Perspectives Archives

You are somewhat new to Brooklyn. Where are you from?

In October 2018, I went on vacation to New York City. On the first day of the trip, I met a girl and fell in love. I moved here in June 2019, and we got married one year to the day we met.

What do you do?

Since moving from Buenos Aires, I’ve tried a variety of jobs. I’ve been a hot sauce brand ambassador, kids’ entertainer, landscaper, model, and managed the build team around massive art and music installation. This ambitious project took me to Burning Man last year. These diverse experiences allowed me to learn more about myself and helped guide my thinking about what career path to pursue. I wanted to do something with more long-term growth potential — not just pursue gigs for a paycheck.

What did you do in Argentina?

In Argentina, I taught English as a second language for 14 years and own a school with a staff of 8 people and over 100 students. I did not initially plan to go into education here. Ultimately, however, I decided that it would be smart to use my experience and expertise and started to teach again. Two other things factored into this decision: many friends and friends-of-friends had expressed interest in learning Spanish, and the building I live in has beautiful offices for tenants to use, which could serve as my classrooms.

I took several weeks at the end of 2019 to research and plan the classes and materials. Teaching Spanish was a first for me — but I trusted that my teaching skills and experience would translate from one language to the other.

When did you start your new teaching venture?

My new venture started in January 2020. I was excited to work with enthusiastic, curious students. After the first few classes, many of my students were happy and spread the word. I finished my first month with eight students. I thought: “not bad considering that I was only teaching adults who wanted to learn Spanish as a hobby!” In February, I posted an ad on the building’s online bulletin board advertising a free first class, which brought in more people. By the end of the month, I had around 15 students in the evenings, which left me with some time off in the morning and early afternoon to do other work. I also created an Instagram account to help get the word out.

What happened to your job or business as a result of C19?

March started promisingly — I reached the goal of 20 students that I’d set for myself. I was happy to be able to focus on giving the best possible classes rather than on how to get more students. But then coronavirus hit and everything changed. In just seven days, I had to figure out how to continue my classes in this new era of social distancing. While I had been asked to teach remotely before, I never gave it much thought — that is, until I had no other choice.

I did not want to give up my new venture, so I took a crash course in Zoom and looked up resources online to help maintain the quality of the learning experience. But unfortunately, many of my students had lost their jobs and could no longer afford to take lessons with me. In comparison with rent and food, my classes were not “essential.” I offered discounts and payment plans, but unfortunately, it still didn’t fit their budget — and just when things started to take off.

How have you adapted to the realities of C19?

In Argentina, crisis is our baseline. We continuously have to adapt to changes — either because of currency devaluation or due to bad government decisions that disproportionately affect small businesses and entrepreneurs. I knew I had to reinvent myself, once again. I tried to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I decided to continue with my classes, as much for the few adult students I retained as for myself since teaching offered me an escape from isolation and an opportunity to socialize — if distantly. And I decided to turn to those for whom learning is essential: families with school-age children. I joined a Facebook group for parents and offered my services as a tutor, figuring that homeschooling is not an easy task and that with many parents still working, I could help.

What has been the result of your adapted mode of work?

By the end of March, I had my first family clients! And after having classes with their children, I’m getting more emails from their references. In this new age of COVID-19, I am dealing with challenges by trying different ideas. In many ways, I feel fortunate that I’ve had to adapt to crisis in the past because that ability is serving me well today.

Check out Federico on Instagram, @profedenyc

About the author.
An award-winning creator and digital health, wellness, and lifestyle content strategist — Karina writes, edits, and produces compelling content across multiple platforms — including articles, video, interactive tools, and documentary film. Her work has been featured on MSN Lifestyle, Apartment Therapy, Goop, Psycom, Pregnancy & Newborn, Eat This Not That, thirdAGE, and Remedy Health Media digital properties.

It’s Week Three. This morning felt different. Someone had turned down the roar of dread, panic, and confusion in my head so when I woke up, it was now just a tolerable low level drone. It seemed my brain had finally had enough time to process everything and settle into some kind of acceptance at the state of things. (Speaking of drones, how are leaf blowers still considered essential business? Aren’t they illegal in LA? And also, they kill bees. But I digress.)

It’s also a relief to see that the federal government is finally getting on board with science-backed recommendations for civic preservation. I didn’t want to get into yet another argument on some social channel about the benefits of wearing masks or staying at home. It seemed common sense to me and many others that if there’s a contagion, the only logical thing was to reduce contact and limit asymptomatic carriers from spreading their germs in public. But I know how powerfully anecdotes can sway any one of us. We are story-based creatures after all. So it’s easy to see how a personal anecdote that looms larger than any mountain of evidence to the contrary — say, a story about how one person was fine while on a crowded beach — can become the basis for confirmation bias. We believe what we want to believe.

My anxiety, at this point, has also been the genesis for a million projects (that don’t include the screenplay I had planned to finish) so I could become more self-sufficient. This week I started seeing the rewards. A gift of sourdough starter had bloomed into two pillowy loafs of bread. My first attempt at kombucha (something I’d long scoffed at when I lived in NYC) is showing a thin layer of fresh scoby — this is a weird slimy pancake that apparently forms every time you brew a batch, and which you need to start a new batch. My scallions regrown from the ends of my last farmers market bunch, some foraged nasturtiums, and a tiny basil plant were all thriving. (Fingers still crossed for my kale, collard, and daikon seeds.) I’ve found a couple online yoga videos I like. Here’s one with Cat Meffan I enjoyed this morning. My friend Sondra, who has the most soothing voice ever, hosts my favorite yoga class which you can find under the moniker Sondra Sun Yoga on Sundays, Mondays, and Fridays. Another friend donated his old pullup bar, while I patiently await my six-weeks-out backordered hangboard for climbing practice. And of course, like half the country, I am dancing along with Ryan Heffington at Dance Church along with friends via Zoom.

I’m one of the lucky ones, I know.

I have steady work for the time being. A welcome respite from a months long job hunt last year, that finally turned around this winter. I’m lucky that I can work remotely, that I have access to outdoor space where I can grow my own food, that I’m in good, non-urgent health, and that we live in a time where groceries and supplies can arrive on our doorsteps with just a few keystrokes.

The joy of steady work, of course, is tempered by the fact that many of my friends and colleagues don’t have the same flexibility and they’re either adapting (by moving their classes online for example), scrambling to cobble together enough work, or counting on unemployment to get them by, because their work can only be done face to face — like restaurant work.

But it’s also a time of intense mental and emotional drain.

I’ve forgotten what it means to focus. This blog post for example. To be honest, it took me a few days of fits and starts to find the words and silence the siren call of neverending information online. Plus there were the frequent breaks to tend to my elderly dog, forage for snacks, or just stand on my balcony listening to the birds trill and chatter into the quiet void left by the disappeared traffic.

But I think I’m finally becoming more acclimated to the rhythm of our days as defined by isolation. I know I need to practice more self discipline. Not just to sit down and work. But to know when to stop and be done for the day. To not be productive at all, to breathe, to be still, to cherish what freedoms I do still have. And of course, make sure my dog gets plenty of treats and pets. It’s 6:17pm. I think I’m actually going to sign off and enjoy the sunset for once. I hope you can, too.

About the author.
Héloïse Chung is writing the great American science fiction blockbuster in the moments between her day job as a copywriter and creative director. Non-screen activities include rock-climbing and making ceramics.
website: heloisechung.com
twitter: @hzla_de_encanta
instagram: @heloise_chung

These are unprecedented times folks. Just the other day, I called my sister and told her my mother is filing for unemployment, and she said, “What?? She told me she’d wait for me so we could do it together over a glass of wine.” In a time when people are making parties out of filing for unemployment, it is incredibly important to not only be thankful for the ability to work remotely, but if you are a manager, to take a soft approach to remote management.

As a creative freelancer, I have spent most of my career in a remote working situation and I have experienced the good, the bad, the ugly, and the downright ridiculous, so today we will discuss the “do’s and don’ts” of remote management from the perspective of your employees, so that you know what they need from YOU.

Tip #1: DO NOT MICROMANAGE.

Just because you aren’t in the same room as the people under you doesn’t mean they need constant check-ins from you via Slack or Google Hangouts. Let them get their work done. When you message them, they have to stop what they are doing and lose their thought process, just to reply. Trust that your team is doing what they need to, and frankly, if they aren’t, you’ll notice fairly quickly.

Tip #2: INVEST IN TELECONFERENCING.

Yes, you’ve used Google Hangouts, or Skype and those totally working, but that’s just because you’ve never experienced Zoom or UberConference. The former options seem good until you try the latter. A top sirloin steak tastes amazing until you’ve had a bacon wrapped Filet Mignon … and your life changes forever and you can never go back to discount meat again. Zoom and UberConference offer features that are specific to managing teams and working together …

Tip #3: LOOK INTO WIFI HOTSPOTS.

The most important thing right now for your team is a reliable internet connection. Despite what you may think, not everyone actually has access to reliable internet where they live. Some people live in apartment buildings where the apartment management is in charge of internet, and getting it fixed or restarted sometimes becomes a bureaucratic process that takes months and a few bribes to the right government officials to execute. WiFi hotspots are an altogether inexpensive way of getting people a secure connection at a time when internet is the second most valuable resource behind toilet paper.

Tip #4: KEEP THINGS LIGHT.

Whenever I’m on an airplane and there is some turbulence that makes me uncomfortable, I look to the nearest person that looks like they fly a lot. If they look panicked, I start saying my final thoughts and prayers; if they look calm, I assume I have nothing to worry about. You are the North Star, so keep things light, keep things fun, make meetings a conversation rather than a doldrum of what needs to get done. Send an email of a funny meme you saw, spark a conversation via group chat about something silly your dog did. It’ll add humanity to our isolation.

But the single most important thing you must do is give everyone time to adjust. You must factor in the idea that not only are people getting used to a new work schedule, but they are also managing their own stress, their parent’s stress, and maybe their three children who have by this point rearranged all of the chairs in the house to create a death fort in the living room.

Let this be a time of transition and join the team in being fallible and human as everyone adjusts. Your leadership comes from your empathy in times like this, so let everyone have their time to find themselves in this new normal.

About the author.
Greg Berman is a stand up comedian, writer, and actor in Los Angeles, CA. Although he spends most of his day as an artist creating content in any and every medium, he also moonlights as a copywriter and data analyst at night, in order to make enough money to feed his dog. A dog, he’d like you to know, that eats better than he does.

When Madame Marie Curie first arrived in the United States in May 1921, she had already discovered the elements polonium and radium, coined the term “radioactive,” and won the Nobel Prize. Twice. She was a woman triumphing in science, in what was then a man’s world.

Born Maria Salomea Sklodowska in Warsaw, Poland (1867-1934), the youngest of five children, to two poor school teachers — Marie Curie became one of the most significant scientists of all time in a Victorian-era where academic opportunities for women were scarce. While many of her achievements have been lauded, not all her ingenious inventions are as well known. And one of this iconic researcher’s achievements is central to today’s fight against COVID-19.

In 1903, Marie Curie won the Nobel prize in Physics with her husband, Pierre Curie, and the physicist Henri Becquerel, for their work on radioactivity — she was the first woman ever to receive that honor. Curie later carried out the first research into treating cancer with radiation and founded the Curie Institutes, which are important medical research centers to this day.

In a tremendous nod to the number two — the second Nobel Prize she won in 1911 was even more epic: with that win in chemistry, Curie became the first person to receive the Nobel Prize twice. And to this day, she remains the only person to ever win Nobel Prizes for work in two different branches of science. The second Nobel Prize that Marie Curie received acknowledged her research and discovery of two new elements that were added to the periodic table: polonium and radium. The first she named as an homage to her home country, Poland, and the second element for the Latin word for ray.

During World War I, Marie Curie invented something that has proven critical to today’s fight against COVID-19 — the “Little Curie” — a mobile x-ray unit, which could be transported right to the battlefield, where army surgeons could use x-rays to guide field surgeries.

Today — as nearly all hospital and healthcare systems nationwide (and soon, globally) battle to avoid becoming deluged with new and suspected cases of COVID-19 — radiologists are waging their own fight to provide imaging while keeping equipment clean and ready to go. “The chest x-ray has taken center stage as a frontline diagnostic test for the new coronavirus,” shared Samanjit Hare, a chest radiologist with the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, in an editorial published recently in the British Medical Journal.

With a field hospital under construction on a grassy meadow in New York City’s iconic Central Park — and the Jacob Javits Center transformed into a 1,000-bed makeshift hospital to combat COVID-19 — we have brilliant Marie Curie to thank for making portable, on-site radiology possible.

You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end, each of us must work for our own improvement.
Marie Curie

Known as “the most beautiful woman in the world,” the legendary Hollywood icon Hedy Lamarr, star of Ziegfield Girl and Samson and Delilah, was featured in more than 30 films over her 28-year career — but there was more to her than meets the eye. Born Hedwig Eva Maria Kessler (1914-2000) in Vienna, Hedy Lamarr was many things: a hardworking actress, prolific producer, wife (6 times over!), mother. What you might not know is that she was also an ingenious inventor, engineer — and mother of WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, and other wireless technologies. Digital nomads and remote workers have Hedy Lamarr to thank for their connected existence.

Before arriving in the United States, a 19-year-old Hedwig had been married to Fritz Mandl, a wealthy, domineering, Austrian munitions manufacturer who sold arms to the Nazis. While with him, she had been privy to high-level conversations about weapons design that later came to inform her most important invention. She fled to the United States in the 1930s disguised as a maid, signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studio, and became the Hollywood box-office sensation: Hedy Lamarr.

But despite her international stardom, Lamarr was bored with life as a screen star. She devoted a room in her home as her lab for inventing — and worked away at her drafting table instead of making the Hollywood party rounds. She was prolific. Her first invention was a fizzing tablet, which dissolved in water to make a carbonated drink. She sketched blueprints for new machines. Deciding that “airplanes were too slow,” she drafted a biomimetic design for the wings of her lover Howard Hughe’s racing plane — inspired by her study of the fastest fish and bird. Lamarr invented a tissue-box attachment to hold used tissues, a new type of traffic light, and a device to help movement-impaired people get in and out of the bathtub. But her greatest invention was born one sultry summer night in 1940 when Lamarr met her Hollywood neighbor, the avant-garde composer George Antheil. The two shared a passion for creating and a deep curiosity for discovering how things work.

In 1942, at the height of both her career and WWII, they created a “frequency-hopping system” inspired by Lamarr’s knowledge of weapons design and Antheil’s of musical instruments. This secret communications system (patented in 1942) manipulated radio frequencies at irregular intervals, preventing classified messages from being intercepted by the enemy. Although her ideas were ignored at first, the technology was later used by the military during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 — and later formed the fundamental structure of devices we rely on today — like wireless internet, GPS, fax machines, and Bluetooth.

She received very little credit for her achievements — until recently. In 1997, The Electronic Frontier Foundation bestowed her the Pioneer Award, and in 2014 — fourteen years after her death — she was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Lamarr also became the first woman to be awarded the Invention Convention‘s BULBIE Gnass Spirit of Achievement Award. Lamarr never made any money from any of her inventions — “frequency hopping” alone is thought to be worth some tens of billions of dollars — but the United States military has publicly acknowledged her contribution to this enduring technology.

Pioneer. Movie star. Inventor. Scientist. Icon. Hedy Lamarr invented the underpinning technology that makes our smartphones and WiFi work. Basically — we might not be WFH today if it were not for Hedy Lamarr.

“Hope and curiosity about the future seemed better than guarantees. That’s the way I was. The unknown was always so attractive to me … and still is.”
Hedy Lamarr

If you want to learn more, check out Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story.

The hunt is on for a vaccine for the current COVID-19 pandemic — and vaccination for other diseases is now commonplace. But did you know that Catherine the Great, the famed Tsarina of Russia, was one of the early champions of inoculation?

Catherine the Great is Russia’s longest-serving female leader in more ways than one. She embraced new medical advancements and was an early endorser of vaccines. When she came to power in 1762, Russia was a poor, struggling country. In 1767, a smallpox epidemic swept Siberia, swiftly killing some 20,000 people. Smallpox was one of the worst diseases in history — killing nearly 400,000 people every year, 60 million in all — during the 18th century. (And it is the only human disease that has been successfully eradicated.) The Royal family was no exception — Catherine’s husband, the emperor Peter III, survived a severe case of smallpox when he was 16, which left him with disfiguring scars and very little hair.

In 1767, wanting to spare Russian lives, Catherine invited Thomas Dimsdale to court. He was a distinguished British physician who had built upon existing knowledge and created an experimental technique to immunize people to smallpox. It involved deliberately infecting a person with fluid from smallpox pustules, taken from a patient with a milder form of the disease, which resulted in a very mild smallpox infection that was less dangerous than if one contracted the disease by natural means, providing immunity to future attacks. He published his findings in a paper titled: The present methods of inoculation for the smallpox in 1767, which impressed Catherine at a moment when a smallpox epidemic was ravaging Russia.

She became convinced that she and her 14-year-old son, Paul, should be inoculated — and also wanted to prove to the Russian people that this was a safe and effective procedure. She and her son were quietly inoculated on October 12, 1768. The procedure was a success: Catherine developed a mild case of smallpox after but recovered fully two weeks later. She herself then donated pus for the inoculations of various members of her court. They all survived — and inoculation quickly became widely accepted. By the end of the century, nearly 2 million Russians had been inoculated against smallpox. Her belief in science saved the lives of millions of Russians, making Catherine quite

Great indeed.

My objective was, through my example, to save from death the multitude of my subjects who, not knowing the value of this technique, and frightened of it, were left in danger.

Catherine the Great

I’m sure, by now, you have settled into the new normal, you have stocked up on provisions to the best of your ability, you’ve considered your pet for employee of the month at your new office, and if you’re living with a partner or roommate, you’ve come up with an imaginary co-worker to blame everything on. Your office is a stable and friendly environment now that Sarah is taking all the blame for the dishes.

As a creative freelancer, the most valuable resource has always been “time.” Oh, how I always dreamed to just have enough time in a day to work on the projects I am assigned, as well as any personal artistic ventures I’ve left on my “Someday” shelf. So what happens when the assigned projects slip away as companies shutter their operations, your “Someday” shelf suddenly becomes your “Right Now” shelf, and you have all of the time in the world?

The first and most important thing to consider is the idea of prioritization. In a completely unstructured environment, priorities become the most important structure you can have. Make a list of your immediate concerns and goals for the foreseeable future and order them based on importance. This will help you at least compartmentalize the issues so they don’t get overwhelming.

I imagine money will fall at the top or near the top of that list, and as it should. For us creative professionals, with a lack of work comes a lack of money, and it’s a great idea to start thinking about that right away. You will not be able to create transcendent art if your mind is overcome with financial stress, so take a moment to do an inventory of your most valuable skills and start researching how you can apply them remotely. Can you teach a class via Skype? Can you send out some emails to old contacts and drum up some business that way? Can you create and monetize a podcast? If you at least begin to work towards financial stability in these unstable times, it will give your mind peace to focus on other projects.

Next, take some time for self-care. Don’t just dive head first into your personal projects and manically work towards finishing as many of them as you can so you can call yourself productive. They won’t be your best work, and you’ll drive yourself crazy! Take a moment to get in touch with yourself, maybe start a journal that you write in every morning, maybe find 5-10 minutes a day to meditate and get your thoughts in order. Once you have given yourself some time to adjust and adapt to the new normal, you will have a much easier time feeling productive when it’s time to work.

Finally, without structure, there is madness. Give yourself some structure. Decide when you will work on what. Maybe devote the first few hours of your day to job hunting and drumming up financial leads, and the second half of your day to creativity, and the evening for yourself. If you are more creative at night, then take the morning to take a nice healing walk, come back, work on business, and end the night with your personal ventures over some boxed wine and frozen pizza.

The most important thing is to not let yourself get overwhelmed by the amount you have to do, the amount of time you have, and the stress of maintaining your life. Take each minute, hour, or day as it comes and find your groove without forcing it. You will adapt. You will find a way through it, and you will come out more disciplined on the other side.

Now go tell Sarah to stop leaving her shoes all over the office, and finally hang that nice headshot of Mr. Sniffles on your wall, he’s worked hard to earn employee of the month, and he deserves the recognition!