Getting Pokémon and Giving Back: A Friday Chat
ESTER: Thank you for helping me kind of a little bit understand Pokémon, Nicole. I didn’t realize they could fight? Of course they fight. Everything makes so much more sense now.
NICOLE: Of course they fight! How are you going to know if you’re the very best? Because your Pokémon are the happiest and most well-adjusted?
ESTER: I guess I thought you just collected them? And they formed peaceful and content little democracies, like citizens of Scandinavia, only a little more neon?
NICOLE: This is no Neko Atsume. You can’t just watch your Pokémon play with adorable toys. (This is also one of the reasons I’ve never actually played Pokémon.)
ESTER: Maybe I’ll go read a Vox explainer or something for added nuance. MEANWHILE when was the last time someone asked you “for a few minutes” and did you oblige?
NICOLE: Ester, it was YOU. And I did.
ESTER: WAIT WHAT
You mean when I asked if you had any thoughts on tipping for the piece I was writing??
Square is guilting us into tipping basically everyone
NICOLE: Yep, and it really only took a few minutes, and I have a lot of thoughts about tipping, so it was fun. I also appreciated that you wrote “Note: “no” is a perfectly acceptable answer” at the end of the request.
But that request was also different because you and I know each other. I do get a lot of emails from people I don’t know, asking if I can promote their thing or whatever, and I rarely respond to those.
What about you?
ESTER: This is worth talking about! Friends, coworkers, and co-religionists ask these kinds of favors of each other all the time, and it can be annoying, sure, and it can also be the very thread of which the social fabric is woven. I have supplied quotes to other (ha, actual) journalists and brainstormed syllabus ideas for various professors and done it all cheerfully and pro bono; and the question becomes, when do these requests cross the line? Is it that we’ll help the people we already know and won’t help the people we don’t? In that case, is there an elitism / nepotism thing happening that unfairly closes out the people who are not — or perhaps not yet — in our networks?
NICOLE: I mean, one of the interesting things that happens as you build a network is that people in the network advance in their various careers at different rates, or make career changes, or… I guess what I mean is that it’s not specifically elitism, because you get the chance to help people at all stages. And it’s great when you know someone whom you can help when they really need it, or offer them an opportunity they might not have known about. So not elitism, but definitely cliquishness. Maybe.
Also I think, from a person you know, the requests start crossing the line when people stop responding to them. (Or do respond and say they’re too busy.) In some cases it isn’t the fault of the person or the request, it’s just something you can no longer take on.
ESTER: Yeah. In my case, I say yes to people who ask to meet up in person for “coffee” — which is code for job/life advice — if I know them, or someone who recommended them, even glancingly, and I do it not because I am basically the Brooklyn equivalent of the Dalai Lama but because, I don’t know, it feels like that kind of kindness and forbearance is important, and I’m still at the point in my career where I need to ask other people for kindness and forbearance and I want to set a precedent in my own life. Just yesterday, in fact, I was given an hour by an older, well-established gentleman and I was very appreciative to get a chance to receive and digest some of his wisdom.
But when I am asked by presumptuous randos like the ones who contacted Hanna, I am more comfortable saying, “No.” In part that’s because I assume the presumptuous randos are spamming many, many people with their requests for time. They don’t need, and aren’t asking, for a piece of me, specifically. Almost anyone might do, it often seems.
No, You Cannot Have “A Few Minutes” Of My Time
NICOLE: Okay, now I’m thinking back to all of the emails I got this week, and you probably weren’t the only person — or the most recent person — to ask for my help on something. I got another email from someone asking if I could review and promote a project she was working on, and I archived that without responding. I probably got three or four emails asking about promotion, or if I’d consider interviewing someone and publishing that interview.
But I guess I don’t think of those as actual requests. Maybe the person who wanted me to review her project. The ones that are just “Hey, here’s a thing, would you share it with your network?” I delete immediately.
ESTER: Right, because, again, that’s not intelligently targeted at you, Nicole Dieker, person of specific and unique experiences. When I wrote you this week, I said, and you can correct me if I’m misremembering, “You’ve written a lot about tipping — do you have any thoughts on Square?” There was some logic to the request. And my instincts were right: you did have thoughts, and really good ones!
NICOLE: Awww thanks! But yeah, that was part of the reason I was able to respond so quickly and give you just that few minutes. It was a specific request coming from someone I trusted.
I’ve also done the coffee shop informational interview and I usually do about one phone interview a month for someone — usually a person writing a piece about freelancing and money. Which all feels like a way to give back to the community. Or maybe to be a part of the community.
ESTER: Well, you can’t be a functional member of a community without both taking and giving, right? I read your piece on giving back and really felt it. I too would like to volunteer my services somehow and feel like I should and yet I’m sorely short on both time and money these days. Lately I’ve been doing what feels like the minimum by giving things away to charity that I could theoretically sell. It’s not much, but it’s a start.
NICOLE: I appreciated all of the commenters who mentioned that charities and other organizations often have big work days where you can show up just once, or once a quarter. I’ve taken a lot of notes on things I need to look into. But it’s hard. I wish it weren’t, because that doesn’t feel like the kind of person I want to be.
On the other hand I am not un-active in the community (both in the writing community and the Seattle community) and I do make myself present in many ways. But I don’t do the definition of volunteering that I remember from when I was in high school. I am not adopting a highway or folding clothes for the Red Cross.
ESTER: Maybe someday! Life is long. My grandma started knitting sweaters for charity in her 90s; I doubt she did that when she was busy raising children and maintaining a home and so on. Or maybe she did and I’m selling her short. Regardless, to everything there is a season, right? Today we Pokémon, tomorrow we knit?
NICOLE: Or do what Bustle suggests and put your phone on a Roomba so it can hatch Pokémon eggs while you knit away!
How To Hatch An Egg Without Walking In “Pokemon Go”
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