Epiphanies: unexpected and most welcome visitors. Often they are accompanied by beautiful facial expressions, the body language of a suddenly opened mind. They leave in their wake certain treasured sentiments like: “Oh my god, now I understand! or “I knew that!” or “Ah, that’s the way life ought to be!”
As parents and teachers epiphanies are what we aspire to for our children.
THE WAY LIFE OUGHT TO BE: STORY #1 STARTS HERE.
Not old enough to go to school, my grandmother Elisaida would take me with her on her rounds to deliver food to elderly neighbors (today they are called "shut-ins”). They are not family. Why are we doing this? When I asked my grandmother about this she'd say: "They are our friends and neighbors. If we don't help them... who will? They are family, we take care of each other.”
As a country boy from southern Colorado, growing up I’d hear inspiring family stories.
While collecting oral history for my family's geneaology, I was told a story about a mutualista in my home town of Monte Vista. I'd never heard this term so I asked: "What is a mutualisa? It was explained this way.
"When a farmer was run over by a tractor, the mutualista (an organization of local families) would help with hospital bills and provide food and other assistance for his family for as long as needed. Together we can do what needed to be done."
Later in high school biology we learned about MUTUALISM: relationships between living things where they benefit from each other. In one type of mutualism living things can live independently but they each benefit by remaining together. In the second form of mutualism one organism cannot survive without the other.
Maybe we should create new mutualistas.
I grew up under this umbrella of helping each other so Sarah Nelson's story resonated with my family values.
"Sarah Nelson’s path began with a missing paycheck. After graduating from Principia College, in 1995, she planned to become a teacher. But one day, while facing down her student loans and a first-year teacher’s salary, she got a call from a former roommate who had become a flight attendant. “She called from Miami Beach, to kind of razz me,” Nelson says. “And then she got a little more serious: ‘No, but seriously, listen, this is a really good job. And I just need to tell you about the pay.’ ” After hearing about the perks—including a pension—Nelson drove from St. Louis to Chicago the next day and signed up with United.She worked out of Boston and immediately had an issue: Her paychecks weren’t arriving. Reluctant to cause a scene, she meekly alerted HR and hoped the company would fix the issue, taking extra flights so she could eat airplane food (“I might have met a few dates on the plane, so I had a couple of steak and lobster nights,” she says, slyly). At her lowest, with only 25 cents left to her name, she couldn’t tip the van driver who took her home from the airport. When her paycheck still didn’t come, she visited the hub office and got more runaround.“This was the first time in my life that I felt like I was just a number,” Nelson says. “The tears started to roll. And I feel this tap on the shoulder and I turn around, and someone was standing there who I’d never met before, but she looks just like me. We’re in the same uniform. And she asked me how to spell my name.” The woman wrote Nelson a check for $800. “She said, ‘Why don’t you go take care of yourself? And number two, you call our union.’ And I did. I had my paycheck the very next day.”Twenty-five years later, Nelson still gets choked up telling the story. “I learned everything I needed to know about our union in that moment,” she says. “Because in our union, we take care of each other and we’re never alone.”Would you give a new coworker $800? If you can’t imagine doing it, Nelson wants you to know that’s exactly what your boss wants you to think. Creating real bonds between people who work together every day is the only thing that will allow them to be truly empowered in the workplace." Click HERE for the Full article.
Story #2: The American Story meets Gig Economy Industries
"Most gig economy workers are still classified as contract workers, meaning that they aren’t covered by federal minimum wage laws and other labor protections. Still, by organizing en masse and expressing vocal opposition to exploitative policies, they have managed to wring some concessions out of the billion-dollar corporations whose labor they provide.” --Kevin Roose, New York Times.
After Uproar, Instacart Backs Off Controversial Tipping Policy Click HERE
Did Instacart follow up on: In addition, Instacart said it would retroactively compensate workers who had lost base pay as a result of the old tipping system?
