Dance Magazine: I currently have 500-plus unread emails in my inbox. It looks like the opening credits of a Star Wars movie: like a scrolling galaxy far, far away. Never mind that 50 percent are composed of mindless politician mailing lists, weird Groupon-esque "deals," and subscriptions to things drenched in the best of intentions—I still have a lot of emails, including several teaching inquiries, panel invites and small, artistic gigs as our industry creeps its way back from the dead with all the hope and fervor of a Netflix documentary in the "woke" collection.
13 comments:
I think this article speaks really well to the issues that living in lockdown has generated. As a straight, white, cisgender male, there are a lot of topics addressed here that I certainly am not able to speak for or to, but the general scope of the article insofar as the author talks about how working remotely has led an even more reductionist view of workers by companies and institutions is something that I can identify with and support. As she writes, "people keep ignoring that we are still trying to survive a global pandemic." In the rush to either embrace the 'new normal' or return to how things were, companies seem to be tone deaf to the needs of people in the midst of the increased chaos in our daily life. Like others who struggle with mental illness, I've been trying to climb out of a hole that the pandemic dug while maintaining the facade of being ok and even productive for the benefit of my neurotypical colleagues and instructors. I wish we could all just pause, take a breath, and acknowledge that everyone is struggling right now.
I really dislike how, despite the fact that nearly nothing in our world is normal right now, we are expected to get incredibly productive, maybe even more productive before. This is even reflected at Carnegie Mellon. I have hours and hours of school online that I do alone from my bedroom, even on the weekends. However, the school decided that I do not need even a spring break. I am expected to perform as if it was normal and ignore everything that is happening in our world. As a first-year college student, it has made me question how much this school really cares about me and my physical and mental wellbeing. I know that I am not alone in these sentiments. All of my classmates are struggling in some way. I just wish they gave us a break. I agree with Al. I wish we could collectively take a pause and acknowledge what a difficult time it has been.
I can relate to mourning the loss of my craft and being a depressive episode so intense that I do not feel that I can reply to or send an email for over a week. Being in the pandemic, out of work, and stuck at home for over a year really drains you in a way that I do not think many of us were expecting. Something that I could never relate to as a white person are the requests and messages Guha receives as a woman of color to be a part of arts programs looking to be more diverse. Guha’s article illustrates how white institutions continue to lean on women of color to do emotional labor for them when trying to change their behavior. Thank you to the author for sharing her experience. I think another thing this article highlights is that arts organizations work on timelines that are too short. When alumni came to talk to TDs last semester, one thing that got mentioned a couple times was that people from other industries take much longer to reply to messages. It’s one thing to put off not responding to messages that are urgent for crises that are ongoing or unsafe. It’s another thing to expect someone to be able to show up on a dime for an event. I think this speaks to the non-stop working, capitalistic nature of how theatre constantly works, and if arts organizations spread out events, or planned out events in a more timely and emotionally/energy sustainable way, there would be less stigma or pressure to have an answer for everything immediately.
This article spoke to me in a way I wasn't at all expecting when I saw the title. Lately, I think we have all been grappling severely with the expectations put on us by the institutions we are a part of and the current state of the world. I haven't talked to one person in the past few weeks that doesn't feel drained, overworked, or underappreciated. I'm constantly being told by my family that everyone feels that way, everyone is having a hard time right now, and rather than making me feel as if it's okay to be struggling it makes me feel like my best is not enough because everyone around me gets their things done despite what's going on. I agree that we should be allowed to acknowledge the profound loss that everyone has been forced to push aside in the names of productivity and expectation. As someone who has done 3/4ths of my college experience online, as much as everyone has tried to give us the best experience possible, this year and a half has been rough and oftentimes disheartening.
Not even diving into the parts about race, this article does a really good job of stating what limits should be with respect to time. She says it in not so many words, but we are constantly in a state of rushing around from not doing anything to nothing at all. Those emails cannot be that important and if they are, don't wait that long to send them or use some sort of more direct method like a phone call or text message. David Holcombs production resource management class involved watching a video about email and in it, the author suggests turning off notifications on your phone, which I have to say has been awesome. No one news to contact me that quickly. It’s interesting though that the author takes so long to get back because if you want a week and let the emails build up, you have many more to go through when the time comes as opposed to taking them on a daily basis.
I really see where Guha is coming from. I often find myself getting overwhelmed by work with a constant onslaught of emails, homework, calls, and a million other things that keep coming and coming without seeming to stop. In general, I am pretty good with checking my email regularly, as I know that I frequently receive time-sensitive material, but sometimes I will see emails that require response, but not necessarily in a time sensitive manner. I will often leave these messages unread so I will have a reminder of it, but not respond to it. More frequently I will not respond to text messages. Most texts that I receive are conversational, so I will see it and not respond right away, or sometimes just not respond at all. I don’t like doing it, but sometimes I just need a break. It is hard to come by time where I simply have nothing to do, so I will often take what I can get when I can. Most often, I will check nothing on Saturdays. Unless I have something pressing to get done, I’ll usually just disconnect for a day and not produce a single thought. Like Guha, the pandemic has done nothing to help. I get stressed, depressed, exhausted seemingly easier than ever.
I found the article to be relatable and a great entryway to the conversation we should have been having since the beginning of the pandemic. We have all struggled in our own ways due to this lineup of events, some more than others sure but everyone’s lives are fundamentally different due to the events of this past year. Pretending like we are all taking “multiple months off” is ridiculous. There is so much to worry about now, much that we did not have to worry about before. It is unrealistic to uphold ourselves and expect others to act as if everything was normal as if there were not a thousand other pounds on our backs from this constant state of being we are forced to go through now. I know things are looking good for the general public, but it is truly draining just walking around in the same little square room for months on end.
I do not know how prominent this person is in the dance world, but I do think that if you have that many emails on backlog you probably have an issue. You either need to hire someone to help you keep up with your daily emails or you are neglecting your inbox. Neither of these should ever happen. You need these emails to keep up to date with your work life and start to make connections with the people you work with. These can be valuable assets to getting jobs or doing better at your job. I do not think this was very smart on her part to keep such a backlog of emails but I do hope she gets to all of them. I know my inbox can sometimes be filled with alot of junk mail and whatnot. Maybe she should try to invest in a proper junk filter. Perhaps it is a good idea to just fortnite dance on the emails and allow them to disappear so you do not have to read them. Reading is quite boring and I wish we had video emails instead so I did not have to read what everyone has sent me.
Wow. I really connected with this article and not just because I have currently over 800 unread emails and can’t keep a clean inbox for the life of me. Brinda put into words many of the things I have been thinking recently. We all can’t just go on living like everything is normal and try and pretend that it’s okay. Everything is so much and we really are mourning a profound loss, whether that’s the loss of pre-pandemic life, ability to make the art we once did, changes with family and community. Plus on top of that there are headlines about new tragic events everyday. I think this is a reminder to give myself grace because this isn’t normal and it’s okay to not be acting the same way you did. Although, it’s already a challenge to try and give myself that comfort, it’s even more difficult when the people/institutions around me are valuing productivity right now.
The ending was pretty perfect. I think that throughout the pandemic we have found that we are all flooded with things to do, how we can become better, what this person is doing, and how my neighbor's boyfriend's cat has cancer and they need money for chemo. There is a lot in the world and we have all become hyper-aware of how much information there is to process. During Spring Carnival, I went to a virtual event - a chat with Hasan Minhaj - and he said that you can't care about everything. It's just not possible. We want to care about everything and fight the good fight but there is only so much we can prioritize and do. Stepping back from emails and not spending your time worried about responding to someone that probably doesn't care about what you have to say is ok. You have to find your priorities and say no to things that aren't important. Be aware of your priorities and choose good ones that contribute to society. Have goals and work towards those rather than hatting the world that constantly asks for more and more of your attention (that is draining, your time is more valuable than being frustrated by your email inbox)
I know everyone speaks about the pandemic and about how physically hard it was for people who lost loved ones, jobs, and/or living spaces and, without diminishing their loss in any way, I feel as though the mental toll needs to be spoken about more. We need to address the mental energy it takes for people to be “normal” nowadays. With so much change thrown at us in the span of a year, and the fact that we had to adapt so quickly, we sort of brushed over how difficult it is now to do simple tasks. I feel as though in lockdown, personally, I have lost motivation to do even the simplest of things and am now seeing a therapist because of the tax it has taken on my daily life. The inability to answer emails is just one problem amongst many issues. With the amount of emails I receive from CMU on the daily, it is enough to make me scream. I still like to keep my inbox empty but at this point in time, I have just started clearing everything I deem “unimportant” without even reading it thoroughly first. I just skim and move on, much like I do with many things these days.
This article was profound in a way that I haven’t seen written into words in a long time. Brinda Guha’s discussion of her life in this pandemic brings to light conversations that we have been having and need to continue having. There were parts I related to as well; a loss of touch with theater even as a fully enrolled college drama student is very apparent in my life right now. Though, I think the part of this article that struck me the most was “Is returning to "normal" even plausible, let alone appropriate? What's the goal now?” I know I have been thinking about this concept before, but never experienced it as directly as this. I don’t think we can just “go back to normal”, not after everything the world has been through this year. We have to continue to acknowledge that this year happened, and everything that comes with that.
THIS ARTICLE!!!! I can’t relate to Brinda Guha’s experiences as a woman of color, but I do relate to not being able to respond to emails. My first semester was awful. I stopped going to class and would sleep all day, and I wouldn’t respond to my teachers. It felt like the hardest thing in the world just to send a simple reply. Now I have the words to explain how I felt. Like Brinda says, it truly feels like everything encapsulates and suffocates you. I think the politics and media made everyone’s mental health much worse, which isn’t to say that it isn’t important, but there was no escape. Much of those issues SHOULDN’T have an escape, but when we’re all isolated like this, I think it became too much. So much negativity that you’re unable to get away from. So no, I also won’t get back to your email. Maybe in a month or two.
Post a Comment