Alison Pugh

And I heard this again and again from people I talked to because the people who do this work are often on the front line of, you know, societal need that, you know,

Some of us might be more protected from.

So I'm talking about like bus drivers or librarians or social workers or community police.

These are people who are like right on the edge.

Again and again, they told me how desperate it felt out there.

they feel incompetent or helpless or kind of overwhelmed.

And that can be really daunting.

We have to kind of recognize that many people are feeling not just the pernicious effect of inequality and all these unhoused, but also many people are feeling really invisible.

They feel like a number.

They're being kind of processed in standardized ways.

all day, every day.

And the sense of invisibility is creating really a depersonalization crisis.

And you're not going to be able to solve that completely.

But you are going to be able to see them for a moment.

And I do think it makes a difference.

There's a lot of research that suggests these kind of

minor interactions that we might dismiss actually make a difference.

Sure.

Yeah, I am grateful to be mentored by Arlie Hochschild.

She's a sociologist of great renown who is actually a really