Walker:
I am a project scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research
or NCAR.
Charbonneau:
When did you start that position?
Walker:
In my current role I started in June of 2020. I should add, I was a
postdoc at the organization before. So yes, kind of not new to the
institution, but new to the position. I did my research from my postdoc
at NCAR, and I got my PhD from the University of Nebraska Lincoln.
Charbonneau:
Are you currently doing most of your own research? Do you have a
leadership position where you have people working with you or is
everything your own self-sustaining work?
Walker:
It is really all the above. Some projects given my role as a project
scientist, some of the projects are more individual self-led. There are
other projects in which I am supporting someone else. I am a member of
their team supporting broader collaborative projects. Other projects I
am leading. Currently the biggest project I am leading has a group of
about 10 people that have been involved.
We have projects that are internal to the organization and projects with
cross collaborations outside of our organization at industry, at
universities, ranging from students to faculty to other research
scientists. The only rule is there is no one-size-fits-all. The
collaborations are broad and diverse.
Charbonneau:
What have been some of the impacts you have noticed at your
organization?
Walker:
COVID has been a rollercoaster. I am happy to say I am in my office and
that had not happened until about the last six months. When the pandemic
hit, what was it? March 18th, 2020, you know, days that go down in
infamy now, that was our last day being open for business as usual. We
shifted to our work from home, fully remote strategy. It was certainly
helpful that there was some precedence for work from home, but it was
kind of more ad hoc and the luxury, it certainly was not systematic. We
certainly did have comfort and familiarity with the tools.
When March hit everyone thought like: “Oh, this will be weeks to
months,” not like it is going to turn into a year plus and still as you
said dealing with the repercussions of it today. One of the first
personal difficulties I had was having young children at home. We live
in an apartment, a 2-bedroom, so there is not a whole dedicated office
space. My kitchen counter became my office. The first hurdle was that
logistic of finding the space, the quiet space with young children that
and I had a child born during COVID.
My oldest back in 2020, she was four at the time. So, you can imagine
what that looked like. Adjusting just to the change setting. It is
funny, there were days I worked from home before the pandemic, but of
course in those instances the house was empty, kids were at school,
etcetera. Now everyone being home while at once, that was a good
personal challenge.
The other challenge was connecting with colleagues, with sponsors of
projects, and kind of just everyone being in that same boat of the
personal toll, the professional toll of seeing what the status of
networks were, and everyone dealing with their own adjustment period. As
everyone was dealing with their own adjustment, much of that
cross-collaboration and work fell by the wayside at least in that first
shock.
Now I feel like as things went on, I got into kind of a steady state,
when childcare opened back up. That was a huge benefit as well. Working
from home did not have those personal and familial distractions. Then I
got into a good groove. I would say where some of the positive aspects
of the pandemic were the fact that a lot of meetings, conferences, and
workshops, did go fully virtual. Meetings where before it might have
been difficult to justify $2000 for airfare and hotel, and all those
other costs of travel, while now it was easy to join from your living
room and just click and enter Zoom. So, in that regard, there were some
opportunities to get exposure to venues and others that I might not
have. Including making some collaborations too, once equilibrium
returned with whatever our new normal was and still is figuring itself
out today.
Charbonneau:
What kind of strategies did you use to maintain continuity in your work
and research?
Walker:
Thanks for the question. I count myself in the fortunate category in
that most of my research involves just largely data analysis, drafting
papers, reports, peer review literature. I was in the lucky camp where
access to a physical space, a lab, was not essential. Beyond the
convenience of my desk, because I can spread out.
Being fresh off my most recent degree too, within a few years, I did
some of my PhD in the office and some of my PhD was at home on the couch
writing up my dissertation and what have you. In many respects, I feel
like I made that adjustment much easier. Although some of the other
limitations were realizing that being home and your internet is good
when one person is watching Netflix or doing work. But now having to
download huge data sets, I ran into all kinds of crazy bandwidth issues.
There were a couple of weeks where my computer spent two or three days
trying to upload or download some data. I am like what am I paying for?
I am working and then it would cause the whole home router to crash and
that was frustrating. I will say I ran into some issues when it came to
large data analysis and even using VPN to SSH and to work machines and
systems still had some issues just with the home Wi-Fi bandwidth.
In terms of the overall adjustment, I was able to function easily when
it came to software data. To give a quick overview, my research focus
really looks at how weather impacts transportation. It is working with a
lot of stakeholders like departments of transportation among others for
safety. Like how do we plow roads, or when should roads close based on
severe weather conditions or adverse weather hazards and how our traffic
and mobility are affected?
The data itself do not involve, at least at the time, a lot of field
deployments. It was more data sets that were either publicly available
or data sets given from sponsors. Since then, though, some of the
projects involve instrumentation and have field deployment components.
Fortunately, those have come now that we are in a hybrid world and work
environment if you will. At the time, those projects were started during
the pandemic, but luckily, they are actual deployment has come more
recent than that.
Charbonneau:
What current workplace policies and restrictions do you have in place?
Are you keeping a lot of your meetings virtual like you did prior?
Walker:
It certainly has shifted in the last year or so. I will walk you through
the time series. Once we did start letting people back in after those
first shutdowns in 2020, it was social distance. No meetings, mask only
required, there were added health protocols and testing needed.
Once the vaccination was available initially our organization waited to
see what the guidance was going to be in terms of things like federal
mandates for federal contractors. We fell under the category of a
federal contractor. We fell under one of those earlier vaccine mandates
that we did and do have a vaccine mandate.
It was a court case, I want to say Georgia, some court case that struck
that mandate down. Our organization then just made the individual
business decision to keep a vaccine mandate for staff. So, we have had
to have the vaccine. Boosters are not yet needed, though there has been
discussion even to this day about, do we need to move the goal post and
change that definition?
To date the mask requirement has ended in line with our local county.
That was something our organization certainly wanted to take a more
reserved and conservative approach, in terms of not just opening back up
and saying get rid of your mask but they also wanted to keep consistency
with our local county level and city level public health agencies as
well. When they no longer recommended masks, we similarly followed suit.
Currently today you know the only real restriction is the vaccine
requirement. Outside of that meetings can happen again. Masks are
encouraged but not needed.
I would say among staff and colleagues I see masking is more to the side
of not wearing a mask, so maybe it is like a 60/40 split, or 70/30. It
depends. The summer has been a little bit different too because we have
reopened for some of our in-person internship programs and peer
exchanges. We have had folks coming from all over, and as a result, some
level of COVID transmission. In the last couple of weeks, I have
certainly seen the masking increase and on the rise again. That is the
world we are living in with the latest variants.
For a time during the pandemic as well, we have other folks beyond me
that have field campaigns and those have been deferred. Field campaigns
have since resumed as has international travel. We still have our
pandemic response team checking the evolving situation and making
guidance and recommendations based on the latest guidance from the CDC
(Centers for Disease Control) and World Health Organization and other
agencies.
Some things that have stuck around. Most meetings are virtual. Even when
I come in the office, it is rare to get into a conference room. There
have been a few times as it’s certainly coming down more to personal
preference though. Something else my lab has done is we have fully
embraced both a hybrid but also a remote workforce. Some of my
colleagues have chosen to move out of the Boulder, Colorado area, some
out of the state entirely. Now I have a fair number of colleagues that
are fully remote. Meetings with them are always virtual regardless.
In those circumstances, some folks I work close with it just becomes
easier to make all meetings virtual, because then you do not have to
worry about balancing the hybrid attendees and you do not have to worry
about making sure that the voice is balanced.
Some other than the minor fun things that have stuck around is now our
bathrooms have a little slider on the door that says occupied or open.
Even though the restrooms have multiple stalls in them, we have kind of
just kept the practice now of one person at a time. That there is not a
good air circulation in the restrooms, and that is a cramped space. That
is not a terrible thing to keep around.
We are also not back at 100% capacity. When we get there that might be a
struggle. Our maintenance and cleaning services have kept this kind of
higher level of wiping down and sanitizing surfaces and things of that
nature and we are very much still in a position of what things involved
with in the future. Especially looking at right now when we have back to
school in a few weeks. That is another level of potential hit or impact.
Charbonneau:
For the employees who work the hybrid model, is there a set number of
days they must like to come into the office, or do they choose which
days they come?
Walker:
I consider myself in this camp. Currently it is flexible in which it is
more of a negotiation between yourself and your supervisor. We have a
portal in place where our staff are asked to define what that flex
arrangement looks like for you. Then your supervisor must approve it. If
there is any disagreement, you iterate it as needed and all that good
stuff. But in general, as of now the only requested guidance is that
whether in person, remote, or hybrid flex that staff keep availability
still in a Monday through Friday normal business hours with the key
being Colorado time. I think we have loosely defined that as kind of
9:00 AM to 4:00 PM mountain time. We keep our Google Calendar up to date
so we can see the schedule for everyone.
The greatest challenge I have had now coming into this hybrid
environment is during the pandemic when everything was remote, people
would schedule meetings right on top of each other because it is like
you click off one and you click back into the other. Well, now that some
meetings are in person, you know it is like, wait, I need that 5-10
minutes to run down the hall again or run to the next building over or
something. It is figuring out how do you change that expectation?
Can I join the meeting in a click, or do I need some actual transit
time, or running to the restroom, or grabbing food now? That has been
fun to figure out, but our organization, to their credit, has looked to
be as flexible as possible and realize that everyone's situation is
unique during this time. Whether it is dependent care for young
children, or for older adults and family members. Just try to be aware
and know that everyone situation is so unique and so it is tough to put
out a blanket where everyone is going to come in on Tuesdays and
Thursdays. That may or may not be possible. They have left it flexible
in terms of what the cadence is. We will learn and evolve as we go in
the coming months and years.
Charbonneau:
How many of your employees at your organization would you say are in
that all remote camp versus the hybrid camp if you had to take a guess?
Walker:
Yes, a tricky question. I would say most are in the hybrid camp. I would
say greater than 50%. I will just leave it at that with the caveat that
some of the folks in the hybrid camp are just coming in as little as
like a few times per month. There are far fewer of us coming in with any
regular schedule.
It also depends a bit on job class. Our IT staff, they have kept a
regular presence coming in. Even during the shutdowns when we were
allowed like 5% building capacity, IT staff came to keep systems running
to troubleshoot issues. They were our essential worker equivalent. As
were some other supports, administrative, building maintenance and
facility staff. But among most of say the general science staff I would
say that most people as I said come in with less of a rigid schedule,
kind of as needed, meeting dependent.
Then there is a smaller percentage of hybrid folks like me that are
coming in regularly. As an example, this week I have come in two days
and then tomorrow I will work remote. Then Thursday, Friday, I am taking
PTO. If I was not taking time off though, I have been working and kind
of the last two-three months now, I come in about three or four days a
week and then the rest remote. That is kind of been where I found this
nice equilibrium that I like.
Again, it is situationally dependent. If my kids get sick or I know I
had a COVID exposure and then we are asked to not come in. Right. There
is a lot of that I plan to come in, but if I get a head cold or
something, whether it is COVID or not, I stay home.
Charbonneau:
What kind of supports did you notice your organization put in place in
terms of communication and resource management once you went all remote?
Walker:
One of the greatest things our work did, I forget the initial frequency
of it, it was every two to three weeks. At least once a month, we had
organizational town halls. It was a check-in. It was an update. It was
an opportunity to connect and for staff to ask questions. What is the
current thinking? When might we come back? All the questions that were
on everyone's mind. Can we never come back? You had the extremes on
both sides. Some people wanted to get back in there yesterday, and some
people were like: “Can I go back in and clean out my office and never
come back?” So, you always have that variability in terms of the
audience and other support.
Fortunately for a while now, our organization has given every staff
member, either through project funds or organization funds, but every
staff member has a laptop. Every staff member had peripherals, mouse
keyboard, dual monitors or whatever they wanted. They made the
opportunity when we went into the first shutdowns for folks to take
equipment home. We can always take our laptops back and forth, so that
was always a given. But if you wanted your peripherals to help kind of
set-up a home office or workspace, those opportunities and options were
certainly made available. Our work machines are supplied IT support for
any issues that might arise.
Now with the other side, transition back to the office a couple of
things have happened. One is we are allowed one set of peripherals. So,
whether you set that up in your office or at home, that is up to you to
decide. The other thing my organization has recently done is make a
$750 per year stipend available to all staff for a commuting offset.
You want to purchase another set of monitors for home or another mouse
and keyboard?
You could use it for whatever to support your home workspace. It was
just a stipend given to all. There is no tracking or receipts that is
needed where you must show like what did you buy. Hopefully, you use it
responsibly for the purpose is used for. If you bought a Lotto ticket
trying to get that billion-dollar ticket last week I guess: “Oh well,”
right.
That has been helpful and so the way they did that stipend, it will be
$750 each year going forward. This year they gave us a lump sum of
$1500 though up front for the two years of the pandemic, 2020-2021 and
then 2022. That was given to us up front. I used it as an example to
upgrade my internet service, so I do not have the problems of waiting
for files to download forever.
Charbonneau:
Did the pandemic bring more work for your organization? Was work your
workload consistent throughout the pandemic or did it change.
Walker:
I think like many things before the pandemic it was a steady state high
workload, high output etcetera, before everything came to a halt. So,
the stock market crash during that heart of the pandemic caused some of
our research sponsors to pull back on funding to see where things were
going. There were some projects that had international and collaborative
components and so you know a lot of things got put on pause just because
of the uncertainty factor of: “What was going to happen?” As well as the
associated economic and market turmoil.
We have had that recovery where we understand some of the public health,
weather, and climate issues around COVID. For some, those were
opportunities. Then there were a few instances where projects never came
back for whatever reasons. But there is going to be rebound in terms of
productivity.
For me, I would say, "Yep, that was about right." I am at the end of
my postdoc kind of roaring on all cylinders, all engines go and then
just the adjustment period of the pandemic. But I will say now, I think
I have rebounded to where I am busier than ever, part because of the new
role, but also, I feel like just for myself, and this is a later
question, but I think my collaborations have grown through the pandemic
as I alluded earlier in part because it was easier to send people an
e-mail and set-up a Zoom. It might be harder to schedule 30 minutes with
someone to get a coffee or to try to meet them at a conference or a
meeting when the when the week is jam packed already. That was certainly
harder. I am happy to say that I have made a lot of great and new
collaborations during the pandemic and in this more recent period as
well. Those continue to grow. I think I have been able to have a fair
amount of personal and professional resilience, and I acknowledge that
that is a privilege that some others do not have that same experience
and have struggled with it.
I look back and still talk to some of the post docs that are at the
organization to this day, and I was lucky and fortunate where my career
transitioned right at the beginning. I had things lined up before the
pandemic really hit. I could not imagine the uncertainty of being a
postdoc. Even if I was six months later timeline wise, or a year later,
or even now, just not knowing like: “What does the future hold and what
opportunities are you going to get into?”
I have certainly heard stories of colleagues who had job offers
rescinded. Both academic and some even tenure track or otherwise. I was
fortunate that I got in right before the rug was pulled out from under
other folks.
Charbonneau:
When exactly did your postdoc end?
Walker:
The postdoc ended May of 2020. I accepted the offer prior to the
pandemic to transition into my new role. So, it was a done deal, and I
did not have that worry of if they were going to have to freeze all
hires or something.
With that said, I do want to add and comment that our organization was
great in terms of making sure that postdocs who did find themselves in
kind of those career gaps situations, they really did some excellent
work pulling together funding to keep the postdoc program. I did the
advanced study program is its name. Typically, it is two years. There
were some instances where people got partial funding for an extra six
months or even up to like a whole gap year. They certainly knew it was
hard out there for everyone and to try to offer as much stability as
they could. They did an excellent job there.
Charbonneau:
Have you seen the employment levels change at your organization?
Walker:
Yes, very much. We have seen a similar trend; I think as many
organizations as possible. Every week, we get an e-mail as part of our
weekly digest that has staff hires and departures. Some people do not
look at it. I like looking at it. Sometimes it surprises and makes you
sad when you see someone left, and it is like I did not get to say
goodbye or did I not know they were going on to something else, right? I
like looking at that.
We followed a similar trend in that when the shutdowns first occurred,
our organization, did an excellent job of keeping as much staff as
possible for as long as possible. The staff that were the most
vulnerable were some of our facilities. We have a cafeteria in all three
of our main facilities as well as like shuttle drivers for vans, among
the different campuses that our organization has. They made sure those
folks were still able to receive income for a good while, several months
into the shutdown. Unfortunately, once it was clear that we were not
reopening anytime soon as initially hoped for, it was a lot of that
first staff, that service and essential support staff that unfortunately
was a part of some of the layoffs that our organization did.
I will say science and engineering staff were to my knowledge, secure in
that regard, since there was a fair amount of work that still did
continue. But then as we have gotten into more recent times, we have
certainly seen a lot of staff turnover in some respects. I think part of
that great resignation where people start to think about: “What is
important to you? Where do you want to live?” Higher income
opportunities or lower cost of living opportunities out there as well.
We have seen some of that has hit different offices more than others.
Some of our administrative support staff roles have seen, again from my
own assessment, which labs or organizations are listed. I think there
has been some higher turnover in some of those departments compared to
science staff.
Among my closer group of colleagues, I engage with there has been
minimal turnover in the folks I work closely with. So, I am certainly
glad to see that. We have been a steady rock aboard a ship in a
turbulent sea. I am sure what we experienced was mirrored by many other
organizations too. We have had some difficulty where some initial
support staff roles were laid off. So, shuttle drivers, kitchen staff,
facilities, and maintenance. Periodically we get emails that say: “Hey
we are short staffed now.” Now the shuttle cannot run as normal, or the
kitchen is not back to 100%.
It is a struggle of prioritizing the positions you hate to let go. Now
it is tough to fill those roles as I know it is it has been tough to
fill similar roles in many unusual places. It seems like wherever you go
nowadays, there is short staffing problem out there in the world,
whether it is with childcare, with health and wellness, with travel,
with entertainment, or restaurants.
Charbonneau:
Do you feel like you have enough work to where if they hired somebody
else with your background and prowess that you would be more productive?
Walker:
It is tricky, and it is less governed by the pandemic and more governed
by the nature of our work being soft money and project funded. I am
busy, but I do not know if you cloned me and made a second me, I think
that would be more of a split workload. I think it would create an
income gap situation where there is not enough project coverage.
The workloads are busy, but it is not like that tipping or overwhelming
point of hey, we need to make a hire, or we need multiple FTEs
(full-time equivalents) yet. My hope is that is a good problem to have.
right. I would love to be in a position of bringing in a lot of projects
and then I can hire people and I can just manage the project and have
people do the great science. You know under my guidance, right.
Yes, we are a tricky dynamic cause it is like workloads are high on
projects, but it is number of projects compared to the number of staff.
We are at a remarkably interesting equilibrium point where there is not
sufficient room to make the strong justification for hires, but there is
also a bit of, kind of that work life balance perspective that ebbs and
flows. As an organization, we are working through some of those work
life project balance considerations. It is less about bringing more
staff on and more about how to you better distribute some of the
projects across the existing expertise.
Charbonneau:
Now that you have had that experience, what is what is your takeaway for
how you would handle future setback?
Walker:
Yeah, I mean one thing I think is to discuss the contingencies up front.
Now it is a question. It is like: “Hey, how did COVID affect the
portfolio of projects or the research dollar spending?” Another thing I
have worked into a lot of proposals and projects now is anytime we talk
about meetings, even if it is in person, it is always making sure that
there is at minimum a contingency to switch this to a virtual.
Or even just address it up front and offer a hybrid possibility. Whether
COVID cases go up or you know one key instrumental person of the project
gets COVID, or I as the project lead gets COVID, making sure that that
virtual option is there for the show to quote an quote go on.
The other piece is having those conversations up front with sponsors and
research collaborators. Set some ground rules or at least an
understanding around what the expectation is. The third thing
unfortunately is that no matter how much contingency you deploy,
implement, discuss, or think about, something new always happens.
You must be resilient in the context of rolling with the punches a
little bit. From a project perspective, having different sponsors is
certainly helpful. So, diversifying that portfolio. Make sure that one
agency or set of agencies is not the sole source of your funding could
be helpful to better weather some surprises that could arise.
Unfortunately, I will say as an organization, we have of course had this
happen before with few of our projects funded because of federal
agencies. Whenever there is a government shutdown, we have had similar
scares or issues before, although the government shutdowns lasted what a
month. COVID has obviously you know been a recurring and ongoing issue.
Even some of those resilience lessons from the government shutdowns
really opened our eyes to the bigger and newer lessons to be learned
later. So, for me personally, it is important to have those
conversations up front to diversify the portfolio to the extent
possible. What is the quote an quote side gigs? Obviously, within the
parameters of outside employment requirements in our HR policies.
I have done some teaching as an adjunct outside of my primary
employment. At least in the immediate years following, it was certainly
nice to teach some courses remote. Before when I had been an adjunct
while I was finishing my doctorate, I had to travel at least a 45-minute
drive to and from, twice a week to teach a course that was 75 minutes
long. I am getting pleasant experience, but it was not from a profit
perspective or from a cost of living.
The cost benefit perspective. I was spending the money that I was
earning and gas to travel right. Some of the online teaching
opportunities I have had since then, from that cost benefit perspective,
it is obviously easier to you know to not have to travel to an
institution that might be a half hour or hour away and it is that nice
side gig that still gives me that professional fulfillment.
But it is also not bad to have that extra income too, to help save that
rainy day fund. That is the biggest piece of advice too. Have your
rainy-day fund and have couple months of income saved away for bridging
whatever gaps might happen. It really reinforces that. Yes, that is good
advice.
Now the challenge is how do you do it right? How do you save up six
months of living expenses if you are living paycheck to paycheck? Clever
idea, and great goal. But you know, there is still that practical piece
of how attainable it is.
Charbonneau:
Are your colleagues mostly all postdocs as well?
Walker:
No, most of my colleagues are other staff scientists. It varies from
them being fellow scientists like myself, we have a fair number of
software engineers that I work closely with as well. Most of my
colleagues are similar except for having more years of experience than I
do in education, a similar background.
Charbonneau:
What is the range for how long people at least in your inner circle have
worked there?
Walker:
As you know, some have been at the organization as many as 20 to 30 plus
years. Like my supervisory chain and some other managers. Other close
colleagues have been at the organization around between 5 to 10 years,
although I do have a kind of a similar cohort of early career
individuals. Scientists like myself where we similarly started our roles
in what I will call the pandemic era plus or minus a year or two.
Charbonneau:
Do you feel you have any skill or knowledge gaps due to the pandemic?
Walker:
Yes, that is a good question. I am not sure. I will comment on the two
areas that I think are skill gaps for myself and think about how the
pandemic may or may not have affected that. You know the 1st I will say
is certainly among I think peers, I am not the strongest programmer and
I tend to use our programming more. Many of my colleagues use Python and
Python has become the way of Earth system science. From a skill
perspective, a bit of a gap there.
The other piece I think is in the broader context of some of those, not
necessarily soft skills, but kind of outside of your STEM (Science,
Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) training. Either logistics of
project management or when it comes to proposal writing, budgeting some
of that. I will say our organization did a phenomenal job. They offered
what they called a “PI101” workshop series to try to get us up to speed.
I could envision where while it was helpful to attend those things
virtually, I do wonder if it would have been nice to have some in person
sit down workshop type sessions that would have happened, rather than
kind of the trial by fire. It would have been more advantageous to sit
down with someone in a conference room for an hour or two and learn the
process. Kind of first-hand learn by doing rather than learn by seeing
over Zoom with all these other distractions going on.
That might be one area that I think of and then back to the programming.
I could certainly see where some of the pandemic obviously shifted
attention away. While I have since picked up various other books or run
through training courses that are online to improve my own programming
skills, I think certainly having access to some colleagues and being
able to just knock on an office door and say: “Hey, I have this
five-minute question. What do you think about that?”
There is certainly a loss in some of those more organic conversations
where you did not have to schedule things as you know now it must be a
meeting and it must get on the calendar to have the virtual
conversation. While before, it could have been the five- or ten-minute
hallway conversation that you followed it up with a meeting. But still
how it initially happened was much more flexible in that regard. So
those are the two that I will say.
Charbonneau:
What new opportunities became available to you due to the pandemic?
Walker:
I will expand. For me, the silver linings were for me personally and
professionally. I think a lot of great collaborations have come out of
it. I think just the ability to go to conferences and instead of
worrying about can I afford airfare, hotel, per diem meals, and travel,
it is now can I afford the $500 registration for the Zoom? Now I can
attend this meeting and get exposed to all this magnificent work.
In that regard, I have enjoyed virtual conferences, particularly in
areas that were new to me. Now I will throw in the warning that venues
that were more familiar to me, it is a loss and a missed opportunity to
have those virtual conferences because you do not get to see those
colleagues and friends in the hallways in the same manner and have those
five-minute conversations, as I mentioned before. For the organizational
perspective, this is one of the great silver linings and opportunities.
It is still to be seen where we are living in the great experiment of
the quote and quote post COVID world. I think from looking at barriers
for things like staff diversity and marginalized and underrepresented
communities, I think that opening the premise that sometimes moving and
relocating could be a barrier because you had family ties, you have
financial burdens or difficulty. The Colorado area along the Front Range
has an extremely excessive cost of living. So, I think opening that
flexibility has been huge. Even to the point where my family and I
certainly had discussions about do we want to take advantage of fully
remote work and go live somewhere either closer to family and or places
that have a higher or extremely lower cost of living? We can afford a
house someday, right?
You know that is the goal. Just having that opportunity, that is
certainly would not have existed had COVID never occurred. That is a
great positive there. I think the last piece I will say both for me
professionally and the organization, I think COVID has really put a
spotlight on the work we do when it comes to things like climate change
and extreme weather. The broad resilience. It is given people, and I
will say, the public practitioners, etcetera. But it has given us a
real-world case study of what could happen. It really has underscored
that we need to change the way we think about business as usual.
Before we saw tremendous, and we still see tremendous loss of life on
the roads during inclement weather. But now that places have embraced
the virtual work, you see that people do not go out on the roads in the
middle of a blizzard because there is not that same pressure. That is a
privilege that might not be standard across all communities.
I have my own thoughts about getting rid of a snow day, and now it is
just a virtual school day. I am a snow day fan and lover. We just have
this overall change in thinking too. Let us be more strategic and
efficient and all that we do I think has led to you some increases in
research money or at least renewed interest in some of these areas that
focus on the next grand challenges that our society's going to face.
Climate change and extreme weather being one of the many. Let us put
some investments into understanding this so that we are not caught up in
a COVID-like situation of scrambling at the last minute to learn as we
go. How do we best implement and communicate? This kind of thing. My
hope is that we have this collective learning experience and come out on
the other side, all the better for it.
Charbonneau:
What piece of advice like in retrospect would you give yourself?
Walker:
The short answer would be getting a house. Yes, get a bigger space and
invest now because the housing market did not slow down after that. I
joke there, but I would say the biggest piece of advice I would give
myself, looking back two years ago, to be flexible and keep an open
mind.
To the extent possible, try not to worry about the state of the world
and get really lost in your own head and thoughts, because I will say
that there were periods of time where man it felt like the world stood
still and March and April of 2020 just felt like you know a year in and
of themselves. I saw many memes out there: “What a year this day has
been?”
There is a depression and the psychological harm that comes with the
weight of the world, bearing in mind, and it is hard to isolate that.
But I would look back and say it certainly was a lesson in being
flexible, being resilient, and not taking things for granted. Just being
able to adjust and pivot to a new way of doing business for better or
worse.
When I think back at the time with a slightly different mindset, I would
have adjusted quicker or faster or whatever and not had the weight of
the world issues. It is part of the experience that in hindsight, it
gives me that higher view that things may seem not good or bad or are
heading in the wrong direction.
There are always opportunities to come out of out of challenges and you
can use whatever cliche or analogy you want out there. But you know
sometimes to go up you go down first. There is that better future ahead
so that would be my words in the in hindsight to myself.
Again, I certainly just want to express and acknowledge too that my
COVID experience has been extremely fortunate compared to others out
there. Both from getting sick with COVID, from that perspective to just
being in a position and having a great support network: from my
employer, from colleagues, from my institution t family as well. Having
a great support network that made it an experience that was possible to
live and get through to, to whatever we are in now on the other side.
But I know that others had not been as lucky, or as lucky, and have had
an even harder experience, and you are still dealing with the aftermath
or repercussions of the pandemic.
Charbonneau:
Is there anything else you want to add to your oral history or are you
ok with ending it with that?
Walker:
I will be fine there. I certainly just want to, thank you and the rest
of the folks at AGI (American Geosciences Institute) that are conducting
this exercise and putting this together. It is one of those things 50
years from now, we will look back on it and hopefully we will say we
have learned something.
I look back on it and am like, wow, talk about, once in a generation
event that that really has moved the needle on society. We will never,
we will never go back to February 2020. We will never go back to those
days, at least not fully. But yes, hopefully what lies ahead is even
better.
