WEBVTT - The Career Path Is (And Has Always Been) a Lie 0:00:10.920 --> 0:00:13.440 Welcome to game Plan, a show about our lives at work. 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:16.680 I'm Rebecca Greenfield, a reporter for Bloomberg, where I cover 0:00:16.800 --> 0:00:20.000 workplace culture, and I'm Francesco Leady, editor of the game 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:24.040 Plan section at Bloomberg dot com. Today we're talking career paths. Later, 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:27.200 we'll talk to Mary Norris, also known as the Comma Queen. 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:29.600 Mary's a copy editor at The New Yorker with a 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:32.519 cult following. She'll tell us about her unlikely path to 0:00:32.560 --> 0:00:34.720 The New Yorker and the places her job has taken 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:37.600 her since. But first, let's talk about the state of 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:41.000 the career path today. So this idea of getting a 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:43.600 job straight out of college and staying with the same 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:46.159 company until you get a gold watch and cash and 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:49.640 that pension. Nobody does that anymore, No, not real. So over, 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:52.080 I don't know anybody doing that. I don't even know 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:54.920 what a gold watch looks like. What's a watch? I 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:57.760 just use my phone to tell the time. So, yeah, millennials, 0:00:57.920 --> 0:01:01.040 young people, they're not doing this at all. That's the 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:04.160 received wisdom, that's what we read ad nauseam, is that 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:08.440 millennials are not catching up to previous generations in terms 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:10.480 of how fast they're getting their careers on track. But 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:12.880 we're gonna kind of interrogate that a little bit, I think, 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:16.280 because I feel like that's rooted in some misconceptions. Yeah, 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:18.320 so it's really easy to just think of the Lena 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:22.120 Dunham character on Girls, who is entitled and does what 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:26.000 they want and doesn't want to follow this notion of 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:28.840 kind of getting on track. But I think in reality, 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:32.200 for a lot of young people, it's not something that's 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:35.640 as much in their control as we would like to think. Right, 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:39.959 It's not necessarily a trait of millennials personalities that's making 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:42.280 them make the choices that they make. There are a 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:46.520 lot of external factors, like the difficulty in buying a 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:49.960 home being settled with student debt. Yes, student debt is 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:52.960 I think one of the biggest issues young people face 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:57.320 just unprecedented, did not exist before, and I think that 0:01:57.560 --> 0:01:59.960 changes the way you think about your career. It's definitely 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:03.480 only a reason people live at home. I've interviewed people 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:07.080 just out of school who have decent jobs and are 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:10.160 just saving the rent money because that rent money can 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:13.760 go straight back to their student debt payment. And the 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:18.840 idea that millennials have no company loyalty and don't sort 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:21.760 of lock themselves into a career early and then work 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:24.959 their way up in a company. Is a little more 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:27.840 complicated than it seems at first to write like this 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:31.720 isn't strictly a millennial thing. No, young people hop around. 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:35.639 They've always hopped around. I found a pretty interesting number 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:38.520 from a Times article about ten years ago that said 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:43.600 boomers had ten and a half jobs between baby boomers 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:47.440 between the ages eighteen and forty. Young people are just 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:50.680 figuring out what they want to do, right, So we're 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:53.320 also jumping around from a job is the best way 0:02:53.440 --> 0:02:57.399 to make more money. Annual raises especially now just don't 0:02:57.400 --> 0:03:00.440 cut it. You have to get a promotion or move up, right, 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:03.280 So like finding a new job is the best way 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:06.320 to cement salary increases, and so it's actually can be 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:09.520 a smart career choice. And what you're saying is that 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:13.000 people have always operated this way when they're young. They've 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:15.440 moved from job to job. It's not some sudden shift 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:17.760 in the way young people think about the value of work. 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:21.720 The other thing that has changed is the sort of 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:27.240 implied social contract between businesses and their employees. So there 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:30.880 was a really interesting story on NPRS marketplace about the 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:35.040 rise of the idea of shareholder value and the economist 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:39.840 Milton Friedman's ideas that companies should think more about profits 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:44.880 than either doing good in the world or doing right 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:47.680 by the people that work for them, And what it 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:50.720 led to was a huge soaring stock market in the 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:54.760 eighties in the seventies and eighties, as companies trim their 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:58.320 expenses and restructured and became a little bit more ruthless 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:02.000 about providing value sharehold there's and meeting analysts estimates every quarter. 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:05.080 But it also led to things like the demise of 0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:10.840 pension plans and the sort of withering away of employee benefits, 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:13.840 and the kind of general sense that that you had 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:16.720 job security if you went to a company and did 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:19.240 a good job and worked your way up through the ranks. 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:23.200 So it's almost like companies started this, like they were 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:26.400 the ones that changed the deal. And it feels a 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:29.560 little unfair to blame millennials or young people for not 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:32.040 keeping up their end of the bargain by being loyal 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:37.320 to companies. Yeah, I mean, I really think that I 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:39.239 don't get the idea of being loyal to your company 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:42.480 at all. I think that people should work hard, and 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:44.760 should do the jobs that they're hired for, and should 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:48.479 try not to screw people over. But we're almost brainwashed 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:50.800 into this idea that you're doing something wrong if you 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:53.760 act in your own interests by taking another job that 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:57.599 pays better and gives you better opportunities. Whereas, like who said, 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:00.000 your company can't fire you any time they want from 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:03.880 most anything. Yeah, companies have shifted to this buzzy word 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:08.200 of the culture, so like you have these relationships with 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:11.120 your coworkers and you feel a sense of belonging, like 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:13.520 that's a reason to stick around, which is a pretty 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:18.040 lousy replacement for financial security when you're old, right, And coincidentally, 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:20.479 it's a lot cheaper for companies to instill a sense 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:23.480 of corporate culture than it is to invest in your 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:27.200 retirement income. Right. And we've seen the rise of empty 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:30.680 ish perks as a way to keep and attract employees, 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:33.760 which I guess they work in a sense, but obviously 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:36.640 not that well because people are jumping around. We've been 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:40.240 talking about sort of the difference between finding a career 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:42.440 path and settling into it early and then just kind 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:45.880 of doggedly working your way up the ladder. And sort 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:49.240 of floating around aimlessly like a typical millennial, and just 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:52.920 making decisions based on your whims or what what sparks 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:55.680 your soul. And it might be a good time to 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:58.840 talk about our guests career path. So our guest has 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:02.080 had the following jobs. She was a key girl at 0:06:02.080 --> 0:06:05.400 a public pool. She was a cashier at a costume shop. 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:08.359 She drove a milk chuck for a dairy farm. She 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:12.000 was a cheese factory worker, dishwasher, and worked the register 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:14.520 to a department store. So she had a lot of 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:17.960 jobs before now being a copy editor. What a classic 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:22.360 aimless millennial. Actually. Mary Norris has been with The New 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:27.480 Yorker since. She's not only a copy editor, but she's 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:30.880 something of a grammar celebrity. She wrote a best seller 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:33.520 Between You and Me, Confessions of a Comic Queen, and 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:37.240 hosts the popular web series also called Commic Queen, where 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:44.200 each week she dives into our favorite grammar questions. We're 0:06:44.200 --> 0:06:47.120 going to start out by addressing the all important question 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:50.920 of the serial comma. The serial comma, also known as 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:55.240 the Oxford comma, is the common before and in a 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:58.760 series of three or more, there's a famous one. We 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:03.839 invited the stripper jf K and Stalin. If it were 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:08.240 we invited the strippers Comma, JFK, Comma and Stalin, then 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:12.240 you wouldn't mistake JFK and Stalin for strippers. So if 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:14.760 you don't want to use the serial Comma, save it 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:17.440 for some time when it really means something, when it 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:24.960 really makes a difference. Okay, Mary, thanks so much for 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:28.000 coming on our show today. Pleasure to be here. So, 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:30.840 before you got to the New Yorker, where you've been 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:34.280 for some time, we talked about some of your early jobs. 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:36.480 Why don't you tell us about some of those in 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:41.040 your experience before settling in Well, my very first job 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:44.800 ever was checking feet. Had a public pool in Cleveland. 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:48.000 We've had this tradition in Cleveland. I think a lot 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:51.120 of great lake cities did have it where you had 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:54.920 to use this bench and um put one foot at 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:58.160 a time upon this foot shaped platform and use your 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:01.200 fingers to spread out your toes and what you were doing. 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:04.120 What I was doing was making sure no one got 0:08:04.160 --> 0:08:07.440 into the pool who had athletes foot. We were trying 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:10.440 to stem the spread of athletes foot in the city 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:13.400 of Cleveland. This doesn't sound like a job that you 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:17.360 were led to by your passion for stemming athletes foot 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:20.480 your passion feet. I did not have a foot fetish, 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:24.360 and it was not what you'd call a career move right. 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:26.320 I was fifteen and a half and I just wanted 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:29.560 some spending money, you know, a teenager wants that. So 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:32.480 that was my very first job. And I always wanted 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:36.320 to have a little financial independence, and so I took 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:38.880 what jobs I could get as a teenager. I worked 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:43.560 in a discount store in Cleveland, marking clothing. My first 0:08:43.679 --> 0:08:47.480 job when I got out of college was in a 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:51.120 costume company in Cleveland. Then I got a job driving 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:53.840 a milk truck and that was the best job I've 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:56.240 ever had. What was so great about it? Well, I 0:08:56.320 --> 0:08:59.600 liked cows and any job that had to do with 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:04.400 cows even remotely. But I did believe in in milk 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:08.760 and cut What did you like about cows, Um, They're 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:13.600 so placid and contented and productive. You know, they gave milk. 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:16.640 You have written about all of these different jobs that 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:19.720 you've taken that seem largely unconnected, but it sort of 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:22.800 seems like you've made a lot of decisions that were 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:26.199 driven by um wanting financial independence or just needing a 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:28.560 job and then been able to kind of find the 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:30.840 meaning in the job once you got there. Was that? 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:33.600 Is that accurate? Well, I knew that I was looking 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:36.679 for experience too. Yes, I wanted to be a writer 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:40.880 from the very beginning. Um after those couple of jobs 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:43.120 in Cleveland, I went back to graduate school at the 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:46.480 University of Vermont. There again I was following the cows, 0:09:47.880 --> 0:09:51.320 and I got an m a. In English literature there 0:09:51.720 --> 0:09:56.440 English and American literature, and I learned to milk University cows. 0:09:56.480 --> 0:09:59.440 And my first job after that was in a mazzarella plant, 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:03.640 she's fa actory where we packaged mozzarella. And I remember 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:07.360 I had wanted to write fiction as a graduate student. 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:10.360 I thought I could do a master's thesis that was 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:12.760 a collection of stories. But they wouldn't let me do that, 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:17.760 and they even said I didn't have enough experience to 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:20.520 be writing fiction. And then the funny thing was that 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:23.320 one of the professors I had had after I got 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:25.840 the job and the cheese factory, said well, now you'll 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:30.679 have some experience. So the themes so far running through 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:36.280 your career cows, dairy and writing. Yes, yes, that's about right. 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:38.600 But then you moved to New York, a place that 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:42.920 has a notable lack of cows. Why don't you tell 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:45.760 us about that decision and where that took your career. 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:48.760 At the time, I had a sibling living in New 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:54.000 York who had become friends with a woman who was 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:57.960 in his um portraiture class, and it turned out that 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:00.920 she her name was Jeanne flush Shman. It turned out 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:04.480 she was married to Peter Fleishman, who was the chairman 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:06.000 of the board of the New Yorker, who was the 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:08.960 son of Raoul Fleishman, one of the original founders. And 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:11.920 I got to know them, and I started to think, well, 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:14.800 maybe I could live in New York. Indeed, my sibling 0:11:15.400 --> 0:11:19.960 did suggest she was going to Paris. She had a 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:23.400 wonderful career herself as a musician or big job was 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:27.120 that she played the harp and a bear costume. I 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:32.440 guess costumes were a family thing, and mammals costume of mammals. 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:36.360 She had this nice gig playing the harp in a 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:39.400 bare suit outside of one of the gates of Central Park, 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:42.840 and she she told me, well, you could probably get 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:45.360 some kind of job in publishing. So I came to 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:48.320 New York Peter Fleshman was a wonderful friend to me. 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:51.320 He was on the business side, of course, and in 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:55.080 those days, business and editorial did not mix. So he 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:57.440 actually could not get me a job at The New Yorker. 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:01.480 But he could call the executive editor and say I 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:04.080 was going to call and would like to talk to him. 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:06.640 So Peter arranged that. Yeah, that seems like a pretty 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:09.440 big thing, a connection. People talk about that now, how 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:11.840 important that is to getting jobs. So I guess things 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:15.800 haven't changed that much. But so then you eventually do 0:12:15.840 --> 0:12:18.439 get a job at the New Yorker. Obviously, Yes, there 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:22.200 was no opening that first time I talked to this editor, 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:25.960 but I called back. I'd been washing dishes in Patterson, 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:29.959 I'd done statistical typing as a temp, and I'd been 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:33.520 a temporary cashier at a discount store e J Corvettes. 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:35.680 You probably don't remember. That was a long time ago, 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:38.160 and I was going to try to get a hack 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:41.800 license and drive a cab. I still add my chauffeur's 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:44.240 license from having driven the milk truck, so I thought 0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:46.079 that would be a natural But in fact I did 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:47.640 not know my way around in New York, and it 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:50.200 would have been a total disaster if I had tried 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:52.800 to drive a cab. So Peter said, why don't you 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:54.800 call them back and see if there are any openings. 0:12:55.080 --> 0:12:57.319 And there were. There was an opening in the typing 0:12:57.440 --> 0:12:59.640 pool and one and what it's called the editor I 0:12:59.720 --> 0:13:02.680 live Prairie. I failed the test for the typing pool. 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:05.160 There was an electric typewriter, and you know, I'd only 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:07.120 had a manual up to that point, and that was 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:09.439 my excuse anyway, that the typewriter just kind of took 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:12.040 off without me. But in the editorial library was a 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:17.440 little more primitive that manual typewriters, and we typed summaries 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:22.800 of stories, even poems and nonfiction pieces. Type this summaries 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:28.120 on index cards and indexed every piece, you know, by author, 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:31.280 by subject. Every person who was mentioned in the piece 0:13:31.320 --> 0:13:34.679 would go into the file because those people might want 0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:37.000 to know where what piece they were in someday and 0:13:37.040 --> 0:13:40.000 they'd call up and ask. The cartoons were all indexed. 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:43.559 You know, cartoon about a bird. Somebody might remember that 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:46.120 they had seen a cartoon about a bird that laid 0:13:46.120 --> 0:13:48.240 a square egg, and they wanted a copy of that 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:51.360 issue so they could call. And we had the an 0:13:51.400 --> 0:13:55.400 index where we could find that under birds. So you 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:59.760 eventually ended up you finished the training. Yes, um, I 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:02.840 did that for a little while, and then I learned 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:06.559 another job called collating. And we had this proof reader, 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:10.360 a grammarian who was legendary named Eleanor Gould, and she 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:13.320 read everything in Galley, not the fiction, but everything else. 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:16.440 You had to move her changes on to a clean proof, 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:20.720 and there were loads of them, and I came to understand, 0:14:20.760 --> 0:14:23.760 or at least I came to study what she would do. 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:27.280 And I began to internalize all that stuff, and I 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:30.720 learned in biasmosis. So when there was an opening that 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:34.040 on the copy desk, that's when I finally got to 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:37.560 work on copy myself. When manuscripts would come through and 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:41.120 you know, and get to reach on Updyke and John 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:45.960 McPhee and Pauline Kale and wonderful stuff Harold Brodkey, I remember, 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:48.640 and I would get to see what the editors did. 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:53.680 And after many many years of that, I moved on 0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:57.320 to become query proof reader myself, the sort of thing 0:14:57.320 --> 0:15:00.760 that Eleanor Gould did. And did you have a moment 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:03.440 where you knew you'd found your thing, where you were 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:06.480 in your element and you sort of expected you'd stay 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:09.360 there for a long time, or did you never really 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:12.000 think that way about your career? Well, as soon as 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:13.960 I got any job, as soon as I got the 0:15:13.960 --> 0:15:16.360 foot in the door at the New Yorker, I felt 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:19.360 like this, well, this is probably it. I'm certainly not 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:22.120 going to find a magazine that's better than this to 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:26.400 work at. And I wanted to be a writer. But 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:29.440 ever since I was a kid, I've known you know, 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:31.640 I came from a working class family, and I knew 0:15:31.680 --> 0:15:34.920 that that I needed to paycheck and I had no 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:39.320 rich father to ask for money except once in a while. 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:43.960 And you are a writer. You've written a book confession. Yes, yes, 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:46.280 and that's this is wonderful bit, you know, even once 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:48.600 you had a book, even once you've had a book 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:51.640 on the best seller list, and Between You and Me 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:54.080 was the best seller list for five weeks, not that 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:57.280 I was counting. You still need a day job. It 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:01.480 surprised me, But in a way you fulfill that prophecy 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:04.600 of your teacher, where you all of your experience led 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:07.360 to the material for you to write the book which 0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:09.720 is called Between You and Me Confessions of a Commic Queen. Right, 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:12.320 I should say the whole title. I did not expect 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:15.000 to get a book out of my day job, and 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:18.440 you have a lot to say about commas. Surprisingly I do. Yeah, 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:22.200 I was kind of surprised myself. So in addition to 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:26.080 having published a book, now you also have this web series, 0:16:26.240 --> 0:16:29.840 comic Queen, which has a cult following, including fans like 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:33.920 me and Fancesca. Was that unexpected? And how do you 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:37.280 feel about your new role. Well, that's something that I 0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:39.920 agreed to do in order to help publicize the book. 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:43.000 I was not really eager to make videos. It was 0:16:43.040 --> 0:16:47.120 not my idea, but the New Yorker and content asked 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:50.080 in general, wanted to have more of an online presence. 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:53.360 Doing videos was the hip thing to do, and I 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:56.520 agreed to do it. And that again surprised me that 0:16:56.600 --> 0:16:59.080 people were really interested in that stuff. You know, we 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:04.119 think copy editors very quiet, retiring lives. You know, to 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:08.360 be a celebrity copy editors to be an oxymoron if 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:12.240 there ever was one. So that has changed things around 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:14.960 the office a bit. Some of the writers have gotten 0:17:14.960 --> 0:17:17.280 a little wary of me because they're afraid I'm going 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:23.200 to use one of their sentences is well, well, thank 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:25.240 you so much. For coming and talking to us today. 0:17:25.359 --> 0:17:27.600 Was really great having you. It was fun talking Thank 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:34.520 you for having me. So what do we learn about 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:38.520 career paths from talking to Mary, who was successful but 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:41.760 in a way that she never imagined. Well, first of all, 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:43.920 I learned that Mary is a delight. Oh yeah, she's 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:47.159 so so great. I loved her. So here's somebody with 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:51.000 this really specific career path like nobody else. She didn't 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:54.000 follow in anyone's footsteps. No one else has that exactly 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:56.520 the same sequence. It's like, I really want to be 0:17:56.520 --> 0:18:00.040 a dairy farmer or maybe a copy editor and and 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:03.040 and a scholar of James Thurber in between. Yeah. I 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:06.119 think there are kind of two lessons from that. One 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:11.560 is to understand that everything you're doing could give you 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:14.000 some sort of skill for something later that you don't 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:17.840 know you'll even need it for. Like I mean, her 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:20.320 big example was saying that she had a lot to 0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:22.679 say about Commas, like decades worth of stuff to say 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:25.280 about Commas, that so many people cared about that now 0:18:25.400 --> 0:18:28.920 she is a Commas celebrity, right, And she's a published writer, 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:33.080 which ironically in a way, is the thing she always 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:35.240 wanted to be. Like she was trying to get published 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:38.239 and trying to find the subject matter that was that 0:18:38.320 --> 0:18:42.280 was perfect for her all throughout her career, and in 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:44.399 the end it ended up being her day job. So 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:48.680 the day job wasn't this irrelevant side act in her life. 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:51.720 It was the thing that got her to her final goal. Yeah. 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:54.639 I do wonder if at the time, at times she 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:57.560 was more frustrated than she is now. It's easy to 0:18:57.600 --> 0:19:00.480 look back and say, like, oh, all the all those 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:03.119 copy editing times paid off. But it's nice to be 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:06.479 able to see that perspective from somebody and to know that, 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:10.200 like your own frustrations with not achieving the things you're 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:13.119 trying to achieve in the moment might look very different 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:15.560 when you're looking back on it all. And I mean, 0:19:15.680 --> 0:19:20.520 I've certainly I had a total change in careers. I 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:23.000 became a journalist only after spending about five or six 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:27.520 years after college pursuing being a researcher, and that feels 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:30.880 like a very different career path, and going to journalism 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:33.560 school and then starting as a journalist felt a lot 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:36.680 like starting over and kind of resetting. And it certainly 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:39.720 was that from a salary perspective, and it was that 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:41.960 from the perspective of being like a few years older 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:45.480 than everybody that I worked with. But I realized now 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:49.320 how much about kind of studying anthropology and being a 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:54.120 researcher is completely relevant to journalism and thinking about research 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:57.600 and how to interpret it, knowing how to interview people 0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:00.040 and basically write about what they say, which is what 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:03.040 both researchers and journalists do. You know, I wasn't ever 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:05.639 acquiring those skills and the interests of becoming a journalist, 0:20:05.720 --> 0:20:08.320 but I certainly use skills. I even use skills that 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:10.520 I used what I was an acting student. Yeah, you do, 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:16.680 I act really interested in some conversations. And on that note, 0:20:16.920 --> 0:20:23.000 let's take it to half baked takes, halfy fake takes, 0:20:23.160 --> 0:20:27.879 halfy takes, half big takes is where we have opinions 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:32.160 about things that important. Opinions aren't quite fully formed enough 0:20:32.160 --> 0:20:35.360 for anything besides us talking about it right here, right now. 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:39.320 So Francesca, tell me your half big take. Okay, this 0:20:39.359 --> 0:20:42.600 week's half big take is about one of the most 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:47.320 insidious and misused phrases in the English language, possibly, and 0:20:47.359 --> 0:20:52.480 that's no worries. You're using no worries wrong, probably, or 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:55.000 you know someone who has Yeah, I think it's not 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:59.480 only an annoying phrase, but ever since you pointed this 0:20:59.520 --> 0:21:02.040 out to me, people are also using it around. It's 0:21:02.080 --> 0:21:04.520 both it's annoying even when you use it right. So 0:21:04.560 --> 0:21:06.800 no worries is like I think it's like an Australian 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:12.959 originated uh idiom that's just like whenever, don't worry about it, 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:17.080 no problem, no big thing, and it's it seems really 0:21:17.160 --> 0:21:20.040 useful in conversation. But one of the most passive aggressive 0:21:20.080 --> 0:21:24.080 things that people can do is use it. Basically, you're 0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:27.359 like forgiving somebody when you say no worries. So there's 0:21:27.359 --> 0:21:28.960 a lot of ways you can use it. That turned 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:32.360 out to be really kind of uncool and rude. So 0:21:32.880 --> 0:21:37.360 I sat across from somebody at a desk who had 0:21:37.480 --> 0:21:40.840 restless leg syndrome, and I assume, I don't know if 0:21:40.880 --> 0:21:43.800 he was officially diagnosed, but that's I'm going to go 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:46.720 ahead and diagnose it with that. He was very fidgety 0:21:46.800 --> 0:21:49.040 and he would just thrash his legs around under the 0:21:49.040 --> 0:21:53.080 desk and they would kick mine and I was bruised 0:21:53.080 --> 0:21:55.199 in the shins by the end of the day. And 0:21:55.280 --> 0:21:58.679 so after putting up with it silently or kind of 0:21:58.720 --> 0:22:02.159 grumpily by sighing loudly for a month or two. I 0:22:02.200 --> 0:22:03.959 finally went up to him and I was like, I 0:22:03.960 --> 0:22:06.280 don't know if you know this, but you're kicking me 0:22:06.400 --> 0:22:08.359 under the desk when you move your feet around, and 0:22:08.400 --> 0:22:10.840 it's it's just if you could just watch it. And 0:22:10.920 --> 0:22:16.240 he goes, oh, no worries, and I was like, yeah, what, No, 0:22:16.400 --> 0:22:21.480 I'm not worried. You should be worried, Like you can't worried. 0:22:22.280 --> 0:22:24.800 The correct thing to say is I'm so sorry I 0:22:24.840 --> 0:22:28.159 didn't realize I'll stop doing wow. Yeah, And and people 0:22:28.240 --> 0:22:30.360 use it like that's really a lot. They really, they 0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:32.199 really do. It's become a tick. So if you ever 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:35.359