the one where Caleb unionizes West Elm
One of the functions I play in many of my friendships is my ability to keep friends who (smartly) stay off of the internet aware of the latest pop culture news (this is similar to entertaining my friends in relationships with dating horror stories - I like to think I experience all this shit so that they don’t have to, more on martyrdom later). Last week a friend texted me if I knew what the deal was with West Elm Caleb - I replied with a summary that went into details I didn’t even realize I had stored away:
So this chick made a tiktok about a guy named Caleb in NY who she went on one date with and then he like ghosted her. And all these girls in the comments were like oh the Caleb who is a furniture designer for west elm? He did the same thing to me. And then all these girls make videos about their experiences with this west elm Caleb and they’re like def sharing not good stories but nothing egregious - like he apparently shared the same “personally curated” spotify playlist with a bunch of them. And then the girls of New York start piling on to him and like locating him - one chick was like he’s apparently waiting in line to get covid tested near me let me go harass him. And the craziest part (idk it’s all crazy) is the original video was NOT about this Caleb. But now the commentators of the Internet are talking about how this is an example of toxic online behavior and like the tiktok urge to make everything into a trauma and use overly clinical words to describe just kind of bummer life experiences
Any time something like this happens and culture reporters like Taylor Lorenz get to publish a new piece in the New York Times analyzing what the newest trending topic says about the human condition I get SO JEALOUS - one of the reasons I started this blog was because I believe a parallel universe exists where I am a capital C capital W Culture Writer. And then this jealousy forces me to analyze my relationship to my career and place in the world - like, if I want to be doing a fun, sexy job, why am I not doing that, and instead choosing to report in person five days a week to an artificially-lit literal basement where I am getting a front row seat to the erosion of public education (I spent, not joking, 5 hours this week trying to find 20 parking passes for guests coming to the office for a meeting). I’ve been telling people lately that my job isn’t “fun” but I think it’s what I want to be doing?? I just listened to a podcast episode called “The Case Against Loving Your Job” which spoke to so many things I’ve experienced as my relationship to work has changed over the past few years. I went from living and breathing my job as a classroom teacher, to taking a vacation from the real world while in grad school, to now working a job where I am making Dolly Parton proud by working hard from 9-5, but being fully OFF the clock when not at work. These shifts have been causing a bit of whiplash and leaving me wondering what the right way to relate to work is and what my actual ideal “work life” is.
For seven years, I was busting my ass as a classroom teacher - I regularly worked 10 hour days and at least six days a week, usually seven. Any time I look at pictures of myself from those years I look so happy and so tired.
I have become obsessed with Quinta Brunson’s new show, Abbott Elementary, because of how well it depicts what those years of my life were like -
When Jeanine got on a ladder to replace a flickering lightbulb I had flashbacks to the “no fly zone” area of my classroom I had to enforce for a few months to prevent students from being knocked out by continually falling ceiling tiles (when I was looking for a photo that showed how tired I looked I found documentation of the zone:)
The show also depicts the sweet parts of teaching, like the bonds between teachers who are enduring these conditions together - I got a phone call last week at 7am from the always angry 6th grade teacher whose classroom was next door to mine asking me if I remembered the name of a documentary she wanted to show her students. This woman once claimed to be the only “real redhead” of our school but I was touched she thought I was the person to call to answer that question (I had no idea what documentary she meant but through some light googling I found it for her, which is on brand for her requests). My principal texted me last week letting me know my old teaching position would be open again next year and it really threw me for a loop - part of me wants to run back to the classroom (and New Orleans) but now that I’ve gotten used to sleeping in past 6am, could I live that life again?! Yes I know I’ve gone soft.
ANYWAYS - I bring up the show because I think it’s also giving the nation a peek into this side of teaching that is largely unknown - aka how hard the job is (my only gripe about the show is how clean and well-dressed the teachers are and how leisurely they walk around the halls… not realistic) and how little support there is for teachers in underfunded schools.
But what Abbott Elementary does best of all, and at a time when it’s especially vital, is show how passionate many teachers are despite all the struggles and grief that go along with their chosen profession. Given the heated debate in countless school districts about keeping classes virtual or returning to in-person learning, it’s easy to forget that many, if not most, teachers are decent people trying to do their best to teach our kids and fill in a lot of societal gaps, a task that shouldn’t fall entirely on schools in the first place.
People who are at all connected to public education are aware of the current dumpster fire - and looming large-scale crisis - that is happening in schools right now. This describes it well:
The podcast (sorry, I meandered, we knew this would happen) explores the dark side of being emotionally invested in our work, specifically how the concept of “moral injury” applies to jobs like teaching and healthcare. Essentially, people signed on to do these jobs that they, to some degree, felt called to do and believed made a difference in the world by doing, but the current moment/full societal systems failure, has left people who are in helping positions left to shoulder way too much of the burden while also seeing how little respect society as a whole has for their roles:
Their working conditions are their students’ learning conditions. If you are forcing teachers to have 40 students in a class, and to do all of their grading on the weekends, and they don’t have soap in the bathrooms — like this was literally a thing that the New York City public schools promised when the pandemic started — we’ll get soap in all the bathrooms! Oh, you didn’t before? The conditions are literally not conducive to health and well-being, let alone to being able to effectively teach. How do you do that? How do you deal with that dissonance between being told that your job as a teacher is to care about these students?
I experienced a different kind of dissonance when I moved to Chicago for grad school - holy shit did I learn how different my brain is when it gets a full nights sleep. I had become so used to the grind of teaching that I had accepted that lifestyle as how I showed up as a “worker.” This view of myself changed in grad school - aka “brain spa” - when I got to take classes just because I was interested in the topic (I truly had no business taking a class about AI, where most of the classmates were machine learning geniuses. Literally every project I turned in was about the algorithm of dating apps. I did get an A though, so take that, nerds!!) and the pressure to be good at my work was soooo much lower. As a teacher, if I slacked off on my lesson plans I was screwing over 60 young people. In grad school, if I fucked off on a paper, the only thing I was risking was my grade, and C’s get degrees baby!!!
Now I’m working at Chicago Public Schools (it’s been quite the month to work there - Teen Vogue’s coverage of the education crisis used my office as their accompanying photo, and my daily morning NYT podcast was all about the Chicago teacher standoff earlier this month) and my work life is entering a new phase. I am doing work that is way less fun than teaching (you don’t get to be permanent quarterback when there’s no recess… also why don’t adults have recess!!!) but feels impactful on a large scale and addresses the systemic issues that drove me out of the classroom in the first place, blah blah. So I’m finding some meaning and I’m succeeding at not taking work home with me. All of this should be good! But there is part of me that just can’t shake this feeling that nothing I ever do will be as meaningful as teaching - is it survivor’s guilt for leaving the classroom the year before the pandemic, is it pure martyrdom, or is it just… accurate? The podcast’s take on all of this essentially boils down to:
…I don’t think that work should provide us meaning because at the end of the day, we are working because we live under a system called capitalism, that requires private profits.
Woof. Not what I want to hear, but also maybe that means there’s still hope I become a culture writer???? Catch me in the private industry over my dead body, tho - if I’m gonna participate in capitalism at the very least I’m gonna feel self-righteous about it!!
By the time you’ve finished reading this piece (sorry… they’re getting longer each time… I’m getting too comfortable), West Elm Caleb will be fading into the internet tubes, but my existential issues with our relationship to work are just getting started (a few weeks ago I was preparing to organize a protest at work, fully aware that doing so could get me fired… oops).
I can’t believe I just wrote so much about WORK, ironically the whole point of this exercise for myself was to have the DTR convo about how much of my life work takes up. Thanks to the friends who sent me their reactions to my dating letter - no fun updates on the dating front BUT I did just tune into a national rugby tournament and realized I had an ex on both of the teams in the final. That’s gotta be a rugby bingo square.
Sorry, this note feels more depressing than they have been recently! I went to the doctor last week and I told them I don’t know how anyone is responding positively to the mental health questions on the intake screener (I left with a printed list of therapist referrals) - shit is really terrible right now! And I’m fine, but things feel … bad. I tried so hard to do Dry January and ended up averaging about 6 drinks a week… this month took it out of me.
I would typically link some articles I’m into but my online reading has paused while I devour the newest Sally Rooney (did you know she’s 30?! how am I still shocked when accomplished people are my age) so instead I will link to my new fav post by Cat Cohen, as an excuse to close this with one of my fav poems from her book, “God I Feel Modern Tonight - Poems from a Gal About Town.”
Happy last few days of Mercury Retrograde!!!
xoxoxoxoxoxo
n