Good Work

This episode continues a series featuring frontline and essential workers sharing their experiences at the intersection of work, the COVID-19 pandemic, and race in America. Nephtali Matta shares his experience as an essential worker in food service.

Nate Liu, an anesthesiologist in Chicago, shares his experiences at the intersection of work, COVID-19, and race. This is the first in a series of conversations with frontline and essential workers about their work in the context of a global pandemic and the growing reckoning with racism in the United States and around the world.

Jeannine Bush-Clinton has a vision of bringing things that are in opposition into peace. She has found that yoga is a powerful tool to fulfill that vision, and has made it her life work to both train others to share yoga, as well as bring that tool to people who might not otherwise have access to it.

Tyler Fivecoat loves flavor and community - coffee is the perfect intersection of both. After a trip to India with a friend, they wanted to create a place for laid back unhurried community, and starting a coffee roastery and shop seemed like the perfect fit. It was been anything but an easy start, but the future looks bright.

For nearly 100 years, Soukup's stores have served Chicago's western suburbs. Ryan Soukup is the keeper of that tradition for a community of customers in a changing business context.

When her father passed away, Jamie Jones inherited a closet of clothes accumulated from a lifetime of shopping. She turned it into an opportunity to embark on a new kind of work, and it changed her life in more ways than she could have anticipated.

Welcome to Good Work - a podcast exploring work as a human endeavor, through the stories of the people doing it every day. So many people’s daily work is an act of deep personal passion and purpose, a dedication to craft and to community. However, in our national conversation about work much of that depth and breadth seems to be missing, replaced with flyover discussions of unemployment numbers, Silicon Valley unicorn companies and, depending on which politician you’re listening to, rhetoric about robots or immigrants “stealing our jobs." Work is so much more than that. So much more personal, and even more powerful. Work, good work, is part of the solution to our greatest challenges. The goal of this show is to encourage, challenge and empower, by hearing from people doing all kinds of good work. We hope you’ll join us. We've also included a little sneak preview of the first episode. Music in this episode by Third: Meditation Number One; Meditation Number Two. Used by permission.