Is “Polywork” just a nightmare of excess work?
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Polywork or working multiple jobs is trending in Western media. Is this just more work or more opportunity to? Welcome to The Bridge, enlightening conversations on world cultures, life and everything in between. Hey, everyone, this is Jason Smith, host of The Bridge podcast from sunny California. If you like the show, don't forget to subscribe. We love The Bridge.

Hey everyone, my name is Jason. I'm originally from sunny California, now living in beautiful Beijing. And today with me is Alex Scher. Hello everybody, this is Alex. I'm living in Beijing as well, in its most beautiful season. It is really beautiful. I have to say, 10 years ago it wasn't like this because it was a little grayish. But now that the sky is clean every day, when you look outside, it's just like heavenly. It is. It's a great color scale, right on your windows, like a painting. Well, according to Forbes...

Quote, polyworking is the future of work, end quote. So what is it and what does it mean for workers? Alex, we've talked about slash culture. Do you consider yourself a poly worker? I think I think if we're talking on the macro level of what polyworking is, definitely I am definitely poly.

polyworking hardcore. I have so many different gigs and I'm taking, you can call some of them my hobby, but I'm taking them very, very seriously. And when you do them enough, there will be some sort of business opportunities that present themselves to you. So yeah, absolutely polyworking. But

It depends on how people define it, right? A lot of people say you're only polyworking if you have one main job

That's full time or the stay time. And then you do other things. Then it's probably working for me. I don't have a main job. I have, you know, I don't have a day job that keeps me in the office from nine to five. But I do do many different things. I was going to say, I thought I'm just guessing, you know, like I read the articles, too. But, you know, because we have different kinds of terms for different things now. Like I think they kind of overlap in meaning. It's like a big Venn diagram of semantics. Yeah.

But I thought maybe polyworking was you have a full-time job officially for a company and you have a part-time job officially for a company or two full-time jobs or three part-time jobs or something like that because I have one full-time job and that's it. But then I also do stuff like writing books and stuff, which is not –

employed by someone else. I don't have employment by anyone else. So I was wondering, I don't think I qualify. I think I have the slash culture thing or the side hustle thing where you just, you have one main job and then you just do extra stuff because your passion is like, it's crazy. Yeah. So why do people take on multiple jobs? I think,

In America, at least, it's unaffordable not to for half the people. Which is a little sad. Yeah, I think, you know, if you're a single mom or whatever, or you're a single dad...

And you have to, you know, you have to pay for your kids' school and books and all that stuff because you have to – or maybe even you're just a regular adult with no children. You know, you have your full-time job. And if it's like a fast food job or a service job, maybe you don't get paid enough. So you have to have like another part-time job. Yeah.

And in the articles that we're looking at, a lot of them talk about, well, this is so you can develop skills in another industry and then cross pollinate. But if you're just working at, you know, gaslighting, if you're working out, make it a pancake house and then your other job is like at a fast food chain. Like, I don't think you really taking the skills from one to the other. Like it's it's your dream to open another fast food chain restaurant.

So, yeah. No. I don't think the word polyworking should be applied to people who are working multiple jobs to survive. Exactly. I agree. I agree. And I think it happens more often in bigger cities in America. At least when I was living in New York, it's definitely a very common story that you hear people tell among young people because it's not just their living cost. It's also their student loans that they need to pay back if they want to pay back. Mm-hmm.

early, you know, then they have to make more money, but they're in the beginning of their career. They're not going to be able to have a really high paid, well paid job to pay off both the loans and pay for their living expense. So they have to

take on other jobs like, you know, working in a restaurant. So they would go work during the day and then they will pick up shifts at night in the restaurants, which for me, it just seems very exhausting. But let's be honest though, but some of them enjoy it. Some of my friends really enjoyed working in a restaurant because if they just...

If they just decide to be nice to their customers, then they get good tips. Oh, well, you know, that's interesting. There's a famous comedian. Oh, you're a comedian. So Andy Kaufman, he was a full-time millionaire comedian who was super famous. He was on Saturday Night Live. He had his own TV shows, but he would also work full-time at a restaurant at night. And so...

I think he did it because it was fun. It was fulfilling. It was something he wanted to do or maybe a gag. It's so, you know, sometimes I probably give some material as well. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. He's trying to keep it real with people, not lose touch with the normal everyday people or whatever it was. But I think that's qualifies as Polly working because he's like,

He's not working at this other, this diner because he has to. He's doing it because for whatever other reasons, for his own development, for his own mental state of mind and things. Imagine when you were like, you know, when you were living at his time, you were like a huge fan of Andy Kaufman. You go to the restaurant and he's right there. That would be crazy. You're like, hey, I just watched your show. Are you Andy Kaufman? Oh, I get that a lot. You know, like, I mean...

What do you say to people say, Oh my gosh, you're Andy Kaufman. A lot of people say that a lot of people say that. I mean, I don't know. I'm just guessing what you would say in that awkward situation. Right. Andy Kaufman. You know, I,

you know, I kind of do look like Andy Kaufman. You know, there'd be a bunch of gags he could do. He was a very strange guy. Oh, anyway, look, this is the article that I got this from. This is Forbes.com, Why Polyworking is the Future of Work and How to Become a Polyworker. And we'll go to the problematic working multiple jobs thing afterwards.

Yeah. For people who are low income. But for this, it's like, okay, well, what are reasons? Number one, increasing income. So I guess it does apply to people who need extra...

extra income, but some of the other reasons here are actually good reasons for people who are on a professional career development track. So building new skills and personal fulfillment and networking opportunities, autonomy, creativity. So let's say there's also the opportunity, it doesn't mention in this article, but does in a later article we're going to look at, pivoting. So let's say you currently are

work at Denny's, I don't know, whatever, but you want to be a paralegal and you have a background in that. So maybe you're working part-time-

As a paralegal for like 15 hours a week at a firm while you develop the skills needed to eventually move full time into that kind of work. That makes sense. I think that's very common, but people probably looked at it more as a moonlight thing. They need to hide from a current employer. But now it's more of an on the table topic, I guess, definitely.

In that sense, it is getting popular and it is important to talk about it. It's interesting because a lot of companies have non-competes. So let's say you work in advertising and you might have a contract in your contract non-compete, which means you can you can maybe have another job. Yes.

But you can't work for another advertising company because you have their core strategies and secrets of this one company. All the resources. Right. So if you work for another advertising company, that is a threat to company number one. Yeah, definitely. But if you're pivoting, like if you're pivoting career, then your sideline paralegal job is definitely not going to get in the way.

Right, sure. Yeah, exactly. Yes. So I think it's important. There's all kinds of things people need to calculate and think about as they're moving in this direction or if they're, you know, whatever they're doing. But I like the idea, you know, in academia, when I thought I was going to be a professor one day, when I was a student,

in 2009, 2010, I was on my way to applying to PhDs and I was getting my master's degree. And this term cross-pollination came up and it was a new term at that time in academia. And it meant like people with a master's degree in history, getting a PhD in philosophy or people with a master's degree in chemistry, getting a PhD in engineering. Yeah. So people who switch in the middle of graduate school to a different track, uh,

They call it cross-pollination because you can take the information and knowledge of one core area of academia and pollinate a different area. And then you can create new kinds of angles to look at research and you produce an original set of academic knowledge for the academy, for the global academy of human thinking. And so I think that you could do that with jobs too. So maybe you're a paralegal and you want to go into advertising.

But you can work for an advertising company for law firms because you know what it's like to work at a law firm. For sure. I mean, there's a friend of a friend who's a very famous stand up comedian in China. She was a licensed lawyer. You know, she passed the bar and everything and she was working as a lawyer. But now she's a professional, professional full time comedian. So she makes she makes law jokes. Actually, no.

But she's helping people, let's say. Or she's in the courtroom cracking jokes. She can. That's definitely going to be, you know what? That's definitely going to be a very interesting career option after, if she thinks ever, you know, I'm done with stand-up comedy. I want to go back to practicing law. And then she develops this whole

defense style where you're just using jokes and humor to defend your client. Yeah. Right. Is my client guilty of murder? Or

Or, you know, did they do justice to society on their own? Justice, you said. This is really interesting. I like the idea. It's weird to me that in this Forbes article, it says autonomy and flexibility, because if anything, to me, the first thing I think of when I think of working at two jobs is not autonomy.

I think, wow, now all my time is going to be dictated by some other boss person who's going to be telling me what to do all the time. But you definitely, you'll only do it if you see there's an upside to it, whether it's because of necessity or because of what you want to achieve. You'll,

you're getting something out of this. You know, it says there's a section in this article. It says how companies benefit from polyworking. And I think there is a huge benefit. Maybe their side hustle is not at the pancake house, but their side hustle is like another profession.

Because it says diverse skill sets, innovation, adaptability and resilience. So I think all those things are true because if you have someone who is doing something else, they're clearly going to be able to utilize this other framework of thinking and this other framework of knowledge.

to bring into your business and to grow your business in a way that maybe it wasn't capable of growing. So I think that, you know, the company A is definitely going to benefit from company B if they're like completely different companies in some cases. Yeah. I mean, I can't speak to other people, but, you know, if I was a,

If I was still working at my former company, then they'll probably ask me to do some sort of training for people using comedy, using public speech skills and whatever. You know, it helps them. I was talking to a friend of ours, Pat Yu. You remember we used to hang out with him on the show a couple of years ago. Yes, yes. He is one of those people like Elon Musk where he starts a company and then he gets it going. And then six months later.

He starts a different company and gets it going. And then six months later, he starts a different company. So each time it's not the same kind of company. Each time it's a different sort of. So he started a gaming company. Then he started a crypto company, not to make coins, but to make like encryption for different kinds of data and knowledge.

And then he starts like all kinds. So he just keeps moving. And each time he's taking these other companies and sort of like linking them together through projects and various things. So each of the companies is benefiting from his suite of other companies that he has going that he's a part of in some way. And I think that's also interesting. He's not working for someone else. In each case, he's either like, you know, the director or the CEO or some CFO or the COO or something. So each time he's,

He's like taking a leadership role in each company. But each time he's expressing that company differently than the previous company, but they're also kind of cooperating and stuff. So I think if you look at Elon Musk, you probably see the same kind of thing. For example, SpaceX, when they were trying to launch something into space as a test, they took his personal Tesla out of his garage.

And they put it inside of the rocket and they launched it into space and it's now currently orbiting Mars. So, you know, it was a huge advertisement for Tesla because there's now there's a Tesla in space. And so like his SpaceX company and his Tesla company, they are like mutually benefiting one another. Internal cross pollinating. Yes. And I think, you know, that's really interesting. There are only all these different directions we can go with what is poly working, but

And I think this is a huge but is this is an article from rolling out dot com. This is November 11th. Poly work dream hides harsh reality for black professionals. And so it says the normalization of working multiple jobs shouldn't be celebrated as progress for obvious reasons. Right. Like if you need to work multiple jobs to survive because, you know, you have student loans because, you know, I don't know how it is in China. Right.

I think you guys don't really have student loans, but in the United States, most white people had enough wealth from their families and parents to not need student loans. So the vast majority of people who have student loans are people of color.

So people of color are paying these – sometimes it's 3 percent. Sometimes it's as high as 6.9 percent interest on their student loans, which is insane levels of debt on a core debt that you cannot declare bankruptcy on. So you have one class of people who came from the upper middle class and the upper class who got their college educations and now are just free to go and do whatever they want.

And yay, everything's daisies. I'm working multiple jobs. It's wonderful. But then you have another class of people who came into university with no money and no money from your family. And they had to take out huge student loans, you know, as high as 30 or 50 or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on what degrees they got. And now they're shackled by

you know, this situation of having to pay these enormous debts back sometimes for their entire life and can never be paid off. And so for them, working multiple jobs isn't like a dream of expressing myself in multiple ways, but a nightmare that they can't get out of because they have to have

multiple sources of revenue in order to just pay their bills. Definitely. I mean, I don't want to jump into that part of the discussion too early because I think we have a lot of time to discuss why it happens here, why it happens, you know, in some other countries. But,

If it's out of necessity, it doesn't just make it, it's not a fun topic when you have to work multiple jobs because you have to, especially when the situation of the traditional sense of employment is not a complete thing.

fair playing fields, you know, you know, for this article, especially not just from family legacy and historical and societal reasons. They're already not getting paid as well as, you know, their counterparts. And,

in that situation, you know, like my school that I went to in New York, they were employing, they were employing a lot of part-time or contractors. They were not, you know, because they can cut, they don't have to pay the benefits. They don't have to pay for a lot of their entrance and stuff so that they save costs. But if you're already in a disadvantaged place,

in society, then not having that plus working another job is going to put you in a very awkward and exhausting position where you're really exhausting all you have for both jobs, but you're not getting any of the guarantees and the benefits of either of those jobs that

Could have made your life a lot easier and it gives you a guarantee for, you know, your retired life or your future life. And it must be very frustrating. You know, I think it's also different if you're working a manual labor job and then you're working a job where it's professional in some way. Yeah.

So, for example, you work as a paralegal, but you also work at a pancake house. OK, you know, that's not the end of the world. Like you're maybe probably pivoting from one to the other and it's probably temporary for months or years and then it's going to change and you're going to become a

you know, a lawyer or something. So I think, you know, that's one thing I did actually work to labor jobs when I was very young for a very short period of time of overlap. And it was, I I'm going to have to grow some people out here. My first day working at one fast food chain full time, and then going to work at a restaurant full time. My first night I got home from two back-to-back shifts. I walked into my, my parents' house and,

And I threw up, and then I passed out on the floor. Oh, poor Jason. I mean, so when you're working physically with your body in two different jobs, it's not natural. No one should have to work that much. It's not like the body doesn't accept it very well. I think mentally it's a huge challenge as well. I think for me to...

For me to pretend every for me to pretend that I like everybody I work with for eight hours is enough. You know, if you if I have to do a couple extra hours, I might become a dangerous person to society. You know, I was I mean, on the other flip side, you know, I was working during college during my master's degree and I would I was doing so much. I was actually attending two universities. I was attending San Francisco State University and UC Berkeley, taking classes at both.

And on the weekends, I was working at the San Francisco Zoo for like 11 hour shifts because that's what the job required. And it was OK because it wasn't labor. I was like, you know, I was attending classes and taking notes. I was getting on the subway, going somewhere else, attending classes and taking notes and reading books and writing papers. And then on the weekend, I was sick.

sitting in a small room counting money, literally, literally counting piles of piles of cash all day. So like nothing I was doing was physically intense. It was just like you had, I had just needed to stay busy seven days a week for a couple of years.

Yeah, but you are also young, Jason, you know? Yeah, that's true. Yeah, absolutely. That's a good point. Age can have a huge impact on how these things bear out. Like if you're like a young college kid, then you have a lot more energy than someone, say, who is 45 years old, for example.

Yeah. And then you haven't been beaten by your career for the past 20 years. So you still have passion. Everything still feels new. And I think one thing that you mentioned is actually playing a huge, important role in why people do poly work or why that idea was interesting to begin with is because you're taking in a lot of things. There's a lot of input there.

from what you're doing, you're learning a lot, you feel like you're growing, you feel like you're absorbing nutrition from your environment. But if, like we just said, if all you do is doing, you know, giving out

labor or you're just doing this because you need the cash to pay the bills then and you're not learning anything or growing from it, then it'll lose its attraction or you will be you will feel both, you know, mentally and physically exhausted. Well, I mean, let's try to look at the positive. So you are, I think, also a good example. You have multiple projects going on. And I think we know you want to share any of that. Or is this stuff that you don't you're not ready to share with the public?

I mean, I could talk on a more, a little bit more ambiguous, yeah, like an abstract sense of it. So I'm working on, right now I'm working on a media related project, which is more, let's say we're producing videos with a theme for this organization.

And then this is going to join a large batch of materials that we're going to repackage and try to redistribute. So that's one thing on the platform. And then this takes a lot of

discussing with potential partners and thinking about what our strategy should be and, you know, pivoting anytime we need to. So that's really fun. A lot of work as well. And then I'm also helping a group trying to set up their, who's trying to set up their restaurant business in China, which is not something that, yeah, it's not something that falls into my extra teams or things that I thought I would do, but it's a, it's a group. It's an overseas group and it's a,

You know, it came from one of my friends. So I said, yes, of course, I will help. I'll do anything I can. And it's so far proven to be a very different experience. And we're still trying to push it forward. So we'll see how it goes. And then, of course, on the side, I'm working with my comedy partners. We're doing our open mic still every Monday, the one that we organize. And then

we have ideas we want to make into TV shows or movies or, you know, whatnot or short drama. So we're also constantly meeting up to see what we can write. But that takes so much more dedication because writing, you know, you know this best, Jason, writing takes an incredible amount of concentration and commitment than a lot of people imagine. They're like, oh, why didn't you like, oh, yeah, I'll just write one hour every day. I'm like, it doesn't.

work like that. It's great if you can, but it really needs you to set aside a time where you can focus and it takes you like maybe, I don't know, two or three hours or a whole day to get into rhythm. You need to like, you know, get it out of your system.

And then, I know that's a lot. And then just very recently, because you know how much time and money I spend on dancing and people are always saying like, oh, you know, like, what are you doing with it? Like, are you trying to become a teacher? Are you trying to open a studio? None of those things. But one of the teachers, one of the famous teachers that teach like internationally actually asked me if it's possible to discuss dance

The idea of me being his manager or agent in the Asian area. Yeah, like he wants to come to China. He wants to travel here and possibly Australia as well. You know, but we want to talk about setting up something together. So we're going to talk about that. And if that happens, then I'll be making a little bit of cash from, you know, my...

dance experience. And this is what I was talking about. You know, you do something long enough, dedicated enough, maybe business opportunities will present themselves. So that's the end of my list.

That was like half a dozen things. I know. It sounds to me, let's just work this out through the semantics, because we have these two terms, slash culture, right? Slash work and polywork. Do you think this is more slash work or polywork? I think this is more slash. This is definitely very slash. Yeah. I think polywork sounds...

Polywork sounds heavy for me. I mean, yeah, I don't think I would want two actual full time jobs where I go. Again, in the past, I have done that. It's tough. It's really hard. And I think for me and I think for most people, it's about.

Getting ready to leave one eventually, you know, after maybe months or years. Yeah. And then moving into the other one. For most people, they're like, OK, I'm currently a construction worker, but I would love to be a maitre d'. So like they get to they're like, OK, in the evenings, I'm going to start doing that.

And then eventually I'll move into that or whatever. But I think for like what this article sounds like, the original one from Forbes is people who actually maybe really want to just have two jobs full time for the foreseeable future. And they would like to. So we're talking about people who want to. It's not as much out of necessity. And two, it's not about.

as much about pivoting as about doing both for the foreseeable future, because that sounds great. Now, I can understand that if you're doing for me personally, Jason, I'm

I can understand doing a part-time job 20 to 25 hours and having another part-time job 20 to 25 hours. And that was what I was doing. But the problem with that is for a lot of companies, they don't give you benefits unless you're full-time. So you have – one job needs to be full-time to get all the benefits in America at least. I don't know how it works in other countries as much.

And then the other job would have to be like 10 hours or like less than 20. Because any more than that, I mean, I don't think human beings are meant to work that much. Someone I was talking to and I forgot who it was, but this person was like, oh, we're going to work 80 hours a week. I'm like, what? I can't even. So you're working for SpaceX? Yeah.

Oh, it was Elon Musk. Yes, of course he said that. I remember when he was like, I'm going to hire people who's like highly dedicated and who's willing to work 80 hours a week. But he's definitely not alone. There are people that use that, throw that, just throw that number around like it's so casual because they're like, oh, do the math. 80 hours is just like, you know, 12 hours every day. I'm like, no, like no one could work like that if you're actually...

Like, you know, if you're actually thinking or contributing to the job and you're actually focusing on it, it's I don't think I think that's breaking human limits. So if you're really clocking in 80 hours per week, then half of those hours are probably wasted or you probably use you probably would use it to make mistakes that you're not aware of. You're listening to The Bridge.

I have a friend here in China and he does work for one of those companies that wants him there like all the time. And so I'm not going to say the name of that company, but he's happy. And he explained that he's

But he gets to work at like 9 and he goes home at like 9 or 10. But he's not actually working from 9 to 10. He's like – he works up until 3 or so and then he's hanging out with his colleagues and going to dinner with them and then maybe doing a little bit of work in the evening and then that's it. So he – and he also explained that one of the reasons that he's happy is that –

He won't do it full time forever. He said after he's finished doing this for 10 or 15 years total, he will be just made forever, minted. And then he can just be like, just do whatever he wants. He could work or not or doesn't matter. So in a way, he's like sort of just getting all of his work done.

done early in life. So I think that that... You know what? I can't blame him. Yeah, so I mean, I understand. Maybe you go to SpaceX, right? You go there and you work like seven days a week. You sleep on the floor of the factory floor, right? And there are people who do do that.

And they're at SpaceX. Their products designed for that. And they just live there at the factory. And all they do is engineer seven days a week. And that's their life. And maybe that takes a break for a vacation here and there for a few days off. But, you know, in 10 years, those people are millionaires. So they're not like the same as a person who goes to work at two full time jobs because they have to and their kids are in school and they don't have any real skills or high enough education to get out of that. That's different.

Those people are stuck in that. And there's no way out. There are these articles that come out in the local media in the U S like, Oh, there's a lady and she's 80 years old and she's working at McDonald's and she just celebrated her like 60th year working at McDonald's. And they, they gave her a bag of candy. And I'm like,

this is a nightmare, but they're celebrating it. Like, this is wonderful. Are you sure celebrating is what she was doing? I don't think so. She's standing there for the picture with her bag of candy with like, help me on her face. Blink twice. Yeah, exactly. In my opinion, someday when we are finishing building the human project for creating life, the best society possible, people shouldn't have to polywork.

No one should. But if people want to, you know, those people like you or you, for example, who actually love getting into every project and being in everything and doing so much stuff. And like, there's just those people with that kind of energy, like Pat, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Elon Musk's and maybe some of his engineers and those people are like, OK, yeah, let them do that. That's what they are happy doing. But a lot of us just want to work 40 hours and go home and watch Star Trek. Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah.

I think the reason, part of the reason why for people that probably, for people that can work more than 40 hours and want to take on more jobs, it's probably also because one job just doesn't give them enough sense of satisfaction when it comes to what they can create. Because when you work for corporate, there are red tapes, there are structures, there are layers of reporting you have to go through. And there are other people that have to weigh their benefits and their profits and risks in decisions you make.

So you want to explore outside of your current job, outside of the corporate culture to see what else you can do. And that's just part of your nature. One of my former colleagues, she's like that. She genuinely enjoys working. Like she enjoys finishing things on her to-do list and creating tasks for herself where she could see her value. And that brings her joy. Like she...

even take that much joy in her, what do you call it, when she got married. She had three days off and she came back to office three days later. She didn't even take like a whole, yeah. And she wanted to come back. And the first day she got back, she stayed in the office until 1130. I know she was working really hard, but I didn't know she had plans for

for her future career move, which turned out to be moving to Saudi Arabia because when she was going on different business trips with the company, she saw how fast origin is changing and she just decided, I'm going to do it. So for a year, she was

still excelling at her old job at my former company, doing everything she can. And then I don't know where she found the time to set up all these meetings to discuss her future career choice, what she would do. And then she got three, four offers before she eventually up and moved to Saudi Arabia.

And now in Saudi Arabia, she still has a full-time job, but oh my God, the amount of projects that go through her hand, you just don't understand how this lady operates. But every time you see her, when you talk to her about anything, you say, hey, I have a potential idea I want to discuss with you. She's full of energy. She's full of resources and knowledge. I was like, I don't know how you could like, one person could know so many things. It's like,

She's an expert in every aspect of business that you could think of. And then she herself, she was like an internet person. She started a public account for her university early on and made it really popular. It was one of the first success cases in China. And then she opened a restaurant and it was successful. And then she went into microplastic surgery. What? What?

Did that. And then she went to work for my company. And now she works for, I don't even know what she does now. I think like some sort of like blend between tech and real estate. And she's an insane lady, but there are people like that out there. And for those people, polyworking is just what's calling them. They have to do it. But if you're not doing this because this is your passion or it gives your energy, then it shouldn't be that way. Well, you know, I think you're right. I think you're absolutely right. It's about, you know, personality types.

You're listening to The Bridge. I have this article, OutsourceAccelerator.com, Polly Working Surge, nearly half of global workforce juggles multiple jobs. And I think we're talking about different kinds of categories, necessity and people like your friend and you, right? Yeah.

So it discusses some of the data. And this is from Owl Labs. Recent data from Owl Labs reveals that 46% of workers currently maintain a side hustle or additional job with 36 planning to join the trend in their future. So 36%, 46 plus 36, we're talking about more than half of people. There's also an article, a book,

by someone named Marcy Olboer. One person, multiple careers. And this, just this I really understand. I mean, when you were a kid in China, this is a good question, actually. Did you go to middle school in China? First question. Yeah, of course. So in middle school in the United States, I was given...

And I think everyone – we were given these aptitude tests and you take them and they give you a suite of possible careers that suit you. And your teacher is – you're asked to choose a job you want to be when you're an adult and write a paper about it. And so we all did this in my junior high school. I think this is very common in America. I took my test and it gave me like these are your 50 jobs that would be great for you. And I chose marine biologist. Yeah.

And then I wrote a paper about how I want to be a marine biologist. Within like six months, I totally didn't want to be a marine biologist. Of course. But, you know, this is sort of like helping youth start to identify a path and realize they need to identify a path. And that's what life is about. So in China, my question is,

Did you have something like this? I think we definitely did. But we didn't take it too seriously because, you know, back in our days, the main goal is to do well in the exams and not to think about your possible careers. Because whatever you want to do, you have to get into that major in a good university first. And then you can think about getting a job in that field. You know, it's interesting. I have questions about that, too. Since we're a multicultural show, we're trying to talk about the differences and similarities. I have questions.

Not everyone in China is an academic or has a bachelor's degree. You know, I think it's in the United States is 25 or 30 percent of Americans get a college degree. The other 70 percent, they finish high school and they go to work, you know. So what about in China? Not everyone is like.

struggling to get an A on the cow cow, right? Like what is it? What about the rest of people who just want to finish high school and go to work? They actually have choices that they could make even before they go into high school. If you know you're just not doing so well academically, you could start choose to get into vocational schools and their vocational schools designed for

high school aged kids and their vocational schools for kids that are older. Like if you finish high school or you drop out of high school, you can go into a vocational school. You can or you can apply for it like you would apply for a college. But most people would have some sort of training or education. It's very I mean, of course, there are people that don't finish their education at all, but it doesn't happen as nearly as often as it used to.

So at least the government is trying to make sure that everyone can have some sort of training before they enter society. Well, you know, I think that's actually similar to the German system because you, I self identify, you know, with the, with the system together around the time you're entering high school to determine whether you're going to go to a two year track of basic high school and then vocational school, or if you're going to go all four years of high school and then enter into university. So like, it's like, okay, you know, I want to be a banker. For example, you don't,

go to college in in germany generally unless you're going to go into finance or something complicated you go to vocational track and you start working at the bank when you're already 17 years old in some capacity and then eventually just jump to full-time teller or whatever so i think that sounds kind of in the united states everyone's expected to finish high school regardless of where they're going which i think might be a mistake and actually a lot of uh

We're currently rethinking how we do education in the United States, especially now that they might eliminate the Department of Education and the coming White House tenure.

which is an interest, which will be definitely dry, lead new outcomes for education in the United States. I don't know, positive or negative. I'm not really going to comment on that, but it's going to shake things up for sure. So I think that's fascinating. You know, how do we get to where we're going? But also in terms of this idea of multiple careers, you know, when you're a kid, you don't know what you want to be. Maybe you want to be many things. But by the time I was an adult, I definitely wanted to be many things.

I never thought I want to be of this. I always thought these many did the rest of my life. These are my like suite of goals I'd like to accomplish. And I did know that by my 20s. I was like, I want to accomplish these things. I want to have published books. I wanted to like, you know, do some academic work. I wanted to give speeches in some capacity. I wanted all these different things.

And I'm now, you know, I'm four in my forties and I'm looking at my goals that I've set and I've accomplished some of them. And as some of them I'm still working on and like, I never just want it to be like one thing. I don't think most people do anymore. I think, you know,

Because we see in the movies and books and TV all these different possibilities. Many of us want to express ourselves across a suite of different kind of trajectories. And I don't know how it is in China. Again, I'm going to ask you. But a lot of my friends in their 20s, they change jobs every two years. Completely different stuff. Like now he's a...

He's a house painter. Oh, now he works at a cafe. Now he's a used car salesman. You know, like these kind of like blue collar tier jobs. A lot of people in America switch, switch, switch, switch, switch many times across their like 20s. So like how about how about in China? Do you see a lot of people periodically changing up what they're doing when they're young? I think definitely. I think people are definitely a lot younger.

more prone to saying, I'm done with this job. I'm moving on to the next one. Because I was actually criticized by my parents for not having a real job. Like I was like, well, but I did all of these gigs. I did all of these projects. And they were like, well, but you don't have a focus, which is already, you know, whether I agree with that sentiment or not at this point of my life, there's nothing I can do to change it. So I have to stick to it. And I

I just have to make something out of what I have been doing and to support myself because at the end of the day, that's what really matters. But for young people that I know, it feels like as long as their set of skills can meet the requirement of any job, it doesn't really matter to them which industry they're going into. You know, my former colleague that I worked with in the tech company is now working for Starbucks, but not as a barista. I think...

She's working in their product development department because her last job was in a

like FCMG where she helps them develop their product. And then now she's focusing more on coffee, uh, itself. Like, you know, if we look at where we come from, he's like, Oh, you started as a product manager for a tech company, then you'll probably be a product manager for the tech company for a very long time into your future. I move up that structure, but well, she, she switched a gear into, into coffee and I'm waiting for my free box of Starbucks coffee from her.

So I actually there. But jokes aside, I actually think there are a lot more young people that don't think it's a problem to switch industries or, you know, change their job categories because they can, you know, if they can do it. If the company says, hey, yes, come and work for us. What's the what's the reason there for them to say, no, I don't want to. You're listening to The Bridge.

I want to talk about something that's completely off point since we're towards the end of the show. I think I have some latitude to do that. Coffee in China. Yeah. As a Westerner, I have.

A point that I would like to make that I think is important. I went into a Starbucks, different Starbucks recently, and I said, hey, I'd like an espresso. And they're like, yeah, okay, what kind? And I was like, espresso. Can I have two shots of espresso? They seemed really confused. Like, what do you want mixed with that? Like, in which drink? And I'm like, no, no, no. I want espresso. And like here in the West Beijing, we're not insanely tuned. It's like, it's more like, you know,

Yeah.

But recently I realized I can't – I really am on an espresso kick lately. That's all I want. I don't want all this fluffy, sugary, foamy, sweet, like tastes like this, tastes like that. It's old now. It's got melons. No. Just give me an espresso. And the thing is Luckin doesn't sell espresso. It doesn't –

Because that's what coffee is supposed to be, by the way. That's like the most basic thing. Like if you go to a hamburger joint, one of the things on the menu should be a hamburger. Like then you could have all the weird things with like jalapeno burgers and stuff. Sure. But there should be a hamburger because that's what hamburger shops sell. There should be a basic. So I'm very confused, Luckin. I would very if someone is listening from Luckin, can you guys work just a

espresso like two shots of espresso into your menu because that's what cafes are supposed to sell it's like the most basic item it's highly yeah it's highly highly highly localized because not a lot of people if you're if you're thinking about the what we call the uh

the downstream of the market or the mass market that a lot of people won't be able to accept espresso because it's too bitter that's why you put milk and you're right yeah most people are gonna be like what is this it tastes terrible but you know sometimes that's what you want sometimes that's what you want and that's i don't really feel like so much sugar thing like i'm sick of just everything being like it tastes like melons it tastes like matcha it tastes like i know whatever i just want

I just want some coffee. Same. I just need regular coffee. I remember we were in a small part of... We were in Guilin. Now, Guilin is not a small city, but the part we were in was kind of remote and, you know, in the suburbs, in the outskirts of town. And I just really wanted a nice coffee. And we searched for so many stores that...

where we finally found one and we ordered one and it was so sweet. It was devastating, Jason. Yeah. Also, diabetes is on the rise, guys. We should be watching out for that. So, you know, in terms of like what are the driving forces between multiple employment, there's a whole bunch of things, including it says first thing in this article that we mentioned before, financial safety net. But it also, you know, it also leads to wealth, better work,

Weather job losses. So let's say you're working in two jobs. One is eliminated for whatever reason. Hey, you're already working another kind of job. So let's what is the job that's been eliminated recently? I think increasingly in the future, in the next five years, fast food, a lot of fast food jobs are going to be gone because of robots.

You know, you can't just be a fry cook anymore because why do we need a human to do that when I can buy a robot one time and it's just going to do that? So, you know, if you're if you're a young person and you're like, oh, I'm going to start out as a fry cook, that job may not be there. Like, so, you know, we're eliminating some kinds of jobs. Also, I got to say, and this is sad.

a lot of jobs in making art work for the digital world is disappearing because it's extremely easy to use these AI, you know, functions. That's a, that's another, I think we need to do another episode to focus on, on,

on that side of it, I think a lot of smaller are, you know, jobs that are created to make art happen. Like the different steps in the process might go away, but it'll, it'll not be replaced by, by machines. Well, here's the thing. I was also watching a speech by the, the CEO of Nvidia who said your job is not going to be replaced by a,

your job is going to be replaced by a person who knows how to use AI with a computer. Exactly. I have to say, I disagree. I mean, I think there will still be jobs doing that. But I also think that, for example, me, I have I run multiple websites. I have a lot of different websites that I run. And in the past, I've bought products for like,

like pictures to use in my articles and stuff that I post. But I don't do that anymore. I go to Grok and I just say, Grok, make me an image like this. And I use that because it's free. And so it's, I don't have, so I am, in fact, I am eliminating someone's job because I don't

can do it by myself now that's true but you know it's uh it's just making everything more efficient and i think what the ceo of nvidia was also saying is it needs to be someone who already understand what the job is like no one's gonna have a shortcut anymore there are a lot of people that are working in arts that are that can't really be called artists like say let's say you know

And if you think, oh, okay, I can just use computer. I can just learn computer 3D modeling and become a 3D modeler. Probably not anymore in the future. You have to understand animation. You have to understand, you know, aesthetics. You need to know what's good or what's not working for this person.

for you to decide, even for writers who are like, oh, I can use a chat GPT. I use chat GPT to help me rewrite a lot of things for pitches and stuff. But I need to know like, okay, does this tone work? Is this something that the client would like? For example, if I'm asking for chat GPT to give me a very newsy style of writing, I need to be able to tell if this is newsy enough, but is it

It's sophisticated, but also readable. And this all comes from previous experience of working in news as a producer or journalist. And so you can make the judgment. Otherwise, I don't think computer could run anything. And the people that are going to be affected would be the people that didn't have enough experience or training, real understanding of what industry is about.

I think this is an interesting debate we're going to have to have. I remember reading it was like 30% of all coding jobs are gone because people can just ask ChatGPT, can you make a page for my website that does this? And then it just gives you the code and then you just put it on your existing website and it creates the new page for your website and you don't need to hire a coder. Yeah, but what if there's a bug? What if something happens?

And you don't ask consistent questions to actually chat GPT. And then the two passages of code didn't work well together. What's going to happen then? Like, who's going to fix it? Who's going to see that there's a problem before you launch the website to the public? There's so many things they're going to go into. We're thinking about a very small fragment of what it is. It's like, you know, like, oh, hey, I could kick my leg.

to my head. I can't, but let's say that doesn't mean you can dance. You know, that doesn't mean you could do a full split. You could do, you know, it's there's there's a lot. That's what chat GPT is right now for me. Like it does these little things like in segments, but can it work together organically as a whole? You're listening to The Bridge.

So, OK, polyworking is a safety for that, for if there are job losses. Apparently there aren't any. But if there were, you would be able to like another one is it says monotony, monotony and burnout. I think that's interesting. So say you work as a paralegal and you're just you've been doing it for 10 years and you're like, oh, my gosh, I just don't want to look at another job.

whatever it is. So I want to go get a job at the library, you know, and just sit there and read books and help people check out their books and stuff. Maybe that's a great way to shift things up. I also think, you know, in terms of that, in terms of monotony, a lot of retirees who continue to work oftentimes go to easier jobs. Oh, sorry about that. Oftentimes go to easier jobs, but

they also do it not because they need money always. A lot of it's just because they're just bored out of their mind. Yeah, and they want to feel useful and valuable still. Yeah. You have all these different kinds of reasons. I have another article. It's

And it's I think it's it's the same exact argument. And I think after we have discussed all of this, we really need to like let's try to make a decision. This is from Economic Times dot India Times dot com. Polly working. Is that the future of work or a productivity crisis?

And I think this question. I like it. This is encapsulated. It's a legit question to ask. This is the question that we should be asking. What is this something we want? What do you think? Alex, if you someday are able to finally find your perfect niche and you become the CEO of your own multimedia company or whatever it is that you really dream of doing.

After you've worked 40, 50 hours, do you want to get up and go to another job? If I become a CEO of a multimedia company, no. So all of these different side hustles are to get somewhere. Let's be honest. I think if you reach a career level at that height, I think your life is going to become your job.

then there's no side hustle. There's no poly working. You will be doing a lot of other things, but they will all eventually come back to serve that one purpose. You know, and all the socializing, all of that working, anything else you do is going to help you with this one job. I think the reason why people feel the need to do different jobs or have the passion for different jobs is because, A, people are more

More educated, they're more informed and exposed, and they want to feel useful and they want to feel valuable in whatever they do. But the nature of working for a company is to be put in a little box. You are asked to do a very specific set of things that are designed for this specific position. Anything outside of that, they're not saying it's not useful, but they don't need it from this position that you're hired for.

And people are going to have this innate desire to use it somewhere else. And B, society is offering a lot of opportunities. And if you can't do these things and you have the energy or you still have the caliber to go for it, you will want to go for it because you don't want to miss out on what's going on. But.

Once you have that, once you can have it, once your job is asking so much from you, but you're also getting a huge sense of fulfillment, everything that you've ever studied, learned, observed and practiced is being put into practical use. As you know, you see the decision you're making is what the whole company is executing. Then I guess

then I guess that sense of fulfillment is, is, has, has, you know, that's the epitome of it. You've reached it. Then you probably don't feel like you're missing out on anything. Cause if you want to experience something else, you just say, you know what, our company's going to pivot into an internet company. You can do things like that. So the desire is going to fade once you're at that level.

I'm imagining. I'm not at that level. You're actually right. A lot of companies do end up making a product that they originally didn't start out making. That happens a lot, actually, because the older product became less relevant to the new model of economics and society. But, you know, I think that is all the time we have. I wish we had more time because I want to discuss the idea of is it poly work? Is it a side hustle? Because I'm

There is another article we didn't get to, and it mentions really quickly the jobs. It's called The Job Juggle by Digiday.com. And it mentions a person named Cassidy Williams, who is a software engineer full time, but is also a, quote, advisor, investor, mentor, writer, public speaker and podcast host. And those are not those are more like side hustles. So I guess the term can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people at this time. Of course. I think as time goes on and more media is written that

term poly work will have a more concrete meaning moving forward if you want to disagree agree with us or just add to this conversation please email us a you know you can record yourself saying something that you want said on the show or you can just send us a message and we'll read it on the show too we love the bridge at gmail.com thank you so much for your time listeners thank you so much for your time alex thank you jason thank you everybody oh yeah