Latest / Love Letters to Troublemakers / E9. Breaking Corporate Isolation

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E9. Breaking Corporate Isolation · Love Letters to Troublemakers

0:00
Layoff decisions that come again and again.
0:03
And the response from management is kind of the same.
0:06
The response from the CEO is the same.
0:09
We need to make the business more efficient, just business as
0:12
usual. And I think like that business
0:14
as usual term became the the marker for me, like the red
0:19
flag, the Canary in the coal mine.
0:20
Like if someone started using the word business as usual, I
0:24
know that business was not as usual that that something was
0:27
being disrupted and you're like do not look at it.
0:39
Welcome to the Circle Back Club, a podcast for workers who are
0:43
tired of being told that the problem is us.
0:46
We're here to give the history, the language and the honesty to
0:50
understand what is actually happening at work and imagine
0:54
something different. I'm Lars.
0:56
And I'm Aparna. And today we're going to talk
0:59
about the way that corporate white collar work can isolate us
1:04
from each other. And when we say corporate, we're
1:07
not just talking about the private sector.
1:09
We're talking about corporate behaviors and habits that cut
1:12
across sectors ways of working. It's an insistent type of
1:18
professionalism that can make us avoid meaningful relationships
1:22
with Co workers or navigate interpersonal harm without
1:27
support. And this also includes
1:29
organizational behaviors that disconnect us from our ability
1:32
to fully participate in solidarity and speak up on
1:36
what's happening in society, whether that's with people in
1:40
our community, our neighborhood, or a continent away.
1:45
And as we've talked in previous episodes, we all, with a lot of
1:50
observation and wisdom and yes, policies and Ndas, go through a
1:55
process where at work we are discerning what we can speak up
2:01
about and when do we stay quiet? And we're asking how do we stay
2:06
open, feeling and connected to the rest of the world from this
2:10
corporate positionality? In other words, how do we break
2:14
this isolation and practice real cross class solidarity?
2:19
This episode is an invitation to think about the ways you may be
2:23
holding back in small or big ways and hopefully support you
2:28
to make new moves with others, especially regarding the things
2:31
you care about the most. So for some of our listeners,
2:34
the concept of class solidarity might be a new lens with which
2:38
to see the world so really quickly.
2:40
What is cross class solidarity? It is working together with
2:44
people from different socioeconomic backgrounds such
2:46
as working class and professional middle class folks
2:49
to achieve common goals with the understanding that whether your
2:53
salary does $60,000 a year or $600,000 a year, ultimately we
2:58
have a lot more in common with each other and focus on uniting
3:02
against shared issues such as corporate power or economic
3:06
stagnation, both of which we're experiencing right now in a
3:10
really deep way to advance policies that benefit the
3:16
majority. And we are the people that are
3:18
in the majority. On the other side of the
3:21
isolation that comes with being in these organizations that
3:24
stifle us is actually moving with mutuality and solidarity
3:29
with your Co workers, speaking up against harm and
3:33
demonstrating our care to the world.
3:36
And today, we are so fortunate to have not one but two guests
3:41
with us today. First, we are joined by Glenn
3:45
Block. Glenn, you've been a friend and
3:48
a comrade for nearly a decade. Yeah, like we've known each
3:52
other for a minute and with some very impressive credentials,
3:56
might I say. And I really miss having you
3:58
here in Seattle. I'll just say a few things,
4:01
right? You have really extensive
4:03
product like executive product experience across big tech
4:07
companies like Microsoft and DocuSign and Auth.
4:11
And now you're at Cribble. And in in addition to being a
4:16
veteran of the tech industry, you're also the founder of
4:20
Prodsense, which is helping companies build products that
4:23
serve communities that are overlooked.
4:24
And I think the thing that I love and appreciate about you
4:28
the most is that you're active as an organizer in movements to
4:34
support Palestinian liberation. And yeah, welcome to Welcome to
4:39
the Circle Back Club. Thanks so much.
4:42
Your point. Yes, we, we've definitely been
4:44
crossing paths a long time. And I always talk about how you
4:47
played a big part in my own journey back in back in Seattle
4:53
And really the theme of what we're discussing here too,
4:58
around, you know, communities getting together and supporting
5:01
one another, especially women, women of color, Black women.
5:06
And yeah, it just continues. The struggle continues.
5:08
But I'm excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
5:13
Thank you for being with us, Glenn.
5:15
And I am very honored to introduce our next guest, who I
5:19
met at Tech for Palestine, told him about this podcast that we
5:24
were starting and said maybe sometime you could be with us.
5:29
And now we're both here in the Bay and have crossed paths
5:32
since. And Abdul Mohammed, welcome.
5:35
We're so happy to have you here. Abdul is an organizer with No
5:38
Azure for Apartheid, a former Microsoft worker who was fired
5:43
for organizing A vigil and a fundraiser for Palestinians
5:47
killed in Gaza back in October 2024.
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No, Azure for Apartheid is a campaign of current and former
5:54
Microsoft workers demanding an end to all Azure cloud and AI
6:00
contracts with the Israeli military and government.
6:04
And under months long pressure from the campaign, Microsoft
6:08
recently caved and made the decision to stop the sale of a
6:11
subset of its cloud and AI services to Unit 8200, the spy
6:17
agency of the Israeli military. So in light of that first
6:21
divestment, when the campaign continues to escalate and apply
6:25
pressure to Microsoft to cut all ties with the occupation, our
6:29
tide and genocide. Thank you, Abdul for all that
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you do and welcome to the podcast.
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So honored, so humble to be with you all here.
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And like, I think for Palestine, I heard about the idea of the
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podcast and I was like, I wish I was listening to that every day.
6:46
And then here we are. Oh, that's really sweet of you
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to say. All right, so we're going to
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let's dig in. We're going to start with maybe
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just chatting a little bit about isolation, right?
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And I feel like one of the relevant ways that we experience
7:02
isolation is by being disconnected to what's happening
7:06
in the world around us or leaning into the narrative that
7:09
we should shut out that noise so we can, you know, quote, UN
7:13
quote, keep our peace. And I want us to ground together
7:16
before we start what is happening in the world right now
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And what is the context that matters to both of you in this
7:25
conversation? And I'm wondering if you're if
7:28
you can can start. Yeah, I think a lot of the time
7:32
I am thinking about what's happening around in my
7:34
community, right? What I'm seeing here in the
7:37
United States, like the violence that the ICE is waging against
7:42
our immigrant community. And as the immigrant person
7:45
myself, like, I think about that a lot.
7:48
But also I look at the impact that kind of the ticket industry
7:53
is having in the Bay Area, right, where a lot of people are
7:57
not able to afford rentals, they're not able to afford a
8:01
house to live in. And you have this growing
8:05
economic problem and inflation and cost of living is rising and
8:10
a lot of people are not able to afford the basics of life.
8:13
And then I go even beyond that, beyond the locals scale and
8:19
think about what's happening globally, what's happening in
8:23
the West Bank and seeing, just like after so-called ceasefire,
8:29
we're still seeing Palestinians killed on Raza or seeing
8:33
Policinians being ethnically cleansed on Spang.
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But also see what's happening in Congo, in Sudan, the invasion of
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Lebanon, what's happening in Iran, right?
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And I'm trying to understand and connect my role in all of it.
8:51
Like I work in Deck and then every time I hear something is
8:56
happening, I hear, oh, cloud was used here, AI was used there.
9:02
The data center that's being built in a rural community near
9:05
Memphis, TN that's causing like all of this harmful like gases
9:10
to go out. Like, oh, it's because the AI
9:13
demand and kind of like just seeing all this happening and
9:19
how it's connected to just the day-to-day that I'm working on
9:25
as a tech worker and before that as a tech worker at Microsoft,
9:29
as one of the most complicit companies in the Asian site.
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What's up for you, Glenn? What's on your mind right now?
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And. A lot of what Abdul said
9:39
resonates. Honestly, the hardest thing is
9:45
just accepting the fact that this is who we are.
9:48
Like there's a desire to say this is something new, but
9:52
reality, it's just the same thing.
9:54
It just keeps manifesting itself differently.
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Maybe it's getting to new levels, you know, the masks are
9:59
coming off more, but it's like, and it's affecting white people
10:03
more, right? Like there's more like it's, but
10:06
it's like you talk to people in black and brown communities and
10:09
of course, you know better than I do that, you know, this, this
10:12
is just nothing new. This is the playbook and
10:16
technology. I mean, I think I think it's
10:18
been really hard for me growing up as somebody who loved
10:21
technology is to think that, you know, I was passionate about
10:24
working at places like Microsoft to change the world and then to
10:28
know how much of that technology is being used to perpetuate harm
10:31
around the world. It's really difficult.
10:35
There's a light way to say it. We look at ice, we look at all
10:39
the technologies, all these things that are happening right
10:42
now. Technology is playing A4 front
10:44
role and empower, you know, empowering and and it's also
10:48
this like acceptance that like colonialism didn't die.
10:51
Like it is still alive and well. It is still happening.
10:55
You know, a great book that I read, Aaron Howe's book Empire
10:57
of AI and she just talks about how this is empire, this is
11:02
extraction. This is the same things that
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we've been doing before, only they just keep morphing with new
11:08
faces. And so I think it's just
11:12
overwhelmingly and looking at it's so big.
11:16
And again, we talk about Congo, we talked about Sudan.
11:18
I've been very involved around with us and Philistine and
11:22
sometimes I'd beat myself up because it's like, well, but
11:24
you're not like I, I talk about calling globe, but not to the
11:27
same level. I put so much energy in and I
11:29
know like everything is all connected, but it's also like,
11:33
how do you keep your humanity and how do you, you know, how do
11:38
you just get through life? I think a lot about knowing the
11:42
enormity of what is happening and watching it increase as, as
11:46
brother mentioned, you know what?
11:47
You're on Lebanon. Yeah.
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And what we see happening here. So it's just I don't have words.
11:56
It is just completely overwhelming, hard.
12:01
You know, one thing I read into is my faith, you know, as
12:04
Muslim. I believe that, you know, God
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put us on this earth to enjoy righteousness and do what we can
12:11
and minimally do, seek the truth.
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And nothing in the Koran promises it will be easy.
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So I just lean into that and just say, well, yeah, it's
12:23
overwhelming because there's a lot of evil.
12:25
There's a lot of people that are only out for power and money and
12:30
which is the same problem we've had throughout history.
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When you talk about classism, I mean, maybe it's it's that's it.
12:35
There's the people that are the haves and who will keep doing
12:40
whatever they can to keep having Anyway, that's a lot.
12:45
I just said a lot. But yeah, that's a struggle.
12:48
Thank you both. I think the the reason why we
12:51
wanted to start here, particularly when we're talking
12:54
about social isolation, is that the choice to be disconnected
13:02
from this reality and then also choose to opt in or opt out is
13:08
something we're trying to to re ground our listeners of.
13:11
Like this is non negotiable. And whether you're conscious of
13:14
it or not, these conditions are here and impacting your life.
13:18
And to Abdul's point, you know, we're the ones clicking, we're
13:24
the ones you know. So yeah, I think it's really
13:27
important. I don't know what you guys
13:29
think, but one of the things I hear is people, especially in
13:31
the United States, say, gosh, like this is such a nightmare.
13:35
You know, we're living in a nightmare.
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And I kind of have to step back and say, you're watching the
13:42
nightmare. You're not actually living in
13:45
the nightmare. And that's not to take anything
13:47
away from people that are struggling to put food on the
13:51
table or after you said, you know, the expansion of the data
13:55
centers. And that has people's power
13:58
bills in rural America going up to 6, seven, $800 a month, which
14:02
is unbelievable, right, when you consider that the median
14:08
household incomes in some of those communities is 50 or
14:11
$60,000 a year. We can do the math on that,
14:14
right? Like, but I've started really
14:19
pushing back against this idea that we're in the nightmare and
14:22
really encouraging people just to ground in the fact that we're
14:26
watching the worst things happen from relative comfort and safety
14:31
of our homes and of our relatively safe and comfortable
14:36
cities as well. We're not getting bombed, you
14:40
know, We're not being blockaded and deprived of food.
14:44
Yeah. And then we go to work and
14:47
there's a very specific type of isolation that happens there.
14:50
Yeah. I think it's a really important
14:54
place to start as well as we contextualize ourselves in
14:57
what's happening in the world. And thank you both for open
15:00
heartedness and fully feeling to step into this episode and
15:03
what's really here. And for those who are just
15:07
thinking about it in a work context, yeah, you might be
15:10
navigating interpersonal conflict without having others
15:14
to process with or strategize with.
15:17
You may be acutely experiencing societal trauma.
15:20
Much of what we're talking about today, but not have the signals
15:23
of support from people around you or.
15:26
You may be being bombed like your family is being bombed and
15:30
you can't talk about it. That infuriates me.
15:33
You know, it's like you're literally being bombed.
15:36
You know who's doing the bombing?
15:38
You can't talk about it because you know it's not politically
15:42
correct. It's untenable.
15:44
It's untenable and a complete strip from your humanity as a
15:49
person. Yeah, because I'm like in a
15:54
meeting and I'm just like, you know, it's like everybody's just
15:59
kind of, you know, you talk about isolation.
16:01
There's like that intentional isolation of like, I don't see,
16:05
cuz I'm not affected or I believe I'm matter of fact, I
16:07
actually am affected, but I believe I'm not affected.
16:10
So I'm just going to like go through the day and just talk
16:12
about stuff like what's happening in the baseball game
16:15
and whatever. And you're like, I'm ready to
16:19
lose it like multiple times a day.
16:21
Yeah. Yeah, And that ignorance, right,
16:24
of being, being in that of. And maybe you are that worker
16:27
who's there right now. Maybe you are not seeing work
16:31
connected that way. You're perhaps ignorant to
16:33
political movement or the current warfare and global harm
16:37
or may not be in a place yet where you have the curiosity to
16:41
know what's happening outside of the safety of your nine to five.
16:44
And this is this conversation today is a door opening, no
16:50
matter where you are, to step forward into more curiosity and
16:54
more connection with others. And each of you have been
16:56
through this. And so Abdo, I'm wondering on
16:59
your side, how have you felt isolated in your career and what
17:05
made you feel that way? What motivated you to to break
17:07
that and take action? Yeah, I think there were a lot
17:12
of these moments. When I reflect back, I think
17:14
they are like they are moments of heightened isolation and by
17:18
desire became moments of radicalization for me, right.
17:22
I still remember the very first time like going into corporate
17:26
America working for Microsoft and like I'm working so hard on
17:30
this presentation and we have like this big deadline that is
17:33
coming up. And then like a day before my
17:35
presentation, they lay off like 10,000 people.
17:39
And the next day I'm forced to give the presentation in front
17:42
of like 100 to 100 person. And then like then the switch to
17:47
the Q&A asking about the the layoff.
17:50
And I was like, I felt used in a way where like the they used the
17:56
labor to pretend that everything was normal and then squeezed
18:01
everyone to like, OK, yeah, your comrade or your Co worker is no
18:05
longer with us. You can't reach out to them.
18:08
You, their livelihood got disrupted based on some decision
18:12
to make the business more efficient.
18:13
You, you don't have time to ask questions.
18:16
You, you don't have time to process.
18:18
You, you don't have time to think about it.
18:20
You have a presentation that you need to give and it needs to be
18:22
15 minutes because we need to get 15 minutes for Q&A or
18:26
whatnot. And like that moment of
18:28
contradiction where like, yeah, I, I think my, my presentation
18:34
in the grand scheme of things didn't matter whatsoever, right?
18:37
It was 1 presentation in the history of however many
18:42
presentations like it be that people are giving it in
18:44
corporate America, but not every single day 10,000 people lives
18:48
are disrupted just because some pen and paper, some spreadsheet.
18:54
And I think that that in the wake of that and the layoffs
18:58
that came after that, because that was not the very first one,
19:01
that that was just the, the ball rolling.
19:03
And we see it today, right? The these kind of layoff
19:08
decisions that come again and again.
19:11
And the response from management is kind of the same.
19:14
The response from the CEO is the same.
19:17
We need to make the business more efficient, just business as
19:20
usual. And I kind of like that business
19:23
as usual term became the, the marker for me, like the, the red
19:29
flag, the whatever you want, the Canary in the coal mine.
19:32
Like if someone started using the word business as usual, I
19:36
know that business was not as usual that that something was
19:38
being this disrupted. And you're like, do not look at
19:41
it. You need to like keep your head
19:44
focused on that keyboard and keep clicking away in a, in a
19:47
sense. Thank you for.
19:48
Sharing that, gosh, man, I can feel so deeply into that story
19:55
of being asked to do something that feels so mundane on the
19:59
heels of this big announcement and.
20:04
You know, almost being asked to not hold the humanity of our Co
20:08
workers in that moment. Glenn on.
20:10
Your side, you're further along in your career.
20:14
What was a catalyst moment for you to step out of the status
20:19
quo? And yeah, similarly, thinking
20:21
about that isolation, what motivated you to make that pivot
20:25
to start being involved in community movement and
20:29
organizing spaces? I think a lot.
20:31
Of it actually had to do with how I crossed paths with Aparna,
20:35
which is just my own kind of realizations about racism and
20:40
misogyny in this country. And a lot of my quote awakening
20:46
really started actually when I joined, when I joined DocuSign.
20:53
They were actually doing a lot of work around DEI when it was
20:58
still a good word. And I, I had already gone
21:03
through this motion of, you know, just starting to learn a
21:06
lot more about enslavement, about racism.
21:11
You know, I, I, of course, I've been watching the news for a
21:14
long time how black men were getting killed by police,
21:18
Trayvon Martin and all these other things.
21:20
But all started to really like come together.
21:24
And I realized I, I had to do something.
21:26
And I think for the first time, I started to really become aware
21:29
of my own privilege. And once I started to become
21:32
aware of my own privilege, it was like, well, that privilege
21:35
puts me in a place where I'm accountable to use it.
21:39
And this also goes back to my faith to try to make things
21:43
better, to try to use that privilege to call attention to
21:47
inequities and things like that. And this is, I mean, I, I grew
21:51
up, you know, I, I, I was on a journey for a while, but a lot
21:54
of it was outside of work. Like I accepted the slim when I
21:58
was 19. I learned a lot about Malcolm X
22:01
and I, I had learned a lot about racism, but I wasn't looking at
22:05
it from the professional context.
22:09
And so, yeah, I think leading up to before George Floyd, I kind
22:13
of had started to say, hey, like, really just look at what
22:19
the state of things is and, and that I need to do something, you
22:23
know, to try to kind of change things because otherwise it's
22:30
just going to stay the same. But what's different, I think,
22:34
is like when I started to speak out about racism and things like
22:38
that, I got a lot of haters and other things.
22:40
But when October 7th happened, that just went to a whole new
22:45
level, like nothing I had ever seen, you know, things that I
22:49
was accused of, things that people said they wished happened
22:52
to me, you know, even even coming to my family, like it was
22:57
serious, but but still attached to the same thing.
23:01
This idea of like, hey, when you start to speak out and say that,
23:06
hey, everything's not OK. And the people that are saying
23:10
everything is OK or the people that are not affected.
23:13
So anyway, I think that was it. And it was, it was basically
23:17
aligning with other workers that also wanted change.
23:22
And fortunately, I was welcomed into communities of people that
23:25
were much more directly affected.
23:28
And I'm a talker, as you know, Parne, you know, I can talk
23:31
anybody off, but for the first time, really starting to just
23:34
listen and, and also, you know, and come in from a standpoint of
23:39
like, how can I learn? How could I learn how to be
23:43
useful as opposed to trying to come into spaces and be like, I
23:47
know the answers, You know, that's like a white supremacy
23:49
thing. Like we always have to come in
23:52
with a solution. Like we know the solution,
23:54
whether it's technology or anything else based.
23:57
So curiosity, I think curiosity played a big part in it.
24:00
But yeah, I started to get involved with communities
24:04
outside of work, but we were working for things that were
24:08
going to make many workplaces better.
24:11
And then I started to slowly bring that back and realize
24:14
like, OK, well, now as I am growing in my career, like I
24:17
have a responsibility to use this.
24:20
And, you know, in some places I would say I did better than
24:22
others, but it's definitely been consistent since I started
24:26
getting on that path. And that leads you to find
24:31
others within your own company that are working for the that
24:34
kind of change. And I think the other thing I
24:38
learned about all these things, it's the consistency that is the
24:42
most important thing. Like that's how change is going
24:45
to happen. It's not just like one time
24:47
going all out to do whatever. It's it's finding a way, you
24:52
know, even when we look at what's happening when you
24:54
mentioned the, the power of boycotts, right?
24:56
It's the consistency that really causes the effect.
25:02
And I think that to change what we're in it, it requires it
25:05
requires consistency and, and persistence.
25:08
And through coalition, we can help each other to be have that
25:12
consistency and persistence. I love that.
25:16
It's the perfect kind of segue. So both of you like what one of
25:19
the questions that Lars and I have been asking with this
25:22
podcast, and I think it was really the catalyst for starting
25:24
the podcast is how do those of us with material safety?
25:29
And when I say material safety, I mean, you know, like people
25:32
who have higher, who are higher income earners, who have some
25:35
semblance of job stability and security, who have, you know,
25:38
financial security and savings. How do we help those people move
25:43
towards mutual aid, care, solidarity across all classes?
25:48
And something that you know, I've been paying attention to
25:51
for many years is that this group of people, right,
25:55
especially the top 20% of income earners in the United States,
25:58
which is probably all four of us here, when you ask them where
26:02
they are on the socioeconomic ladder, they'll actually say,
26:06
well, I belong to the middle class.
26:08
And we're talking about people that are making quarter
26:10
$1,000,000 to $1,000,000 in annual household income.
26:13
They consider themselves the same as a dock worker.
26:18
Yeah. And in some ways and truly we
26:20
are right. And I think that's something
26:22
cost of living. The cost of living.
26:24
Gross. Yeah.
26:25
And, and many, many folks are living paycheck, paycheck to
26:29
paycheck. And when those jobs go away,
26:32
maybe there's more cushion than a dock worker.
26:35
But the reality is that we're we are facing those same challenges
26:38
exactly so. I think coming back to this
26:40
current moment right where I think the job market, we all, I
26:44
think we're all fully present to the fact that it's the worst not
26:48
only since the 2009 recession. Some people say this is like
26:53
worse than the recession of the turn of the last century.
26:57
And it's reminding, I think, a lot of white collar workers
27:01
about the fragility and the precarity of the contracts that
27:08
we find ourselves in. And one thing that we haven't
27:13
built up that blue collar workers have is the ability to,
27:17
yeah, the ability to organize. What were you going to say?
27:19
Glenn has that. Unions.
27:21
Yeah, they have. Unions, right?
27:23
And I think that we are starting to see more and more interest
27:26
not only just in cross class solidarity and organizing but
27:29
also like unionizing tech workers for instance, right Like
27:33
we've been seeing that pretty consistently for the last about
27:35
five years or so. And there is the author that
27:38
Lars and I both read in the Jacobin, his name is Jacob
27:42
Zikgrath. And he says if there is a
27:45
political opening here, it lies not in proclaiming that the
27:49
professional managerial class is a besieged class, but building
27:54
solidarity across all sectors of Labor, from factory floors to
27:58
tech campuses and push for collective political solutions,
28:02
robust social safety Nets, job guarantees and public investment
28:06
and work that markets don't value, and moving towards the
28:11
democratic control over the deployment of transformative
28:14
technologies. And this, of course, is just one
28:17
example and an angle of the present opportunity to class
28:22
cross class solidarity. And Glenn, I'm actually going to
28:24
go back to you. Like why in your mind, right, as
28:27
somebody who's now been in organizing spaces for quite a
28:30
few years, why is it important, especially for white collar
28:34
workers to be active? And what would you say to tech
28:40
Bros, right? What's the invitation for them
28:42
to join us? I mean.
28:43
I think practically it's like we see this, you know, net of
28:47
people that are affected that just keeps getting larger and
28:49
larger, right. So I think there's a very
28:52
practical, if you put aside the human side of it, which is that
28:57
if you're not affected today, you will be tomorrow and you're
29:00
actually are being affected. You just don't realize it,
29:03
right? Because it's kind of like the
29:04
burning, you know, the frog paradigm.
29:06
I love that one, which is, you know, the, the frog, the boiling
29:10
frog, right? Who is this?
29:12
The temperature slowly raising and then, you know, the frog
29:16
ultimately dies because the temperature gets so hot.
29:19
But because it's all happening so gradually, it's easy to just
29:23
kind of like the frog is just kind of like swimming there and
29:25
thinks everything's OK. So I think we see that, right?
29:28
We see that it just keeps getting worse.
29:31
More people keep getting affected.
29:33
You know, even we look at things like ice, right?
29:36
It's like the circle of who is affected and who is fair game.
29:41
I'll just use it the way it is. Just keeps widening.
29:45
So I think there's that practical thing of like, hey,
29:49
this is going to affect you. It is affecting you, you're just
29:52
not recognizing it. And you know, the solution, like
29:57
you need to take action because otherwise the water's going to
30:01
keep boiling, right? And we're all going to, we're
30:03
all going to fry. So there's that.
30:06
I think there is the appealing to humanity and I, I think that
30:10
the lack of recognition. I did an article years ago in
30:13
Forbes, I think it was Doctor Janice Gossam interviewed me
30:17
about white privilege and speaking out about white
30:19
privilege. But I think the privilege thing,
30:22
like, because people think they're not affected, allows
30:27
them to just kind of like go through the motions.
30:29
So I think there's a lot of getting people to just recognize
30:33
that like, hey, the world is not what you think it is.
30:36
That's hard to do and and appealing to people's humanity.
30:41
Some people have no humanity, but there's people that do have
30:43
humanity. So I think if you have a shred
30:45
of humanity in you, then this is a time when you need to realize
30:51
that like this is not just a passing thing.
30:54
Like this is not. I mean, you know, there's a
30:56
question of empire itself. Will that pass?
30:59
It has historically we've seen the greatest empires fall, but
31:04
this one is pretty resilient. And so even though I'd like to
31:07
believe maybe we're at that turning point, I don't think
31:10
we're there yet. But like, I think it's it's
31:12
finding ways to, you know, kind of keep itself going.
31:19
So yeah, I mean, I think there's the very real connection of
31:23
like, what kind of world do you want to live in?
31:27
And I, I think one thing I've looked at like as I've tried to
31:30
build is I look for people that are curious, that have already
31:35
started to see the threads are falling apart versus those who
31:39
are just steeped in kind of like, my life is fine,
31:44
everything is fine. It's like, OK, like 'cause the
31:46
amount of energy that I will invest in trying to kind of
31:49
bring these people along, it's just like, it feels like even if
31:53
you win, you lost and you can't change people.
31:57
People have to want to change. So if you, I try to align myself
32:01
with people that want to change, maybe they've been unaware of
32:06
what's going on or maybe they just recognize that what they
32:09
did was not good, but they want to change versus people who
32:15
don't want to change, right. And I think like there's a, and
32:19
we see this throughout movements.
32:21
There's also a effect of like the more people that you start
32:26
to get with that want to change, there's a, you know, there's an
32:31
organic effect where that starts to spread and bring more people
32:35
in, which is how movements succeed.
32:38
So anyway, that's, that's how I think about it, that
32:41
choicefulness. Is an energy management piece.
32:44
I think is a really important one because at the end of the
32:48
day, this is all relational. You know, cross class solidarity
32:53
is not something that you do. It's the relationship that
32:56
you're building with other people.
32:58
And similarly, when you're talking to insert tech bro, it's
33:01
you know, what is the shared relationship here?
33:03
What do we both care about? So I appreciate that framing
33:07
Abdu for you. What comes up?
33:09
Yeah, I. Think one of the pieces that I
33:12
think about and had to do with sort of how our campaign at kind
33:16
of Microsoft had originally started, which was like everyone
33:20
saw what was happening, you know, saw that the genocide was
33:23
unfolding, saw that Microsoft was related to it.
33:26
But we felt so isolated. We felt like there is nobody I
33:31
could talk to and everybody was kind of in their own bubble.
33:37
But this bubble was kind of by design, right?
33:39
The like the you are spending your, I don't know, 40-50 hours
33:43
of work a week and like you are hearing about what's happening
33:48
only half an hour of it when you are like scrolling or, you know,
33:53
see someone make a comment in some random thread and you're
33:58
like, how can I do something? And it's all coming out of this
34:02
like, you know, corporate culture instilling in you that
34:07
you the only action you can take is an individual action.
34:10
The the, the only that you're the only one who actually cares
34:13
about this, that like there are these channels that you just
34:18
should go through and you for sure will hear back the chat,
34:22
the appropriate channels, the official channels, right.
34:26
So you have this bubble, you have this, this system that is
34:29
designed to isolate you. You have these kind of yeah,
34:33
handcuffs in a way. And then I think the moment that
34:38
where it all switches is like once we let go of that
34:41
individual mindset and start to think about collective action.
34:46
And like the reason I say collective action right before I
34:50
say unions, right, is that you can take action even if you are
34:54
not within that like union defiant system.
34:57
You can talk to your Co workers, create like build community
35:03
within the workplace. And when I say talk to your Co
35:06
workers, I'm not saying like talk to only the person who was
35:09
coding right next to you. You know, you should be talking
35:11
to from the culinary workers, from the data centre workers,
35:15
from the data level labelers you should be talking across because
35:20
you're we're all working for the same company.
35:23
We're all working for the same machine.
35:25
And if we see that the machine is causing injustice, and in our
35:30
case at No Azure Apartheid, we saw Microsoft was exploiting our
35:35
labour and selling it to these contracts of the Israeli
35:37
military and government. The decision was whether it
35:42
wasn't a decision whether to act or not, it was like, how do we
35:45
act? And that started from
35:47
understanding that like we, the workers right, need to build
35:52
that collective power and need not only to build it, we need to
35:55
wield it right. We need to think about how can
35:58
we maybe not put the whole machine to a halt, but introduce
36:02
the frictions and heightened the contradiction so that more and
36:06
more workers really kind of we kind of dismantle the bubble,
36:11
the corporate isolation. We need to help people unlearn,
36:14
right? And it became very clear every
36:18
single time we did an action or made a petition or made a
36:22
question in an AMA is that one more worker saw it and was like,
36:27
actually, I'm not on my own here and I can actually come and take
36:33
action. And it was, it was never clear
36:35
what was the moment that people like have where they switch from
36:39
all individual action to collective action.
36:41
But the importance of like being someone in your workplace is
36:45
like, create a space where these moments happen.
36:48
Create a space where someone sees collective action being
36:52
taken. Create a space where you know
36:54
people are able to unlearn some of that corporate isolation or
36:58
unlearn some of that like handcuff behavior up to when
37:02
you. You were talking about like,
37:05
don't just get to know the person who's sitting in the next
37:07
the next to you, but you should get to know everybody in the
37:10
machine, right? Like, reach out.
37:13
It made me think of two things. One, you know, I think you all
37:16
know that I started my career as a public school teacher and in
37:21
your building, you know, like, that's a very real thing.
37:25
Like teachers know each other, you know the pair of educators,
37:29
but you also know the janitor and the lunch ladies.
37:31
And there is a kind of a real sense of camaraderie with
37:35
everybody that is helping run that building.
37:39
And I think in white collar spaces, there isn't always that
37:45
sense. But the other thing it had me
37:47
thinking about is I don't know if you all remember the strike
37:51
of air hostesses, but they're not called that anymore.
37:54
They're called stewards. Attendance, attendance, flight
37:59
attendance. Thank you.
38:03
You know, the flight attendants went on strike to demand better
38:06
wages. And you know who joined them in
38:08
the strike were the pilots, right?
38:11
And there have been a couple of times where different factions
38:14
in like the airport system have decided to strike and the pilots
38:18
will strike with them. And to me, that's like such an
38:22
incredible kind of noticing of the connectedness because what's
38:27
the point of flying a plane? And also like what are the, the,
38:31
the safety concerns that come up if everybody that you're flying
38:34
with is unhappy, right? They're not getting paid enough,
38:38
they're too tired, right? Like that does not make for a
38:41
safe flight experience. And I think coming, coming to
38:47
show up for people that are being impacted even as you
38:50
yourself is not being impacted can only I think is really only
38:54
possible when we're already in relationships.
38:57
So that just came, I mean in my head, I think maybe the one.
39:00
Thing I'll say is that actually by design also these
39:04
corporations try to minimize that, right?
39:07
They're trying to tell you like no, you cannot interact.
39:11
They are trying to I think like sometimes they design their like
39:15
internal communication tool where they are like the full
39:18
time worker is not able to talk to the contract worker except
39:22
through one person, right? Or that kind of like your
39:28
culinary workers who are unionized are on strike.
39:30
But like that news is absolutely like nowhere to be found.
39:35
And generally, unless you are like going and talk to the
39:37
culinary workers or like understanding that like and
39:42
literally just the act of like, I can't remember which company
39:45
that was, but like that workers cannot talk to other workers
39:49
about their union contract or something like that.
39:52
And it's like that tell Google, yeah, I'm like, I could name any
39:57
tech company that probably ends up being true.
39:58
But like that is a reality of like how?
40:03
As we work and I know we're going to think a lot about like
40:06
cross class solidarity. As we work to build that, there
40:11
are going to be forces that are going to come in opposition to
40:14
that. And these forces are these
40:15
corporate forces that puts us there in the very first place.
40:18
We're like they are going to take the steps for you not to
40:21
build cross class solidarity, right?
40:24
I think the other. Thing is just that in general,
40:27
like this idea of like you have no power that's what that's also
40:31
about right, which is like we have the power you have no power
40:35
but it is through collective action that we have the power
40:39
because one it's like all these businesses exist because there's
40:43
people that are buying the business right that's what the
40:45
boycotts that's. Why boycotts work?
40:47
Because we see the pressure that boycotts are causing in the
40:52
world today. Like they really do work.
40:54
And that's all about collective action.
40:56
But this scarcity fear is something that all these
41:00
companies wield over us, right? Like, which is like, oh, like,
41:04
you know, you've got your job, you've got your, you know, you
41:06
got to take care of your family. Like you don't want to worry
41:09
about this. Like it's not going to go
41:10
anywhere anyway. And but reality is they don't
41:15
want us to organize right? Because they want to just
41:18
because when they know that it really is powerful, like it
41:22
can't there's there's much more of us than there are them.
41:26
And if we, if we are in solidarity and working together,
41:30
we can, we can, we can get lots, you know, we can bring about so
41:33
much change. But This is why also getting
41:35
back to the classism thing, I mean, it's like in our society
41:38
here in the US, like that's why it's central because even at a
41:42
government level, like they don't want us unifying.
41:47
They are terrified. If we all unify and try to work
41:50
for change, you might actually hold them to account.
41:54
So. Let's talk about how we can
41:58
break the isolation, like what those baby steps are for our
42:03
listeners who want to build that community, who want to take
42:07
action but don't know yet how to do it.
42:12
Yeah. I'm curious Abdo, if there's
42:14
anything that comes up for you on like what those first steps
42:17
are, I mean. I'm going to be cliche, but as I
42:19
talk to your Co worker and think about who is your Co worker and
42:24
everybody is your Co worker, right?
42:25
Like don't think that yes, maybe you can easily start by talking
42:30
to the person that you work with the most and just like, hey, you
42:34
know, we don't have to be all like profession, like all
42:38
professional put close around professional like we don't have
42:42
to just kill that human part of us.
42:44
So we can talk about how the metric will 0.0001% right?
42:49
No, you can be like, Hey, how are you doing?
42:52
Hey, have you seen what happened here?
42:54
Right. And I think creating that room
42:58
where you understand your Co worker, not for just who they
43:02
are and the one that they do, but what do they care about what
43:06
what what is concerning for them?
43:08
What is how everybody is agitated about something.
43:12
Everybody is concerned about something.
43:14
Understand your Co worker that we and build that relationship
43:17
and then from that kind of conversation, like bring in
43:22
others and build that collective.
43:25
It doesn't need to be 10,000 member union to kind of take
43:30
action. And I'm not saying like, oh, go
43:33
strike with five people, but I'm saying like at every number of
43:38
workers at there is a power to wield and just figure out how to
43:43
creatively wield it, right? I think, yeah, I think talking
43:48
to your Co worker and I think when talking to your Co workers,
43:51
I think one important piece that I've had to learn time and time
43:55
again through the work of no agile for apartheid is like,
43:59
meet people where they're at. Create the space for people to
44:03
change, right? Don't assume that everybody gets
44:06
to where you are today, right? But no, actually create the
44:10
space where someone is able to understand how, you know, them
44:17
working extra hours this week is actually related to how the AI
44:23
layoffs are going to happen. They aren't they might not, they
44:25
might not understand it right now, but kind of this element
44:29
of, you know, uncovering and education becomes a really
44:33
important where they are like, let's politicize our labour.
44:36
Let's understand how our labour fits in this grander scheme of
44:40
things. And we that requires us for us
44:43
to, you know, be really trained to have to have these
44:46
conversation. Like, you know, I, we speak a
44:48
lot about talking to your Co worker, but we forget that, you
44:51
know, it's not easy to to do that conversation because it's
44:56
heavy and it's maybe produces some social anxiety and like
45:00
that mean we need to do it with practice.
45:01
And I think there are a lot of resources by like, you know,
45:06
code CWA or a lot of resources by Ewok.
45:11
Like I'm, I'm, I'm saying all of these names, but like a lot of
45:13
training on like, how do you talk to my, to my Co workers
45:16
that end up being really, really helpful in getting you
45:19
comfortable with those skills. So I think that's maybe the very
45:21
first thing I'll say is like, talk to your Co worker.
45:24
And if you don't know how to talk to your Co worker, find how
45:26
to talk to your Co worker. I'll take a.
45:28
Slightly alternative angle, which I think that angle is, is
45:32
one that works, but looking for communities outside of work of
45:38
people that are in solidarity. And I'll just speak from my own
45:42
experience and I think both can work.
45:43
It really depends. A lot of this, I would say
45:45
there's no one way. It's like it depends.
45:48
But finding communities where you can learn what others have
45:52
done, where you can get educated and then you can bring that
45:58
back, right? So I'm mentioning like no, Azure
46:00
for apartheid is a great example.
46:01
You know, like there's so many communities, find communities
46:05
that resonate with the things that you really care about or
46:08
want to learn. And sometimes it's easier to do
46:11
that outside of the work environment, but then you bring
46:17
it back, you know, then you start to learn and you know,
46:20
it's kind of like boot camp, so to speak.
46:23
So that's that would be my recommendation.
46:25
I think, again, I think both can work.
46:27
It really depends on the organization, but you know, some
46:30
people don't know where to start and I think that finding
46:34
communities of people that have done this is something that can
46:40
be really beneficial. Well, both.
46:42
Of you said resonates so deep deeply with me because I I think
46:47
that there's such a fear of almost coming out to your Co
46:51
workers and if if that worries you right or if that feels
46:56
terrifying, then I think that there is a world in which you
46:58
find those communities outside of work and and support their.
47:03
Efforts, right, which is helping.
47:05
I mean, again, it's all connected.
47:07
Yeah, it's all connected. Yeah, something.
47:10
That is I sit with a lot is in a lot of progressive spaces and
47:14
radical left spaces. There are a lot of purity
47:16
politics. Like you have to be all in.
47:18
You have to do 100%. Like you have to show up with a
47:22
kind of perfection that I think is actually really impossible
47:25
for human beings to embody consistently all of the time.
47:29
And what? What are the other?
47:31
One is like, if you're not speaking about every problem,
47:34
you can't speak about any problems.
47:36
I've had that one run at me so many times and it's like 1.
47:40
It's like not physically possible for me to speak about
47:43
every single 'cause that's out there and be active on every
47:45
single 'cause that's out there. But really, it's gaslighting,
47:49
right? It's just a way to kind of take
47:50
your power, say like you're not speaking about this or you're
47:54
fake, like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
47:56
So you just shouldn't speak about anything or just go back
47:59
to, you know, go back to doing what you were doing before you
48:02
started to become active. That's like one of the big ploys
48:06
and lies. Yeah, it.
48:08
Is a ploy and it is a lie because whatever small actions
48:12
that anybody is able to take right now is better than taking
48:15
no action whatsoever. You know, doom scrolling and
48:21
yeah, I just, yeah, that just, I think both of both of what you
48:25
said resonates so, so deeply. And I can't believe that we are
48:29
coming to the end of this episode.
48:32
Like, how are we here already? Thank you both so much.
48:36
And I think for our listeners, I just want to share that on our
48:39
next episode, we're going to be talking about corporate Wellness
48:42
programs and what real care looks like at work.
48:47
And I think, you know, not to give any spoilers, but it
48:50
definitely does not look like giving every employee a
48:53
subscription to an app. And I see you both laughing
48:58
because I know that you have been the benefactors of many
49:03
Wellness programs. I imagine.
49:05
Right. And.
49:07
Yeah. And so we invite you to tune in.
49:10
Next week. We're going to be talking with
49:12
HIPAA Youssef Lars. What else should people know?
49:16
Well, we want you to. Know that we want to have this
49:19
conversation with you, so please, please reach out to
49:23
Aparna and I if you're interested in building these
49:25
skills at work or in community. Abdu shouted out some great
49:30
organizing spaces where you can also get these tools.
49:33
Let's connect. Let's literally build community.
49:36
Reach out to us at hello at Circle Back dot club.
49:40
I'm Lars. I'm Aparna.
49:42
And we'll circle. Back.