Grit Nation
Join host Joe Cadwell as he talks with authors and thought leaders about how to live a life full of meaning, contemplation and action.
Grit Nation
The Weekend Effect - Katrina Onstad
In this episode I speak with Katrina Onstad, author of The Weekend Effect. Her book addresses the life changing benefits of taking time off and challenging the cult of overwork and makes the case for reclaiming our weekends to increase creativity, productivity, and success in our lives.
Katrina and I open our conversation by discussing the historical origins of the weekend and how the concept of having 2 days off in a row is a fairly new construct.
Next, we’ll discover the roll organized labor unions played in establishing the weekend in the fight for better living standards of its members.
Later we unpack how the emergence of technology has begun to blur the lines between on and off shift. And why trying to curate the perfect weekend can leave you feeling drained.
And we’ll end our conversation by giving you the information you need to take back your weekends so that you come away rested, relaxed, and ready to tackle the week ahead.
The Show Notes
The Weekend Effect
https://katrinaonstad.com/
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Welcome to Grit Nation. I'm Joe Cadwell, the host of the show, and in this episode I will be speaking with Katrina Onstad, author of the Weekend Effect. This book addresses the life changing benefits taking time off and challenging the cult of overwork. It makes the case for reclaiming our weekends to increase creativity, productivity and success in our lives. Trina and I opened our conversation by discussing the historical origins of the weekend, and how the concept of having two days off in a row is a fairly new construct. Next, we'll discover the role organized labor unions played in establishing the weekend and the fight for better living standards for its members. Later, we unpack how the emergence of technology has begun to blur the lines between on and off ship. And why trying to curate the perfect weekend can leave you feeling drained. And we'll end our conversation by giving you the information you need to take back your weekend so that you come away rested, relaxed and ready to tackle the week ahead. After this episode, be sure to visit the show notes where you can find more information to help you dive deeper into the subject. And now on to the show. Katrina Onstad. Welcome to Grit Nation.
Katrina Onstad:Thanks for having me.
Joe Cadwell:Yeah, thank you so much, Katrina, for taking your time to be on the show. I'm really excited to introduce your book, The weekend effect to my listeners. And before we get started, I cannot help but address the irony that we are both doing this conversation. We're having this conversation on a Saturday morning digging into our weekends. But I really do appreciate you taking the time to talk to us more about it. So Katrina, how did you get interested in writing a book about the origins of the weekend?
Katrina Onstad:Yeah, it's interesting, this book is a few years old, and at the time I was a freelancer. So I am and I still sort of identify as one of the ranks of the gig economy. Even though right now I do have sort of a straight job but I've always gone back and forth as a writer between being self employed and having more conventional work relationships. So I was you know, feeling that exhaustion i Little kids and my partner was working long hours I was working long hours, I felt like all we were doing was working. And then in the spaces in between working moments we would try and parents and the other part of existence ie having a life was basically shelved. And and of course, I was not alone in this feeling. And I'm there was the book opens with me taking my son to sleep. And in saying like, Wait Is was that the weekend, the weekend just happen. And so realizing that there was very little delineation between work and leisure in our lives. And so I wanted to dig into this phenomenon and find out if other people are experiencing the same kind of work life blur, and find out who was doing it better, who's living and working better, and what, you know, what we can all do as a society to improve this state of being.
Joe Cadwell:And having read your book, you really did get into the the the mechanics of the weekend, the sacred 48 hours, and sort of the origins of even the term the weekend, from my understanding of the term, the weekend, or the concept of the weekend, wasn't really established until the late 1800s. Right, when people kind of switched from an agrarian sort of lifestyle to a more industrial sort of lifestyle. And and tell us more about that.
Katrina Onstad:Yeah, well, I mean, it is really interesting. I mean, the weekend is, is all about, it's about time, right? I mean, time is sort of an arbitrary construct that humans came up with a long time ago to, you know, impose some order. And, of course, the first idea of a break from work is came from religion from organized religion in the Sabbath, and you know, Judaism, Islam, Christianity all have baked in to the their ethos, the idea of of a day off for prayer and investigation beyond work. And the idea of the Sabbath actually comes from, from exodus from the Pharaoh getting the slaves to keep building and building and expanding and more and more, Does this sound familiar? 2020 22 he was working them to death, working them to death, and God was like, No, my people got to have one day off, right and one day where their identities aren't just about working for the man. And so that idea of kind of sank, you know, some sacred time, the sanctification of time that there has to be some element in each week. where people can't be divorced from their work, work selves. And remember, the rest of their identities started started there. And then of course, you know, it was a, their iterations of time off and leisure throughout as kind of as work changes, leisure changes. And then with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, suddenly work was ubiquitous, especially for people who are in factories, and they were really working, you know, being worked to the bone. And so it was really with that kind of rise of organized labor that we saw the rise of the weekend, because the those were the people and groups that fought to get some of that time back to return to that idea of, you know, sanctify like a sacred corner of each week, where workers did not have to be workers, or they could also be workers and also people outside of work. So yeah, I mean, there was a, you know, you know, I know on this show, and you know, this history very well, that in the late 1800s, this was that organized labor really started with this fight for an eight hour workday. And for week, after weekend, it was a long, slow, like 100 years of these kinds of fights and people dying, and, you know, bloodshed, and of course, Haymarket Square in Chicago, and the beginning of Labor Day. And all of those fights landed us with something that looked like for about a century, two days off the Saturday and the Sunday. And now, of course, that's very different.
Joe Cadwell:So the weekends origins basis in religion, and once the Industrial Revolution came along, like you say, people were being worked to the bone. And we're not just talking 10 hour, 12 hour days, there were shopkeepers working 1618 hours a day, seven days a week, and they really began to as we'll get into later began to feel the effects the productivity wasn't exactly high when you're just exhausted all the time. So labour started to push back against these sort of extremes. And you had mentioned the the rise of organized labor in 1881, may 1, the Haymarket affair and you went into that a bit in your book, but what can you tell our listeners about the Haymarket?
Katrina Onstad:Yeah, it was 30,000 people, right marching? Chicago, imagine that. Imagine one portion of the population that was at that time, and it was for a manageable
Joe Cadwell:work life, work life balance. Yeah, yeah.
Katrina Onstad:And I think we kind of forget when we think about what it was that was being for that so much of it was really about time.
Joe Cadwell:Yeah, there were slogans, you know, there was eight hours work eight hours for rest, and I think it was eight hours for what you will, what you will, yeah, yeah. And and there was a rallying cry because we realize that yeah, the people that were truly profiting from this system, were not the factory workers were not the meatpacking workers, but it was, was the capitalist and so organized labor had to band together, my organization, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America was established in 1881, just a few years before the hay market, tragedy occurred where blood was spilled where a bomb had gone off, where people were put on trial and actually executed for their part in organizing to get an eight hour day, which kind of leads into the, to the establishment of the weekend. So yeah. So so that the the capitalistic view, though, is that you know, people are good. The more we work, the more we produce, and the more we produce, the more profit is made. But science shows that it's not quite the case, when your book sort of points this out this correlation that overworked doesn't necessarily mean more productivity.
Katrina Onstad:No. And in fact, the inverse is often is proven true, right? That societies where people work, fewer hours are actually their overall productivity is actually higher. And there's a famous study from World War One. So we're talking about 100 years ago, and it's been rebooted many times. And it keeps proving true, which is just at that time, they were measuring how many munitions were produced in a factory by workers. And they found that after about, you know, so if we say 40 hours is like a, quote unquote, ideal work week. So let's say we tack on 1050 hours, okay, people are beginning to fatigue, produce less widgets, munitions, whatever it is, beyond 50 hours, the quality of the work just declines precipitously, right. So errors are introduced, the amount of labor output is decreases significantly. So it's actually not there's no not really correlation between like, time necessarily between time but like there's a there's a cutoff point, right? There's a cut off point at which workers are no, it's no longer beneficial. But I think what's been interesting in the last, you know, 30 or 40 years is that the optics are Around busyness has shifted so much that in fact, the logging a lot of hours is suddenly something sort
Joe Cadwell:of venerate. It's a badge of honor for a lot of people for sure. Fatigue, right?
Katrina Onstad:People will say, How are you, I'm so tired. If someone were to say, I feel really rested, my life is full. You know, then that those people actually, there's been some research around this, where there, there was a study, I can't remember what it was out. But they looked at two online dating profiles, they were fake, and one in which someone described themselves as you know, not not particularly overworked, but, you know, creative and busy with our inner lives and our non word byes. And then the other ones, and one was I am exhausted, I work all the time. And that person was being more powerful in the eyes of people looking at these two profiles side by side that someone who is exhausted and overworked has more status, which is a real version of what we used to think of, because used to be that the leisure class, the badge of honor was to work less.
Joe Cadwell:Right? That's what we strove for. Right?
Katrina Onstad:Right. But now there's a no, this is a great slide trick of capitalism to make us believe that our value lies in exhaustion, and overwork. And that works very well for the people who profit from that exhaustion and overwork and not so well, for the people who experience it.
Joe Cadwell:Yeah, that's for sure. And considering you know, the income inequality of people that are working in the warehouses on the on the the kill floors of industrial slaughterhouses, that are literally working themselves, you know, these extremely long hours day in and day out. An average CEO, I've heard anywhere from 300 to now 900 times what their average worker makes. And it's just a ridiculous equation to think that on the low end of the spectrum, that anyone is worth 300 times what the average worker of their company should should make.
Katrina Onstad:The fact is, it doesn't matter how much time the collar gig economy workers are putting in, they are never going to get like it's not as if the the 1% is working longer hours, right. Like that's about the correlation isn't isn't hours invested at higher income. So
Joe Cadwell:for sure, there's only so many hours a day. Yeah, they're, they're on a hamster wheel. They're on that treadmill. And so what we strove for for so long to to establish these sacred 48 hours, these two days back to back seems like it's it's being chipped away. And it's, if people are lucky enough to get two days in a row nowadays, it's that's, you know, a pretty valuable perk, but a lot of people aren't necessarily taking Saturday and Sunday off, like when when we were kids, you know, the folks would have Saturdays and Sundays off, and you would find time for leisure. Now, people are sometimes getting a Tuesday or, or a Friday, and it's just sort of jumbled up and mixed up, especially with the gig economy workers that you had mentioned.
Katrina Onstad:Yeah. I mean, I think that's the biggest shift in how we work in the last half century, right is this rise of contract work and precarious work. And so there's like a kind of disjuncture between, I think there's this dated concept of what it means to have a job and the reality that's a patchwork reality that most workers, many workers are living in their day to day lives. I live in Toronto, and Recent surveys show that over 50% of the people in our city or the biggest city in Canada, are would be classified as precarious workers. So there are contract workers that you know, don't necessarily have benefits. We are lucky enough in Canada to not have our health care tied to our work, which, which to me, is the most unimaginable, terrifying situation. And I think it dictates everything that's conversation about work is so tied to health care, especially in the United States. But we do still we are these workers, these precarious workers are unprotected, met and vulnerable to you don't know sick days, pensions, all those kinds of protections that we associate with having a job quote, unquote, these people do have jobs, but they don't have the security that goes with them.
Joe Cadwell:Yeah, there can be kind of an inverse there, it can be too much for being worked too much. Or there could be sort of a lack of hours that keep you from achieving basic necessities like health care for yourself and your family. And coming from the perspective of someone who isn't organized labor union, the carpenters union, coming from the perspective of, you know, living in the US, it does seem and from what I've heard and experienced when I lived overseas, myself that other countries seem to be doing this balance a little bit better. And everyone you know, thinks of the other romantic notion of the French, always having the the weekends with family and food and wine. And to some extent that is true. We tend to work more I think as a nation than any other nation on the planet with the exception of perhaps Japan is that
Katrina Onstad:True. Yeah, I think that's true. And actually England also has, so there's a little bit of a hole in the EU, you know, celebrate button. They're not any anymore, I should say, but the European kind of fantasy that we have of them. But yes, for sure of industrialized countries, the United States, Japan, longer hours and sorry, but not as productive overall. So there you go. But I do think, yeah, there's a mind set in countries that have have been working through this crisis of work that where there's a kind of revelation about overworked labor forces not being beneficial, you know, so protections and regulations being put in place to make sure that people aren't overworked. Those serve not just employers, but cultures as a whole. So it's been interesting. I mean, France, and there are, you know, obviously, no countries is ideal as we would hope it would. And there's problems, of course, and how things are done in France. But an interesting piece of progress, there is the right to disconnect laws, which protect workers in certain work environments, from receiving emails on the weekends or being their bosses are allowed to contact them outside of work hours. And that is, I mean, that's really huge, because, of course, we haven't talked about this yet. But like the engine of so much of this work life floor is technology, right, is that everybody has their phones in their pockets. And that I think that affects, you know, white collar workers and blue collar workers, because you're you can be called in and gig workers, of course, ultimately, literally, their their app is their boss, right? The phone is their boss. So you know, we're beginning to see some legal frameworks. In countries like France, the Netherlands, Germany, they're beginning to their laws are catching up with the realities of contemporary work. And some protections are beginning to be complacent. In fact, here in Toronto, we just in Ontario, we just last month, there is now some legislation coming in our own right to disconnect laws, but of course, that they are only applicable to very specific segments of work, right. And we haven't had the conversation about what a worker really is and how vast this need for reform is. So that's nice for government workers who can be contacted on the weekends. But for UberEATS driver, it's a completely different situation, even with these protections that we're inching towards.
Joe Cadwell:Yeah, and as those borders become more and more fuzzy with the advances in technology, like you say, it becomes very, very difficult to delineate between the to my time at work and my time to have fun so aside from say, we'll get away from the Labor aspect just a little bit but aside from technology, you know, encroaching into our weekends. As people we seem to to do a lot of it this damage to our free time ourselves. And you and your book had talked about, you know, over scheduling of your kids and being from Canada hockey plays a huge part of an average Canadian family's life. And next thing you know, if it's not work dipping into your time on the weekend, it is trying to curate either the perfect weekend are over scheduling everything down to the last minute, so that at the end of the weekend, you actually come away feeling a little more exhausted than rejuvenated. And what can you tell us about that? Grid nation is brought to you by union Homeplus. For over two decades, Patrick Towne, the director of union Homeplus, and his team of finance and real estate professionals have been providing the safest, most cost effective resources to help union members buy, sell and finance their home. For more information, be sure to check out the show notes and today's episode, or visit union Home Plus dot O R G on the web union Homeplus. Helping union families find their way home for over 20 years. Grid nation is also sponsored in part by the Martinez Tool Company, veteran owned and made in the USA a Martinez Tool Company has a variety of hand tools that you can't get anywhere else except straight for Martinez themselves. From titanium handled hammers with replaceable heads and grips to wrap it squares with accuracy unparalleled in the industry. Martinez tools delivers when it comes to quality, durability and design. So if you're the type of builder who demands the most out of your tools, be sure to visit Martinez tools.com. Today, our team has tools built tough and built to last a lifetime. And now back to the show.
Katrina Onstad:Yeah, I mean, I think that's a reality that, you know, many people are experiencing, which is that, you know, a lot of people I think particularly with families but not not so only with families are kind of living lives running their families like little corporations, right, like we're scheduling people, our children the same way a CEO would schedule, you know, his or her week. So, and I think that this is even subconsciously, kind of internal. It's like an internalization of this kind of capitalist productivity mindset right like that the idea of true downtime where maybe unoccupied time space where there's nothing happening suddenly makes people anxious is actually word for this phobia. It's like fear of free time, right? Because we are really getting we're programmed, right? To maximize our time, our value our identities, everything is tied together. So what does it mean to have you know, your eight year old just like lounging around the house? Does it make people itchy? I think it does a little bit often Right? Like, oh, God, I gotta get that kid. And this is a competitive world, it should be in their French lessons or with their tutor or, you know, we can't just be unhealthy and candidates is always a conversation like it can't just be Helsley hockey, it's got to be select hockey, because achieve achieve achieve, right. And I don't think we Yeah, of course, we do this so much out of love, and we see our kids talents, and we want the most for them. And we can afford it, we want to expose them to these kinds of experiences. And I don't think it's, you know, necessarily cruelty by any means. It's comes from love often. But I think the end result is that we are imposing this called cult of busyness, into our domestic spheres and onto our children. And I you know, we are creating a lot of anxiety in young people, right? My husband's a teacher, and he sees it daily that these kids this young people are experiencing unprecedented levels of anxiety. And of course, we're COVID. So everything like it is our growth anything anymore without that amplification. But it's a lot of pressure to make sure that our time is productive. And we miss out we miss out on a lot of there's a lot of value, and unstructured and empty time.
Joe Cadwell:You feel like you're slacking if you don't have every last minute scheduled out. But I think there is like you say a lot of value to just having that free time, the spontaneity that comes from it the a little bit of boredom. I remember as a kid just being a little bit bored on weekends and go outside and play create your own world. And having listened to you on another show. I understand Katrina, that was sort of the catalyst for you to get into writing. You were bored, and you decided to start writing and you found that you liked it.
Katrina Onstad:Yeah, I mean, I Yes, I also read fiction, and I've been a journalist. And yeah, I think that that was because I was kind of a weird kid who was just by herself a lot. And sometimes that's not great. But sometimes it was like, I definitely had to go into my imagination. And I was sort of left alone to do that, right. And leaving our kids alone can actually be a great gift. And we do know that for everybody, regardless of age. creativity comes from boredom, like we we are kind of forced, or our brains are forced into different spaces, and we have to come up like we're humans are incredibly, mentally agile, if we are given the space, we will come up with stuff. And, you know, this is why of course, in a corporate environment, a lot of employers now will try to schedule free time into the week when they're like, this is your creative afternoon, go, go think and be creative. But of course, that's very, a very hard thing to mandate. But if people actually have like, a full weekend or an afternoon to wander and think and feel, there can be a lot of innovation and like there is an argument for employers, that downtime will give them better, better, more productive, more interesting, more engaged employees. You know, certainly without that time, people, you know, the opposite happens, and people shut down. And we all know what it's like when you're fatigued and overworked, you're not feeling that that level of you're not coming up with, you know, crazy new ideas, you're just getting through.
Joe Cadwell:I typically find my most creative time but the day is early in the morning, right after a good night's sleep. I'll get up and amazing how the thoughts flow. So there is some truth to that for sure. And and so what would you suggest people are listening to the show right now? And they're saying, Well, yeah, this sounds a lot like me. And you know, it just seems like I work really hard all week. I want to really maximize that, that weekend off and then they just find themselves sort of in that trap again, what would you what would you recommend to a listener saying, you know, how to how to back off on the on the scheduling or how to maximize I guess your weekends without trying too hard?
Katrina Onstad:Yeah, I mean, it's, I always feel like wary of this of the answer to that question, because I don't think it's entirely an individual decision. Right. Like I think that there's a kind of collapse a shift from a kind of collective mindset around work and leisure that says, Yes, we as a society have to agree that it's a value, it's a fundamental value that people will not be ground down, and that people can have lives outside of work. And I do you think a lot of that has to come from workplace practices, organized labor, government. And I don't want the onus to always be on the individual. But if we are, you know, if we can continue to fight for those, for those kinds of advances, in our day to day lives, I do think there's things we can do and try to do. And, like I always think of it as we're so good at work, like we're, you know, so many people really want to be good workers, they, they do feel their identity tied to work, so they want to succeed at it. Like I think we have to kind of flip that and become as vigilant and as excellent at leisure. And that means being really protective and have free time on weekends. Really turning off your phone, it's very basic. Turn it off, leave it at home, like I can imagine, leave it at home, go out, go be in the world. And again, COVID Right, I know it's hard what so thought find safe ways to do that, within the limitations that so many of us are still under. You know, nature is an incredible self for stress and overwork. Shift a shift in the environment, there's lots of research around actual exposure to greenery and error,
Joe Cadwell:and not just the Amazon rainforest. of shopping. No, you know, I think shopping is really kind of replaced a lot of that leisure time. And it's sort of perpetuates itself. The more you shop, the more you owe, the more you owe, the more you have to work and it according to your book, it seemed like shopping is a big replacement nowadays for people's leisure time, which just seems really out of whack.
Katrina Onstad:Well, it's out of whack. It's also very predictable, isn't it? Because we're you know, really the system is designed for work and spent that's a economist Julia shore came up with that idea of work and spin culture where we worked out money to spend and then we spent our money so we work and around around around we go. Right. And I think when we have our free time we are inclined to to spend not only because we're living in a consumerist culture where we've sort of been programmed to find comfort in consumption. And particularly when it comes to like, you know, maybe our clothes or domestic situations where as a constant urge to upgrade right and present and and some people you know, I'm not like down or choppy, I don't want to be something you know, there can definitely have joy there that you don't have to go shopping everybody else. But is it becoming is shopping, here's the two things people do most weekends, according to my surveys, shopping and chores. So okay, we all have to do a little bit of each probably shopping is more pleasurable, can we contain those two elements, so that there's the majority of time on a weekend or whatever your days off are, if you are lucky enough to have them is not filled with those kinds of activities, because those are kind of those aren't activities that are going to get you into that flow state that we were talking about that kind of that kind of zone for creativity and ideas. And they're also not usually communal activities. And that's another big problem with the erosion of the weekend is that the weekend, you know, traditionally is a time for people to come out of themselves into their communities, and to nurture those relationships that are not just work relationships, not just relationships, where I help them advance professionally, but help them advance personally as people, right so. And one of the things that we know is happening as a real rise in loneliness and a sense of isolation. And that those strong and deep bonds that humans require to be human, those those social connections are is jeopardized by a WorkFirst life. So on the weekend, if you want to feel good, and you have a bit of time, go be with people talk to people call people, whatever it is, even if it's an hour a half hour, is it a neighbor? Or is it a friend, check the strength, you know, it's time to gauge and like measure the strength of those bonds and invest your time there and that will come back tenfold because we know that that actually makes people physically feel better like their heart rates and their you know, like they you know, everybody knows the kind of energize effect of other people in their lives but we don't have time or we feel are we're filling that time are forced to fill that time with consumption and chores and commitments that don't create those those feelings that sort of those feelings of meaning and And, you know, grace and respect the things you get out of relationships, then of course, we're going to feel pretty lousy. Right? And we are anxious and burnt out.
Joe Cadwell:Yep, been binge watching eight hours of Netflix is not necessarily going to rejuvenate you and make you feel whole as a person when you when you get done.
Katrina Onstad:Yeah, that's it. That's an interesting one, because I think that's called passive leisure, those kinds of activities, that are the kind of collapse activities right as watching Netflix, watching sports, rather than doing sports. But where we feel more rejuvenated is of course, in any kind of action, an act of leisure. So maybe instead of watching the game for most of Sunday, or games back to back, go play one for a little bit, and then you go back to your lounge or right or whatever,
Joe Cadwell:outside with friends with a family to go for walk, play some games, but just don't couch potato and expect that on Monday morning, you're going to be looking and feeling your best.
Katrina Onstad:Yeah, it's not going to give you back that energy. And also that sense of purpose. And meaning that more engaged leisure time does.
Joe Cadwell:So Katrina, what do you hope someone takes away after reading your book,
Katrina Onstad:it guess I kind of would want to know who's reading it. So anyone with power an employer or someone in government, I hope that they would look closely at the policies that are in place that are keeping people locked into this cult of overwork. I would hope that as a society, we have continued to have these conversations that I do believe are beginning to happen, about what it does to people to be caught in precarious work and to be without a sense of security around work. For on a personal level, I hope people can kind of do a little bit of a weekend audit, or free time audit if they don't have a conventional weekend and sort of ask that question of well, why if I get to my Sunday night, do I not feel rejuvenated in the way that I should? I did have this time? And what did I do with you know that my one precious life is the poet has said, so I think you know, just paying attention and granting yourself permission to be off to be someone outside of work. You know, it's okay, like it's okay to be in love with your work. People will often say to me when we talk about these issues, but I really like my work, and I don't, and I don't want to not be working, you know, and that's okay, that's fine. But you know, we all know that at the end of life, very few people are on their deathbed saying I wish I worked more. Right. I know that's a bit of a cliche, but I find it really motivating.
Joe Cadwell:What brought you the greatest sense of satisfaction in life was not the weekends that you work, but the time you spent with family making real connections and again, developing yourself as a, a well rounded individual contributing to society. So it sounds pretty logical. Yeah. Well, Katrina, this is this has been a fantastic conversation. Where can people go to find your book?
Katrina Onstad:Oh, yeah, you can get the book most places you can check out my website, Katrina Onstad. Calm. I think there's buttons there to order. And I really hope people
Joe Cadwell:do. Right. Thank you so much for taking your time on a Saturday Katrina to be on my show. It's been a real pleasure. I guess it has been Katrina Onstad, author of the weekend effect. Get more information about how you can take back your weekends. Be sure to visit the show notes for this episode. Or visit the grid nation website at WWW dot grid nation. podcast.com. Till next time, this is Joe Cadwell. reminding you to work safe, work smart and state union strong. Since you're from Toronto, my other big podcast crush hate to say it that way. But Malcolm Gladwell Pushkin industries. Malcolm is that guy? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Sorry. He's from Ontario. Not from Toronto. But
Katrina Onstad:yeah, well, he went he went to U of T though. I know lots of people. I I once went when dancing with him.
Joe Cadwell:No way. Is such a funny guy.
Katrina Onstad:He's such a character. That guy. Yeah, this was like 20 years ago. Yeah. And he was just getting Delia The New Yorker. And he just sort of hitting it big. And yeah, it was. He's a he's a neat guy. And he's great at what he does, for sure, man.
Joe Cadwell:Yeah, his whole team and that whole Pushkin industries that he's developed, you know, to bring out other just high end podcasters like that as I listen to this and I'm like, Alright, I'm gonna keep you massaging the craft and learning the skills from the masters like those guys. We all are.
Katrina Onstad:Yeah, but it's a great I mean, I think it's a very welcome medium. Like it's not it's not like there's such a gap between, like the DIY Podcast and that like production value somewhat, but you don't. It's never really that right and all the story. Yeah.
Joe Cadwell:And you get direct access. I mean, you can't get closer to someone's brain than an earbud in their head for 25 to 45 minutes. It's a very intimate relationship between the host and the listener. So, yeah, it's a great medium. I love it.
