Introducing The Takeaway: COVID, 30-year Friendship, and Work Lessons

When I was 4 years old, my mom brought me to an activity at the local library that I don’t remember much about. The most important thing I took from that day was this: by the end of that activity, I had made a new friend. I remember my mom and his mom exchanging information and we started to have play dates together. We would grow up together playing sports, video games, and in 2 punk bands together in high school. Eventually went on to have our own college education, life goals, families, and careers. Life gets busy and you don’t have enough time to keep track of everything and everyone at all times. We, like many, grew apart.

But sometimes life gives you a worldwide pandemic that slows things down and allows you to reconnect. Amid everything that came with the year 2020, I reconnected with this old friend of mine. His name is Dan Ubilla. It turns out that he and I both have blogs related to workplace issues. His blog is more specific to management issues in the engineering world (but a lot of it can be applied to any industry) and it’s great! You guys should check it out here: Dan’s Blog. Because of our overlapping content areas and an existing bond that stretches almost to our diaper age, I am happy to present a new segment to The Scientist Practitioner blog called: The Takeaway.

In the Takeaway, Dan and I email back and forth to discuss a given piece of media that demonstrates lessons we could all use at work. You get a glimpse of how we process things in our own heads in a less polished, more conversational tone… maybe that’s not as interesting to hear about. But this is obviously a break from the kind of post I would normally publish. Hence, this introduction. Look out for The Takeaway posts coming very soon!

Dan and I have enjoyed doing this together, but we are especially hopeful that you can connect with some of the lessons that we find and make your work experience and your work team better.

As always, thanks for reading.

-Brandon
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