SMNTY Classics: SMNTY Works From Home

As more of us are working remotely, Anney and Samantha look at what that means for women in this classic episode.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Smith. I'm welcome to stuff
I've never told you protection of I hire radio and
recently for reasons that we will explain at a later date.
That sounds so mysterious, it really isn't. But things are

(00:28):
going on, but things are happening, and just spent to
the world. Uh. I had to go through all of
our episode catalog recently and I had to kind of
flag like, oh, this is probably outdated. Uh. And they
were a bunch from the pandemic that I was like

(00:48):
early pandemic days. But I thought, you know, this could
be funny to listen to maybe or maybe very depressing,
or maybe a mixture of both before we really knew
what was going to happen, you know, like when we
were trying to predict things. Uh, and early on in
the pandemic, I would say we kind of settled in
at this point, but we still weren't sure how long

(01:08):
it was going to go. We did one on working
from home during the pandemic, and I wanted to bring
this one back because of a couple of reasons. UM,
I've seen a lot of articles lately around updating on
women's experience working from home, and we actually have a
whole Monday many I think that's going to come out

(01:30):
about this, but a lot of women have reported, especially
women in relationships HEATERO, relationships with children, that they're being
treated as if you can work whenever, So I want
to go get drinks and you're going to take the kids,
and you can work while you're doing that, right, Like
the kind of this idea, which was the fear we

(01:53):
had when we were talking about like the pros and
cons of working from home, is that that that might
happen um. And then also, and I know this sounds
like it's unrelated, but I swear it's not. Recently, both
Smith and I have watched the movie barbarian Um, and
one of the things that really struck me about that
movie is when she's the main character, is talking to

(02:16):
the Scars guard guy who may or may not be
the villain Um, and she says to him like, if
if I had gotten here first at this airbnb, I
would never have let you in. Never, And he kind
of lets her in and she she's like, no, no, no,
I would never would have done that. And I was
thinking about that recently because I've had a couple of

(02:37):
experiences like that word. It just becomes clear the gender
divide around safety in in that regard um where men,
some men in my life have just clearly not thought
about it. And I just think there's an interesting conversation
we can have about where these where we're missing the

(03:00):
conversation we should be having, or we're not like listening
to women when we're they're saying, like, no, I can't
just work whenever and take the kids whenever, Like it's
not just a thing that I can do super easily.
And also you can't just because I'm working from home
doesn't mean you can just show up whenever. I like.

(03:21):
So that episode is coming, but in the meantime, please
enjoy this classic episode which might be a little dated,
but I think still we're listening to, Hey, this is
Annie and Samantha, and welcome to stuff I've never told
you a production of I Heart Radio. So, Samantha, what's

(03:52):
your favorite thing about working remotely? Um? Not having to
wear our bra mhmm, some faces. See, there's so many, honestly,
so many things. Being able to wait to the last
minute to make your face known instead of coming in
and talking to everybody, you know what I mean, And

(04:12):
like having the conversation of like seeing people passing by,
people having the moment of you know, all these things,
so you have to get ready and all this FaceTime
with people essentially have face to FaceTime and then start working.
As when we're doing it remotely, I'm like barely sitting
at the computer, like all r, let let's get started.
I love that. It sounds like water cooler talk is

(04:35):
your nightmare. Well, to me, this is like the introverted dream,
Like this is an introverse dream, especially because these are
people you work with and not necessarily choose to hang with.
Not that our people aren't a cool A lot of
people aren't. To put that out there, people are super cool.
I will, but it's still hard when you're in like
that work environment, work mentality. So kind of not having

(04:58):
to worry about that has been really nice. What about you,
I definitely am with you on the clothes thing. I
barely put on like real clothes anymore. Uh. And I
think the second thing is um working on my own
kind of weird schedule and not feeling bad about that,
and then also having usually a horror movie on in

(05:21):
the background, uh, and not feeling bad that like someone's
going to look over my shoulder and be like, hey,
you're not working, you're watching bad horror movies. I am.
I'm doing both. I'm a multitasker. I like to have
noise in the background as well, so if it's a
show that I'm rerunning, or if it's like loud music
or something, it's really nice to have that too and

(05:42):
not worrying about people judging my taste. Yes, and I
will say we come from a very like flexible Even
before this, when you had to go into the office,
it was a very flexible schedule and a lot of
people did watch stuff on the computer while they were working.
It's a very low key office. But my my anxiety
was that people were judging me for what I was watching,

(06:03):
so I didn't do it right. Yeah, you also had
like the facing like everybody walked by you computer and yeah, yeah,
I was very mad when they moved there. Yes, you
were out of your corner um. But yeah, I will
say for our office is eerily quiet, like everybody so
in their zone and such great workers, that's what it

(06:25):
really means. But it's they're so silent you walk in
and a small sound everybody knows. So it was definitely
kind of erie as well as Yeah, I was overly
conscious of being super quiet and I'm not a quiet person. Yeah,
and that's actually a good point. I want to get
back to you for this episode because today we're talking

(06:45):
about remote work and what that looks like for women particularly.
And this was a listener request from Julia, So thank you, Julia, Yeah,
thank you Julia. Yeah. And she was specifically saying, like,
when it comes to things that women often face in
the office, like sexual harassment, being judged by looks fashion,

(07:07):
how remote work might remove those things are less than
those things having to deal with those things. And um,
when we look at COVID nineteen, it has changed how
a lot of us work. Yes, I am coming to
you from my cousplay studio. Still, in a very short
amount of time, companies had to pivot to one or

(07:30):
nearly one remote work or a lot of companies did
not all of them. I think we did it. Our
office did it in a matter of days. It was fast. Um.
Even the Trump White House recommended that people work from
home quote whenever possible. However, many many companies resisted this,

(07:50):
as did several government agencies. For example, one CEO even
message employees we are collectively more productive working in our
corporate off This is and another said if we wish
to maintain our productivity, we need to continue working in
these offices. It is soul stealing and abilitating to embrace
the notion of social distancing and economic hiber nation. Now,

(08:16):
to be fair to this guy, he did later reverse
his statement, but he put that down in texts in
it to employees. Yeah, and I have friends. I have
friends who have received similar messages from bosses, and some
of them, like around this time, are having to go
back into work, right, even though clearly things are not

(08:38):
under control. Right. I've talked to old coworkers of mine
who are in the State Agency, and they a lot
of them that because it is a face to face job,
you have to see people, you have to see because
you have to see parents, you have to make visits. UM,
it was really difficult for the transition, and everything went
to telecommunications so zoom meetings and by away, surprise, surprise,

(09:01):
the State Agency doesn't have a lot of money and
doesn't have much invested in things like that, in equipment
like that. UM, even though it had actually been talked
about previously that why can't we just do this because
people were traveling so much that a big part of
the budget was being taken out for travel reimbursement, which
I know we're gonna talk a little bit more about later,
but it is it's kind of interesting to see how

(09:22):
they all kind of had to quickly change and what
is needed, what isn't needed, and then how so having
to backtrack and realize maybe part of this is because
they're trying to maintain control over their workers because they
didn't trust their productivity. Yeah, which is the whole thing. Yes, yes,
And that comes up a lot in this of this.
I believe that people are just shirking. I'm so ready

(09:45):
to shirk off their responsibilities and do less work, and
that is not the case. And we have some numbers
on that later for you. In this, so many remote
work policies implemented in the pandemics wake we're confusing, or
workers were afraid to use them, much like myself. Um,
some required managerial approval, meaning that it wasn't uniform. Even

(10:07):
this week, the boss over at Netflix said he saw
only negatives of working from home, which I'm really surprised by.
Remote work is often framed in direct opposition of collaborative
open space work, particularly in the text sector, and we've
kind of talked about open Works Force and all of
that because I'm like, what is this. Yeah, I know
I've said it before on this show, but one of

(10:28):
the first, like when we moved to our open space office,
one of the first meetings we had in there turned
into a two hour session of people complaining about how
they Okay, I'm telling you kind of like because I
came from a very individualistic case management type of world
and coming to that, I was like, what's happening? What
is happening? So yes, I was definitely one of those

(10:50):
I was confused. But all of this is complicated. Some
companies cannot close like we just said, or they'll go under,
but stayed open puts worker, as we know, at risk.
A lot of the bosses making these decisions have the
option to work from home while asking their employees to
go in. If we had a government safety net, we
might be having a different conversation. Yeah. Yeah, And again

(11:16):
with all of the issues of access, not everyone has
the internet or even fast enough internet or laptops, and
not all companies are providing these things, even if they're
asking their employees to work from home, so that is
an issue as well. Other companies are reevaluating remote work policies,
and I know we've had conversations among our co workers

(11:38):
if we're ever going to truly go back to the
office like we used to. It definitely feels like this
has changed how we work, and it will. It's a
change that's here to stay. I personally think it's going
to be more remote work. Maybe you have to come
in for in our case, like one to two days,
and we'll have not the big office space we have.

(12:00):
I think that's going away, right um, and big companies
like Facebook and Twitter have announced they're making remote work
permanent after this, right that smart? Mm hmm. Now, No,
before we get into this, there isn't a lot in
the way of data when it comes to remote working,
though more and more is starting to be collected. However,

(12:21):
my own personal caveat, I think that we can't necessarily
extrapolate too much out of the data being collected. Now
we can, but we just have to always have that
aspects of like it is a unique stressful time. It
is a pandemic, right, so numbers are changing, right, How
does it look outside of a pandemic right. And on

(12:41):
top of that, a lot of us are seeing our
coworkers in their home environments for the first time, which
is sometimes really funny, sometimes really embarrassing. UM. And some
speculate that this will encourage manages to be more flexible
post pandemic with remote options and schedules. Others think that
unless what culture changes, people who use work from home

(13:02):
policies to work late and get work done will be rewarded,
while others will use it for family reasons, mostly women,
who will be penalized. Right. And this is called the
ideal worker norm. And this is a worker who comes
in early, stays late, and never has to leave for
family reasons or any reason really and therefore is a

(13:23):
better worker and treats the job more seriously, which also
ties into the face time bias, which is going to
come up a lot in this UM. So yeah, there,
there's some people speculate unless we change that whole idea,
then even this kind of equalizing remote work time is

(13:43):
not gonna it's still going to carry over, right, which
is a very u s idea like that when you
hit that in there, that this whole not taking time
off of work, not having vacations and running yourself into
the ground. Definitely, this whole bootstrapping, this is how we
do it, is how you do it. You sacrifice everything
for your job, which is a whole other conversation. But

(14:05):
all of this has sparked conversations around work culture, whether
it's outdated, who business, who benefits from it, and how
we can make it better. So we're going to get
into some basics. Yes, so when we say remote work
also telework or tele commuting, what we mean is the
ability to accomplish work outside of an office. Most of

(14:26):
the very first work from home options offered in the
United States in the ninety nineties were part of women's initiatives,
only available to women because it was assumed men didn't
need them or want them because they weren't involved in caregiving.
And because of this, these options soon earned the nickname
the mommy track. However, these programs were so rarely used

(14:47):
for fear of panormalization, some HR professionals called them ghost benefits.
A new study out of m I T found that
since the pandemic, about half of Americans who are employed
before the pandemic are now working remotely. Compare that too
before the pandemic, when only seven percent of Americans had
access to flexible schedules and work from home policies, according

(15:09):
to the U. S. Bureau of Labor. Perhaps because of
a history of articles out there claiming that working from
home will lead to once again a decrease in job
performance and effectiveness, companies have been very resistant to moving
to remote work or allowing for more flexible schedules. But
that is changing thanks to quarantine as many of them

(15:29):
are forced to adjust and their employees along with them.
And those beliefs about a reduction in productivity from remote
workers are actually not true, which I feel like it's
not a big surprise, but a twenty fourteen study found
that working from home actually increased productivity and saved companies
surprise money. Of course, the caveat with the study is

(15:53):
it surveyed the sector that could easily work from home,
and it was a self selected group, So remember that
when you work thinking at all these good things, right,
But other studies have found similar things. They found that
remote work options not only increased productivity, but also increased satisfaction,
employee satisfaction, engagement, and retention while decreasing stress. Remote workers

(16:14):
often work harder and for longer giving time without pay,
which is not good actually, but it shows how incorrect
the reigning assumption is. And I actually wonder because that
is the assumption that you're working less, that you work
more to prove that it's not true, that you're you're
definitely getting your work done, and actually I'm doing even more,

(16:37):
see right, And it's exactly I know. This has been
a conversation for many of us who may have had
flexible schedules previously because we had to be the the
keepers and may being able to prove that people can
do this, and so I would be more likely to
answer emails so much faster if I was at home
then I would if I was at the work space,
I'm like, I'm here, you got right here, that's all.

(16:58):
You get it right, right, right, right, which was not
necessarily the best attitude. But yeah, if I was at
home and I was given that option, or if I
were able to do something else, I was quickly on it.
I made sure to be more attentive, so you did
not have any questions about whether or not I'm working
or being productive. Yeah, and this goes back to what

(17:18):
I actually wanted to bring up about how you said
everyone in our office is so quiet, and at least
in my case and I and most of my team
members case, there's you know, we're working in audio. There's
part that's part of it. But also there was just
this idea that if I can get my work done
as quickly as possible, I can go home and be

(17:39):
done with work. Right. So the work day at this
clear separation, whereas now for remote work, I do feel
like I'm working more and it's kind of surprised me.
There's not the clear like, oh, I'm going home, I'm
done with work now, it's it's work question shrug emoji. Right. Um,
so I do like I am putting in more time. Right. Oh.

(18:03):
And another study found that children with mothers who had
access to flexible work options slept more so, which is awesome,
which is something to think on, except for the fact
that I have been reading as school is back in
and people are doing remote learning that the school time
still starts. An that's kind of shocking. Oh no, yeah, yeah,

(18:26):
so as before when it was summertime, I think that
changed a little bit, but now that school started, it's
almost like okay. For the mothers or fathers who are
working at home, they don't actually start till eight thirty
nine o'clock, but now because schools back in, school starts
even earlier for a lot of them, so they kind
of lose out now. But that's a whole of the conversation.

(18:49):
So employees have also reported feeling their work is more
innovative when telework options are available, which I'm trying to
see if that's true for me um, and that they
felt more informed, both which were frequently side concerns of
remote work, right, that it would be less innovative and
they would feel employees would feel les informed, but actually

(19:09):
the opposite is true. Now, this was a specific study
to Australia, so just put that out there, right, And
that's just a taste of some of the potential positives
of remote work and we'll get into more. But first
we're gonna pause for a quick break for a word
from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsored. All right,

(19:41):
So now we kind of want to talk about the
pros because we've already talked a little bit about the positive.
So what are these pros? So lately we've seen more
and more stories about the benefits of remote work flexibility,
time and money saving, and one found study that here
in Atlanta, people who are full time office workers say
five on commuting costs a year when they started remote working,

(20:03):
which is significant for us. And in New York, eliminating
commutes say full time employees an average of three hundred
and forty three hours a year. Wow, which is about
two weeks. Yeah. When Yeah, which is about two weeks.
But like such, so been so beneficial. The communal loan
just kind of zapps people from their Yeah. So it's

(20:25):
better for the environment and minimizing FaceTime, Yes, and the
biases that often come with it. And we've heard about
the benefits, especially for women, and especially when it comes
to childcare and things like breastfeeding or providing care in general,
not to mention the benefits for people who can't go
into the offices for whatever reason or having difficulty doing so. Yes,
And we have talked on this show so many times

(20:49):
about how women are penalized for having children or even
the assumed potential to have children, not getting jobs, not
getting promoted, losing jobs, losing promotion stions. We talked about
this recently in our animal care episode. Working from home
can help in those areas. Not only that a lot
of mothers report a guilt factor of not having a

(21:11):
flexible schedule, and work from home policies could ameliorate that
as well. Research from Pew found that fifty one percent
of working mothers said having a family made career advancement difficult,
while only six percent of working fathers said the same thing.
Forty percent of mothers took reduced hours to support their families,
compared to only twenty eight percent of fathers, and that

(21:32):
is a huge difference. YEAH University of Wisconsin Milwaukee study
found one third of women in tech left their jobs
due to lack of work life balance. In a seventeen
study out of the UK, seventy percent of women cited
remote working options as vital if companies wanted to keep
them as employees for the long term. Right and another

(21:53):
recent survey found that while women are more likely to
request the option to work from home stent of women
compared to the three set of men, they're less likely
to get it. Of female respondents reported quitting their job
because that option wasn't offered. Another report found that women
who work from home are twice as likely to feel
comfortable going to h R compared to in office women

(22:15):
in sixty seven percent of women who work from home
field that HR understands their needs compared to in office women,
which makes me wonder. That kind of surprised me too.
That makes me wonder if the office culture really is
just such a masculinized space that you feel less comfortable. Well,
and I know, I know for me, sometimes it's just

(22:35):
easier to being able to write things to people and
not have to sit there and explain. That can be
more succinct, and that can be more professional without them
assuming on being emotional or you know, just I would
think any of those things maybe a little better, and
especially if you have evidence like these are the things
I'm talking about that's true, you know, so that could
be a whole big thing. Uh. That same report found

(22:56):
that in twenty nineteen, fifty seven percent of women who
worked remotely we did the promotion in that year, compared
to thirty in office women and fifty one of male
remote workers, which is interesting numbers. Yes. And on the
other side of the coin, if you look at remote
work companies, that is, companies that specialize in remote work,
of presidents, founders and CEOs are women of those companies.

(23:19):
Another study found that eight of the dreaded millennials reported
work life balance was important to them, and eight five
percent wanted to remote work one percent of the time.
Seventeen survey of four hundred millennial women found that eighty
three percent of them wanted to start their own businesses

(23:41):
and also put family first. They wanted both of those
things right. Other studies have had that video conferencing can
help equalize in terms of appearance. While science indicates taller,
louder people typically men get more attention of meetings when
we're all reduced to a small square. Even if that
which is yea often did that so we can little
slat or just text, you know, but lessons that advantage yeah.

(24:06):
One report looking specifically at military spouses, of whom are women,
found that remote work could be a real positive for them.
The unemployment rate for military spouses is about compared to
the pre pandemic and not true anymore of four uh.
This could be due to inability to speak of language
as they move from base to base, difficulty finding short

(24:28):
term employment. Because of this, they are often targeted for MLMs.
More remote work options could change that could give them
something else that they could do. So remote work and
flexible scheduling options don't just help women but also other
marginalized groups. So there are some positives, but as expected,

(24:49):
there are some downsize and we'll get into those after
a quick break. Form a ward from our sponsor and

(25:10):
we're back, Thank you sponsor. Uh So, yeah, it's not
all good. We've been painting a very rosy picture here,
but there are some definite downsize. A recent I m
F study found that in the face of the pandemic,
one million workers and thirty five advanced and emerging companies
are at risk of losing their jobs due to their
inability to work remotely in a majority of those impacted

(25:33):
are the young, the poor, and women, potentially compounding wealth
and gender wealth gaps. For women specifically, this is due
to the fact that they do make up a large
chunk of hospitality jobs and also carry the primary responsibility
for childcare, while these services are currently largely unavailable. Right.

(25:53):
I actually just read something about people who work lunch
spaces and things like that at work offices and how
they've lost their business because of that. So it is
is a question of yes, we understand, but these other
businesses grew because of needs in office types of workplaces. So.
But for those that can work remotely, one of the
potential issues has to do with increased domestic work. We've

(26:17):
talked about this before. Several studies have found that while
men who work from home focus on their work, women
are expected to pick up more domestic responsibility, particularly now
with homeschooling. Um. That can and that can be distracting
and frustrating, leading to family conflict. Uh. Job creeps into
family time and extreme multitasking. And to that end, some

(26:38):
studies have found that companies that allow for flexible work
schedules do retain women with children at lower management positions,
but that doesn't translate to women advancing to more senior jobs.
And one way to combat this is having an office
that has a door you can close to have a
separate sphere, even if it's an office that's in a closet,
right yeah um. And if you're in a relationship with

(27:00):
a significant other, having them share the load also helps.
And other experts suggest that home life interruptions during video
meetings may make women doubt their capabilities. Yeah, sort of
the remote working version of imposter syndrome. Right. Um. Another
issue that might come up is a lack of access

(27:21):
to informal networks, particularly largely male decision makers. If you're
in a zoom meeting, it's more difficult to get informal
feedback and advice that often transforms employees into leaders. And
while remote work can, in theory democratize promotions, it depends
on people putting themselves forward, their resumes for speaking up
for themselves when it comes to promotions, negotiation, negotiating salaries,

(27:44):
All of those things that we know do have gender
differences with women putting themselves forward less. On top of that,
who's getting invited to those informal work happy hours and
what decisions are being made on sidebar conversations? How many
him and stay on you to hide household disruptions. This
is not a thing that I had considered, But yes,

(28:05):
I guess that is true. If you've got something going on,
you wouldn't mute, right. Yeah. Uh. Something else to be
watching is what happens when some of us do start
re entering the office and for some uh, that won't
be an option due to relocation for whatever reason. Um,
will it be more men running into each other and

(28:26):
traveling for work and therefore getting more promotions? Will women
miss out on those quick informal decision making conversations, which,
by the way, we call it our office fly bys. UM.
I do not like fly bys because it's like you freeze,
because you you understand that this decision needs to be
very made, very quickly. And I'm someone who likes to
consider all of the options. So I usually panic and

(28:50):
immediately regret what I say, and then I debate on
do I email? But actually, yeah, so I don't like those.
I'm not a fan of those, but they do happen.
Um Essentially, would we all end up going to the
office anyway because we're afraid of being left out or
out of sight, out of mind. Uh. In one article
I read, they said, well, the office become the new

(29:12):
status symbol, like going into the office. That's interesting because,
as you and I've talked about, I have not been
in the office that often, and I just kind of
officially started right as the pandemic quarantine happened, And so
I got went in the office a few times and
and didn't see the many people. I don't even have
a desk there, not because they didn't offer. I'm just like,

(29:33):
why would I need it? You know, I don't know
what I would need it? More than because I can
do this from this table over here, because it does
an open space with large tables and such. But yeah,
I thought about this and like, people don't know I
exist in that office because they don't realize I was
hired so close to the quarantine happening. It's like, oh, yeah,
she doesn't work there, doesn't she like, hey, I'm over here,

(29:56):
So this is interesting. I do think about that too.
I'm like, oh, well, I guess people don't know who
I am. That's cool and interesting. Well, even I worry
about it because I, as you know, and I'm almost
afraid to admit this, but I hate meetings and I
don't frequently go to them even if I'm invited to them,
and sometimes I'm worried. That's well, it's probably really not

(30:20):
a good career. Again, so you don't like face times either.
So new data also indicates that remote work days right
after the pandemic were longer and filled with more emails
and so many more meetings. Um, but it has evened

(30:40):
down a bit, I will say that. Yeah. Yeah, So
if we look at recommendations, how do we how do
we go forward? Experts recommend collecting and analyzing data examining
work cultures to determine if work from home is suitable
and keep in mind issues of gender and access, and

(31:03):
have women in other marginalized groups involved in these discussions
and decisions. Education for managers and clear communication of rules
and avoiding rewarding people who come in over those who don't,
which scientifically there is a lot of research that shows
that's difficult. Um, But if you know that, keep that

(31:23):
in mind, U and keeping an eye on output, like
if remote workers getting all of their work done timely manner,
that's got to keep an eye on that output. Yeah,
mhm um. And of course communication always communication, and it
is a little more difficult now that we are in pandemic.
Can't just come up and talk to someone about a

(31:45):
quick idea or have a flyby apparently I've learned as
a thing, but yeah, to have to actually type it
out and send it on and hoping that you can
have a clear communication, which I've you and I talked
about this other day as we were talking about interview people.
We weren't sure exactly if everything has been communicated, but
we didn't want to step on toes even though it's

(32:06):
a damn email. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's I can
see the positives of it in the negatives of it,
because on one hand, it's harder to have a fly by,
which means that hopefully more people are involved or less
people are left out. Maybe it's a better way of
saying it as opposed to an informal conversation decision that

(32:27):
just happened, like you know, as you walked by somebody. Um,
but uh, and also there'd be a record of it.
But I can see the the downside as well, the difficulties.
And you know, we don't really use slack at our office,
or at least our team doesn't. Other teams in our
office does. But I've heard about like slack secret Slack

(32:49):
discussions and things happening like on there. So this is
where I feel left out because I have no idea
what's happening, because I'm not invited to many because people
don't know I exist as my because I haven't been
on people's radar. So I'm like, what what's happening? So
I have to use other people to tell me what's happening.
But that was just decided to note about communication. It
is important. It can be difficult sometimes because you have

(33:12):
to put a little more effort so on a governmental
and corporate level, not surprising, providing social programs and safetiness
with the input of those most impacted, which I know
it's kind of been a lesson of who are you
listening to? Whose voices should be race And it's important
that we do that within jobs and sectors of remote work. Yes, yes,

(33:34):
um And to be clear, remote work doesn't make sexy
spices go away. I know I probably don't have to
say that, but I'm gonna say it anyway. Until we
change things, women will still be judged in video calls
by their looks. I've seen these Zoom articles of how
to how women can look so good in their Zoom meetings, um,
or by the way they phrase things in text. How

(33:55):
many exclamation points did we use or didn't use? Yeah,
I'm g s so much judgment. But in a lot
of ways, remote work and flexible hours are beneficial to
women and not just women. Of course, we've talked about
the economic and professional penalties to women during this pandemic too.
So while this pandemic might be pushing corporate culture towards

(34:17):
more flexible work hours and remote work options, which does
and will continue to benfit a lot of women. We
can't forget all other areas we've been women have been
hurt in during this pandemic and in many cases for
the long term, and how we can tackle those things too.
Um and also always worth reiterating access who has access

(34:43):
to remote working? So um, that's that's an overview. It
is interesting doing this right now when so many of
these things are unfolding. Uh, and we're seeing I know
when our meetings, our boss has brought up several times
like my kids are here and I'm having to rethink
all of this stuff. And it's just interesting to watch

(35:06):
it play out. And thanks to Julia for suggesting it
right um. Definitely worth discussing, and kudos to her and
how she's having to handle her situation. Yes, yes, yes,
yes um. If you listeners have any suggestion for us,
we would love to hear them. You can email us

(35:28):
at Stuff, Medium, Bomb, Stuff at i arn't media dot com.
You can find us on Instagram at Stuff I've Never
Told You or on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. Thanks.
It's always to our super producer Andrew Howard. Thanks Andrew,
and thanks to you for listening. Stuff I've Never Told
You is the production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts
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