Cheyenne: Thank you for joining us for this episode of What the Finance There are a few things we like to mention at the top of each episode.
Rachel: First, if you want to get in touch with us, you can email What_the_finance@protonmail.com or join the What the Finance discord server.
Cheyenne: Second, it would mean a lot to us if you could support our show through Patreon. Starting at $3 a month, you can get episode shoutouts access to topic polls and get to listen to some pretty hilarious outtakes.
Rachel: And, um, third, as we seek to be a more inclusive show, we want to acknowledge that colonialism is an ongoing process and capitalism, which we regularly decry, is part of this process. We are recording this episode on the ancestral land of the Dakota and Ojibwe people. And we recognize our sovereignty and express our gratitude at being here. Cheyenne, you're back.
Cheyenne: I am. It's very exciting. Feels like I've been gone for forever. And this is a little bit funny. I actually was just thinking about this. I have not listened to my own podcast while I was away. I have to catch up on my episodes.
Rachel: You know, I think What the Finance did some good ones.
Cheyenne: I agree. I was very excited about the topics. Um, I didn't find myself with time to listen to them in spaces that would lend itself to listening to them.
Rachel: Right. Well, I think, uh, when you are in a caretaker role, regardless of who you're taking care of, let's be honest, listening to podcasts is like, absolutely on your docket of things that you ought to be doing.
Cheyenne: Right.
Rachel: Because it takes a lot of emotional energy both to take care of people, whether they are kids or adults, making that space for something else. It's tough.
Cheyenne: Yeah. It's also just occurred to me, um, I should double-check. I feel like I asked the person that I was away with if it was okay if we talked about that. And I felt like the answer was yes. But I'm going to double-check.
Rachel: Okay.
Cheyenne: Before I go too much more into it. I'm pretty sure I already asked, but I'll get another confirmation because actually, it would be a very good topic for an episode.
Rachel: Yes.
Cheyenne: For so many reasons.
Rachel: And I feel like our listeners are going to be like, oh, they're being so cryptic. Like, what are you talking about? Like, we're hoping to have an episode coming up on, like, hospital, um, pricing.
Cheyenne: Yup.
Rachel: I feel like that would be a good tie-in.
Cheyenne: I would agree. I would definitely agree. So, yeah, I will have that conversation and in, uh, preparation for that because that was actually, if I recall correctly, the inspiration for their topic.
Rachel: Yes. Yes.
Cheyenne: Yeah. Needless, um, to say, life has been an adventure recently. But I'm back ready to do the things potentially more ready now than I have been for the last few months. I think that something, um, that people don't necessarily notice in the moment when they've got a loved one that's going through something health-wise. And I feel pretty confident saying that I don't.
Rachel: Yeah, um.
Cheyenne: You don't realize how much energy that takes and how hard it is to kind of focus on some other areas of your life. And I am very fortunate to have an incredible support system with our family and our closer friends, including, uh, Rachel, who recognized before I did that I was like, not juggling all of the things particularly well and was like, would you like to take a break from the podcast? I can handle it for a little bit while you're gone, cause it was a struggle. So I very much so want to thank Rachel and any of the guests that we had while I was gone for stepping in and taking that responsibility off of my spinning plates because I was definitely not uh, it would have been I could have done it, I think maybe probably not. So this worked out great.
Rachel: So one of my coworkers has this analogy that it might actually be my favorite analogy ever. Rather than spinning, um, plates, you're always juggling balls, but some of your balls are plastic and some of them are glass.
Cheyenne: Mhm.
Rachel: Really? Kind of all times I would view the podcast as a plastic ball and not like your family is pretty much always one of the glass ones you don't want to drop.
Cheyenne: Yeah, definitely.
Rachel: This is not anywhere close to the same as what, uh, your has just gone through. But my dad had to have hernia surgery maybe like five years ago or so. It's been a while.
Cheyenne: Mhm.
Rachel: And even just that, like, I was so stressed out at the time. Is it going to go okay? He's in the hospital overnight. Family, uh, members who are having health crises. It's weirdly. So normal in our society that you don't even realize how stressful it is.
Cheyenne: Yeah. And the thing that kind of struck me was how we treat these kind of serious things as though they're just part of everyday life. And so you should just continue to do all of the things that you would normally do through them.
Rachel: Right.
Cheyenne: Like, I worked the whole time, the whole time. I have not taken any time off for it, which in hindsight, probably should have taken a couple of days but didn't.
Rachel: Right. There's like a whole thing with that too. Right?
Cheyenne: Mhm.
Rachel: And I guess I have to wonder too, if like, our European counterparts who live in countries where health insurance and PTO are guaranteed by law if they have similar experiences, right. When it can be super easy to lose your job because you're perceived as not working as hard as your peers. Mhm, like, it just is a whole thing, right? Because it's not even like, and I'm not saying this about your employer specifically, but like no, it's not even like employers are using data. Like, oh, hey, this person is getting just as much work done as everybody else is just in a slightly different time. Oh, well you're not here as much as everybody else, so you're obviously not getting as much work done right. It just kind of leads to this low level of stress that you always exist with.
Cheyenne: And like you said, not even referencing my specific employer currently because that is not the case at my current employer. And had I asked for, um, a different schedule or to take time off, it would not have been an issue. But even still, just like that fear on my part of the perception that I wasn't going to be working as hard or that it would somehow negatively impact their thoughts of my work performance, I was just like, nope, I'm just not going to ask. And again, hindsight always being 2020 as it is, that would never have been a thing. They would have just been like, oh my gosh, take all the time you need. Like, wow, right? Brains are weird though, right?
Rachel: Uh, actually my same coworker who has the glass and ah, plastic balls analogy, he also talked about kind of a lot about the very real trauma that can be, um, experienced by like a single bad boss, mhm, and how much that impacts every other working experience that you have. If you leave a toxic job, it's still with you. M like my boss right now just generally a pretty understanding human being. And I appreciate that. Sometimes I'll tell her like, hey, no, I know that you personally don't understand this dynamic, but I've had bosses that, um, don't care about a work life balance or this thing or that thing or whatever. And that's going to inform how I'm interacting right now. She's horrified, but it is, right?
Cheyenne: I always call that work baggage that we bring with us.
Rachel: Oh, yeah, I love that. Kind of, right?
Cheyenne: I tell my current supervisor that kind of frequently when I am, um, reminding him every single day leading up to me taking a day off every single day, I'm like, reminder, I'm going to be out on such and such day. The next day I do the same thing. And he's like, I got it. And I was in my weekly one on one with him that I have scheduled just on my calendar all the time, which is also completely new to me. I've never had that as a regular occurrence. So that's really neat. But I told them in one of our one on ones, I said, I recognize that you don't necessarily need these reminders because you're not going to like, completely lose your mind if I'm not there one day suddenly. Because either you'll remember or you'll think, she probably told me she was going to be gone. Let me check the calendar. But my work package tells me that it is much better to just remind you every single day. So that I don't have to worry about it because that's not always been my experience that it's handled well.
Rachel: Right?
Cheyenne: He also chuckles that work baggage.
Rachel: I mean, it's so true, though, mhm, so true.
Cheyenne: We talk more now about how we used to think of relationships as just being romantic. Like, that was the only type of relationship that people kind of recognized. And now we have platonic relationships. As I say, I have a platonic relationship going like 15-plus years strong with my best friend Cat Ah of Dice Cat. So, hey, she got herself a shout-out today. Um, and that's a relationship that also takes some maintenance. Work is I don't like work, but maintenance. Like, we definitely have little check-ins every once in a while, like with how we're doing, how we're feeling about things like that kind of stuff. Yeah, but I think that people are also starting to shift that focus to recognize that the relationships at work are also relationships because there are people involved, so that's what they are. Um, you know who I know who has realized this? The self-help industry. Nothing escapes them.
Rachel: No, I don't love the phrase like work life, mhm, but I think that it has had the benefit of having people go, oh, wait, if I acquaint this to a romantic relationship, well, I don't have to and I should not have romantic feelings towards my coworkers, but maybe I should actually, uh, put some time well, I suppose it's about that time.
Cheyenne: It is. So I think I'll wrap up with usual. You should join us on Discord, if you haven't already. We're pretty fun. My hope is that now that I'm more back than I was, i, uh, will be more active on there than I have been for the past month or so because I was a little bit quiet. But I will try to get myself involved in some of those conversations again because I did see a couple that were happening and I was a little bummed to have missed them. Although I may just go back and respond. Anyway, um, so definitely join us on Discord. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, uh, uh, soon to be dumpster fire. Did you see what's happening there?
Rachel: Is our least favorite billionaire actually buying it?
Cheyenne: Yeah, apparently. Ah, yeah.
Rachel: Okay. I kind of ignored it because I just assumed that it was going to fall through again.
Cheyenne: It could, I don't know. So we'll see. Stay tuned on that one.
Rachel: Uh, but still, we'll be there.
Cheyenne: Yeah, we will. Reluctantly.
Rachel: Yes. Much like how we use this on Facebook as well.
Cheyenne: It's true. And Instagram, really, we don't love that. Ah, as it's owned by Facebook. Well, Meta. But Facebook, this is the struggle. We found one social media, um, platform that we actually really like. Um, but goodness gracious if it is not just outside of our financial abilities right now, because darn it, it would be lovely.
Rachel: So if you wanted to support us on Patreon.
Cheyenne: Yeah, that is a great segue to that. I'm going to put that as one of the goals that if we make a certain whatever it is per month that we would need to be on the mighty networks, we could put that towards that and then yeah, the thing is, though, and this is the struggle well, I'm not going to keep you any longer because you're already five minutes past. We can talk about that some other time.
Rachel: Yes, but support us on Patreon.
Cheyenne: Yes.
Rachel: If you like what we're doing.
Cheyenne: Yes, for sure.
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