is tasting and tasting. So the other like one
Speaker 1: of the hormones that kicks in is this ability to
Speaker 1: like smell things very intensely. And it's inconvenient at times
Speaker 1: because you just sort of smell things, especially in New
Speaker 1: York where it totally oh my goodness and like the subway. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was, yes, But from an analytical standpoint, it was
Speaker 1: just as easy to analyze wine or like and make
Speaker 1: decisions about beverages. For the program, You're lucky you kind
Speaker 1: of had this superpower. I I was lucky. I was lucky.
Speaker 1: I mean, and I think, like the thing to remember
Speaker 1: and this is, like, I guess if anyone out here
Speaker 1: is pregnant and doesn't know this, the thing that I learned.
Speaker 1: It was at twenty six weeks and I ended up
Speaker 1: in the hospital for premature contractions that were not Brexton Hicks,
Speaker 1: but dehydration is the number one cause of premature labor.
Speaker 1: So just drink a lot of water. And I started
Speaker 1: drinking a lot more water and tons of coconut water
Speaker 1: and all that after I learned that. So we're talking
Speaker 1: a little bit about the biological things that happened and
Speaker 1: how that affected your job. But then there's the cultural side,
Speaker 1: and we've been talking about the stigma of being pregnant drinking,
Speaker 1: So did that affect you at all? That was so
Speaker 1: present in my mind. I was really very very nervous
Speaker 1: about that, and and I have to say it was
Speaker 1: so much easier than I was thinking it would be.
Speaker 1: Everyone has a different pregnancy, for sure, but I found
Speaker 1: that I had energy up until the last like and
Speaker 1: you know, I think some people show differently than others,
Speaker 1: And I found I was up through six and a
Speaker 1: half months able to sort of hide, like just with
Speaker 1: really baggy clothing or which it's unfortunate that you have
Speaker 1: to do, but it was, Yeah, I mean part of
Speaker 1: me was like, you would be way more badass if
Speaker 1: you didn't feel like you had to do that. But
Speaker 1: I remember there was a great tasting with Dances Robinson.
Speaker 1: She came to down a guy named Levy Dalton organized
Speaker 1: a few similias and Dances was there and I didn't
Speaker 1: want the conversation to be about pregnancy because I felt like,
Speaker 1: that's not like me being pregnant. It's not an illness
Speaker 1: and it didn't impact my brain and you know, I
Speaker 1: was still able to think in the same way and
Speaker 1: make the same sort of decision. Sounds like for you,
Speaker 1: and in the end, being pregnant it helped you. It
Speaker 1: did because it gave me this sort of like understanding
Speaker 1: that it's not I was. I had a lot of
Speaker 1: fear surrounding it, and in my reality was that my
Speaker 1: bosses were very supportive, my team was very supportive. Some
Speaker 1: of the team are women and some of the team
Speaker 1: are men. Um We as women are charged with making
Speaker 1: up the workforce and repopulating it. So there needs to
Speaker 1: be understanding and there needs to be empathy and um
Speaker 1: and maternity leave is critical for that. I want to
Speaker 1: just thank you so much for coming on and talking
Speaker 1: to us, and this is really really interesting. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. Jordan brought up a lot of really interesting
Speaker 1: points about being pregnant and having a baby all while
Speaker 1: being an ambitious working person. But we've delayed the inevitable
Speaker 1: for long enough. It's time for the host handoff. We
Speaker 1: have Sam Grobart here with us. He's a writer of
Speaker 1: Business Week, and we'll be taking over for Francesca as
Speaker 1: the game Plan co host while she's gone on maternity leave.
Speaker 1: Hey Sam, Hello, Hi Sam, So what do you believe
Speaker 1: your qualifications are for this job? I'm a native English speaker.
Speaker 1: I've been working also for many years. That's a really
Speaker 1: big one that I was hoping. You might say having
Speaker 1: a job is key to talking about having a job.
Speaker 1: I've actually had many jobs. I think this is maybe
Speaker 1: my tenth in twenty years of working. Well, how does
Speaker 1: it feel to be stealing my job? Great? Spectacular? Do
Speaker 1: you get to come into something that's more formed than
Speaker 1: it would have been if you were starting from the beginning.
Speaker 1: I know you guys have done all the heavy lift thing,
Speaker 1: and I just kind of get to come in and coast,
Speaker 1: which is fantastic. So I thank you for laying the
Speaker 1: foundation upon which I will just sort of leisurely rest.
Speaker 1: What does it feel like to be taking over for
Speaker 1: somebody who's it going on maternity leave? Does it feel
Speaker 1: like anything? I do feel an obligation and an understanding
Speaker 1: that you will be returning, and so my feelings are
Speaker 1: to be more of a caretaker of this, an active one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's dynamic and clever one, but yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: it's it's a fix. Grateful if you were not better
Speaker 1: at this than I am, I have no doubt, but
Speaker 1: I kind of want you to be good at it,
Speaker 1: you know, like I want some guy in, But how
Speaker 1: good is the question, because if I get to be
Speaker 1: you know, I don't. I don't want it all about Eva.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to like muscle you out. Okay, So
Speaker 1: we're all joking because Sam's great, and Sam has lots
Speaker 1: of other stuff to do that is probably more important
Speaker 1: than trying to steal my job. So um, we're sort
Speaker 1: of making the scenario. But it's a really good example
Speaker 1: of the way that people, myself especially actually do feel
Speaker 1: about maternity leave. There's so many complicating interests. You know.
Speaker 1: There's me wanting all of the work that I've done
Speaker 1: to be maintained and maintained well and be in good shape.
Speaker 1: And the projects that I'm proud of and feel close to,
Speaker 1: I want them to go well. But then it's like
Speaker 1: I don't want them to go to well because I
Speaker 1: want people to want to feel relevant and I want
Speaker 1: people to miss the work that I did. And then
Speaker 1: for people who are I mean, I have a few
Speaker 1: My job has a few different aspects. Doing this podcast
Speaker 1: is one of them, but editing stories and doing various
Speaker 1: other things, those are all being taken over by other people.
Speaker 1: And for those people, you know, some of them may
Speaker 1: end up in kind of a bind because they will
Speaker 1: be expanding their responsibilities and then maybe having to narrow
Speaker 1: them again, you know a few months down the line
Speaker 1: when I come back, and they may not might not
Speaker 1: like that. So it's it's a it's a weird time
Speaker 1: for everyone. Have you done anything, either with this project
Speaker 1: or other work, thank to ensure that when you come back,
Speaker 1: someone will not have taken over for you, like sabotaged,
Speaker 1: like hidden, hidden, little detonating computer viruses and files security power. No,
Speaker 1: I've actually, I've actually felt a really strong obligation to
Speaker 1: try to shore up everything I can about what needs
Speaker 1: to be done and make sure that it gets done properly,
Speaker 1: because I'm I'm really nervous about things falling apart when
Speaker 1: I go. But then that sounds like I'm so important, right,
Speaker 1: Like nothing's gonna fall apart. Everything will be fine. Do
Speaker 1: you think that you'll miss the day to day of work?
Speaker 1: Do you think you're that kind of teacher? Mom? I've
Speaker 1: never not worked for I mean, okay, I'm not going
Speaker 1: on vacation, so I shouldn't say not worked, But I've
Speaker 1: never gone that long without having a formal job. But
Speaker 1: I think my schedule will be dictated by this child.
Speaker 1: So in that way, I won't have like I'll have
Speaker 1: a lot of things I'm going to have to do.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Am I gonna miss taking the subway intour?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm I'm gonna miss being around other
Speaker 1: adults and talking about news and thinking about stories and
Speaker 1: having a purpose outside of being a milk vending machine
Speaker 1: for a tiny human being. Sam, are you worried about
Speaker 1: getting a too attached to game plan? It's really I know,
Speaker 1: I know. I am hopeful that in the best possible scenario,
Speaker 1: that I love doing this and everything is wonderful and great,
Speaker 1: and Francesca comes back and resumes her rightful place here,
Speaker 1: and that you'll have me back from time to time,
Speaker 1: maybe a sort of a frequent guest pinchedder co host
Speaker 1: at the neighbor in the sitcom who comes in, you know,
Speaker 1: and everybody goes, oh, yeah, yeah, that Well, I'm really
Speaker 1: looking forward to that, and we'll miss you very much, Francesca.
Speaker 1: I can't wait all miss you guys a ton, and
Speaker 1: I can't wait to listen to the Sam grow Art period.
Speaker 1: Getting ready. This has been another episode of game Plan.
Speaker 1: You can check me out on Twitter. I'm at RZ Greenfield.
Speaker 1: I'm at Francesca today. If it even matters, it does matter.
Speaker 1: But in the meantime you can find me at sam
Speaker 1: Grobard And if you want to check out Jordan's Salceto's
Speaker 1: project Bellas Wines, head to bellas Wines dot com. See
Speaker 1: you next week. Unless you're Francisca by maybe we can
Speaker 1: have your baby on. You know, I don't know how
Speaker 1: much you'll have to say, but we'll see. Sorry, you
Speaker 1: can just got that. I'll take us out