Research project guides for CSUB student researchers
S: Hello! P32! P32: Yeah. S: Am I pronouncing your name correctly? P32: I’m sorry I didn’t hear. Did you say P32 or P32? S: P32. P32: It’s P32. S: Devin. Okay, thank you very much for joining us. Yeah. S: My colleague, Sung Hyoun Hong and Sang-Hoon Lee. They are from Georgia State University and Loyola Marymount. They will join us shortly. P32: Okay. S: And just wanted to let you know that, S: after this interview we will provide you $40 Amazon gift card right away, and this research is supported by CSUB $10,000. So S: this gift card is supported by CSUB and, P32: Awesome. S: and also currently this record, Zoom Meeting is recording. If you’re if you feel comfortable, can you record the following session and S: the purpose of this recording is to make a auto transcription provided by Zoom, and after we review all the transcription, we will replace the vocabulary, the term, or any words that can detect your personal identification, and after we check that we will delete the video. S: But if you, if you feel uncomfortable, I cannot record the meeting. P32: No, no, I feel very comfortable. Yeah, it’s not a big deal. S: Okay. Thank you very much. P32: Yeah, yeah. S: Actually, we will just talk about the air quality issue and how you feel about it. So there’s not much that private things we will ask. P32: Oh, yeah, sure, no problem. Yes. Let me P32: getting to help some CSUB research is is P32: it’s nice to me. So I’m excited. S: Okay, thank you very much. So S: let’s talk about your current role and responsibility. So can you tell us about your current role in your job? P32: Yeah. So I am the Director of Development, here in the [department name]. The colleges I oversee are the [division name], and Sme and Antelope Valley. And so my role is P32: a lot of traveling. I get to travel a lot. I go out as far as Ridgecrest. P32: East, you know I go down to Palmdale, Lancaster, and then I spend a lot of time here in town, too. So I do a lot of traveling for my role within the [firm name]. S: Long can you walk us through your typical day, including your working hours, and after work hours. P32: Yeah. So I wake up, you know, around 5:30, 6 o’clock. It’s been good for the summers. I’ve I’ve been waking up with the alarm. So it’s been good to wake up around like 5:30, 6 o’clock. P32: you know. Get ready. Have breakfast, you know. One cup of coffee, you know. I usually do like eggs and some chicken sausages and then come to work, you know. Kind of I keep a list of things I do every night. I make a list of things that I want to do for the next day, and you know, kind of start working on those. Get things together, you know. Get my P32: water, get everything I need to do. And so on. A typical day here in town, like, you know we’re doing meetings with donors, doing meetings internally, or just kind of doing paperwork. I do a lot. I mean, you’ve probably done a pro card, travel claims like that. When you travel a lot I have to do a lot of paperwork to do that. So usually Monday or Friday will be like an administrative day for me where I’m doing paperwork. But the other days I’ll go to meetings that I have preplanned. And P32: you know, try to work on outreach for donors. P32: And then when I get home. P32: I mean, I’m actually in the MBA program right now. So right now, I’ve been doing Mondays and Wednesdays class at night with Dr. Lee, P32: for the accounting class, and then I P32: You know, we’ll either study, you know, homework, or do homework, or some kind of thing towards the MBA program for the first hour or so. P32: some days I’ll go to the gym. So I alternate. Gym, so I go Tuesday. P32: Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday to the gym, and then, you know, spend time with my wife after that, watching TV, or kind of unwinding before going to bed. S: Do you also. P32: Or walk the dog, too. Sometimes we walk the dog at night, if the weather isn’t too bad, but we’ll walk the dog around the neighborhood. S: Yeah, I feel like, it’s a quite a ideal life. From my standpoint. S: My life is a little bit unorganized because of my three kids with. S: Yeah, you know, 3 years, you know, daughter. P32: You got little toddlers. Yeah, you you’re you’re doing all kinds of stuff. S: How long have you lived in Bakersfield then? P32: It’s been 2 years now, like 2, 2 and a half years. Yeah. S: Before you came to Bakersfield. Did you lived in outside of San Joaquin Valley. P32: Yeah. So I spent the last, I would say 14 years living in the Bay Area, spent P32: majority of that time in San Jose, and so Santa Clara County, and then I moved up to San Francisco and lived in San Francisco County for about 3 or 4 years before coming here. P32: and I grew up in Modesto. So that’s San. Was that San Joaquin, Stanislaus County? I’m sorry. So yeah. S: Modesta? Or where is it. P32: Modesto is about 3 and a half hours north of here. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Stan State, but it’s about 30 min north of Stan State of Turlock. So if you ever been to that University of Modesto is the city of Logan, 99. S: Okay, thank you. S: How do you feel about air quality in San Joaquin valley definitely, you’re, the right person to ask, because you breath very fresh air from the Bay Area. P32: Yeah, you know, P32: prior to living here I lived again in the central valley, and I don’t remember air quality being as bad and so moving here, I’ve been having a lot more issues with, you know, P32: allergies, you know, breathing things like that like it’s, you know, it’s been really hard like. One thing I used to have to keep with me in the car, and that house is eye drops because my eyes will start burning, you know any moment. And so you know, a benefit of my role is that I get to drive East a lot. So when you’re driving up through the hills at the hatchapy. Sometimes you have to stop and just P32: roll the windows down and breathe this fresh air, because that’s probably the only place you’re gonna get some fresh air before you head back down into, you know, Mojave, and so the desert. P32: I was talking to someone about the other day like I feel like I breathe better in the desert out there like heading out east, because, you know again, there’s just not as much smog and and and pollutants in the air when you go out there. S: So since you’re live currently living in Bakersfield, for two years. During those years, had your perspective on air quality issues changed? P32: Yeah, like, we went and bought an air air filter just because of the pre, like the prevalence of of fires like. And they’ve been getting closer. I feel like we’ve we’ve gotten, you know, fires in town a lot so like that, like we had a a plastics P32: building our factory like burned down, you know, I think last year, late last year, and so we have an air filter. We have two air filters in the house. We we buy the top air filter in for the the replace for the the A/C unit. P32: you know, like we’re very mindful of it, I think before. I never even considered it at all, you know. And then San Francisco had its bad days. San Jose had its bad days. We get hot. It get muggy things like that. But it did be fires. But we would never. Yeah. Think like, Oh, yeah, I need to go purchase, you know, a $300 air filter because of the continuous days of poor air quality, even when the weather is good. Unfortunately. S: You said, you live with your dog and your wife. How about their S: perspective on air quality? How do they react with the air quality since you came to Bakersfield? P32: So my wife was the same. She moved here first, and so we started dating after she moved here, but she lived in the Bay area for her whole entire life. And so yeah, it’s hit her really hard. You know, she used to be very active. And and yeah, she’s just not as much anymore. Doesn’t like going outside the, you know, P32: it’s it’s it affects her a little bit more, I think. Like mine it’s more of a P32: I would say, like I. I don’t know physical in a way, but hers is like more like internally, she just doesn’t like to kind of be out for a long time, you know, so she’s always like, Oh, I want to go to a State Park, or something like that. She wants to go like, she asked me to go to Yosemite because she wants to get out and into the fresh air and see the trees and stuff like that. She’s very concerned about the lack of trees in our neighborhood. That’s something she talks about all the time. S: How about your dog? P32: You know he he’s older, Guy. He’s a well, my dog is 12 years old now. And so I don’t see any difference in the way he, you know, interacts or anything like that. He seems very normal. I know it’s air quality, but I think he’s had something against the water quality of Bakersfield. But he yeah, he, he’s fine. S: You said, your perspective on air quality has been changed, and also your reaction to the air has been also changed. But, were there any specific moment or event or conversation that really caused your S: cause, a change of your thought about the air quality? P32: Yeah, I mean, I think P32: I never really considered myself someone that had really bad allergies. P32: And and that’s changed a lot living in Bakersfield for the last 2 years. I’ve had to, you know, go to more doctor’s appointments, and they’d be more mindful of you know medicines. I probably if I forgot my medicine when I was in the Bay Area, it would. It never bothered me like, oh, I can go a couple of days without taking allergy medicine, you know. Maybe the cherry blossoms are coming out. Then I might get a little sniffle, but like P32: the even during off peak hours of, you know, blooms here in Bakersfield. I still have the same kind of allergens that you know. Mess with me, whether it’s smoke or dust, or you know, could be pollen. But yeah, it’s it’s it. Yeah, that I think that’s what really changed it. As I, no matter go about going inside or outside, I couldn’t escape it. So we got an air purifier to kind of help with that, and make sure that we got one that, you know, could filter all that stuff out of the air, and we live P32: over off of [street name] and [street name], and there’s like a refinery like right there on the other side over there. So yeah, it’s I feel like in that area. It’s always, you know. P32: in the air that that kind of, you know, pollutants. So yeah, we’re we’re always like, very mindful of, like, okay, cool, like, you would like to open your window on on a on a nice day. But you always have to be mindful that. Oh, yeah, like P32: that. The air is not that good? So I think that for me the moment came when I just couldn’t beat what was beating my body up. It was just, you know, the burning eyes, the the nose problems, the itchy skin. And I went to go get tested for allergies and stuff like that. And they were just like, it’s just how it is, like you’re gonna just have to figure out, you know, take multiple medications like we could do like shots or something like that. But yeah, it was. It was. P32: That’s what I. We’ve been kind of going through the last 2 years. S: Okay, I feel the same way, because when I 1st start my job at CSUB. It was 2022, and my daughter was only 3 months. S: And she had some breathing issues, so we had to move to Santa Clarita around Magic Mountain. S: and I’m commuting quite a from a long distance. P32: Yeah. It’s a drive. S: But I think. P32: Yeah, we’ve talked about that, too. Yeah, we’ve had that same conversation about, you know, moving to to Hachapi, you know, like something like that it’s like, Hey, you know, it’s it’s a longer commute. You’re 35, 40 min away, but the quality sometimes a little bit better, and I know the kind of downside of moving to Hatchapis or Santa Clarita is the snow. At least it’s warmer, but there’s snow up in Tehachapi where they’ve shut down the freeway. So P32: we’re like, Oh, we want to move there, but maybe not in the wintertime. But yeah, it’s that’s that’s been a conversation. Internally, we’ve had so many times P32: about just finding a place basically to escape to, you know, I guess, in a way. S: Yeah, have you modified any work or personal schedules or activities due to the daily S: air quality issue? P32: That is the first time it’s ever happened to me in my life. I last year I had to P32: go home for rest of the day. I tell my boss like I can’t do it right now, like my eyes got puffy. My skin was kind of burning like, and I, and I don’t know trying to think of what time of year it was, but it was just. Whatever was in the air was just not agreeing with me that day, and I had to go home. And that’s what prompted going to the doctor and talking about allergies and what’s going on and like my reactions to the air quality and things like that because it was P32: it was out of the blue. I I was feeling that way throughout the week, and then it just kind of P32: overtook me, and I had to call out sick the next day, and just, you know, rest. Take medicine and go to the doctor. I did, and I just took Benadryl, and that helped a lot. But P32: It also makes you sleepy right? So I couldn’t go to work. I couldn’t do the stuff I needed to do. So. That’s the only time it’s really affected my life. But yeah, I have to. Everywhere I have to go keep, you know, P32: I think I have some here, too. I have all kinds of like allergy medicine like at my desk. I have it in my car. I have it at home, like everywhere that I’m going. I need to keep it for any kind of emergency, you know. Hey? You need to pop in a benadryl and go home. Hey? You need to take this, you know. Nasal discongestion, hey? You need to take these eye drops, hey? So I have to like, say, prepared so that it doesn’t throw me off. Because as our role we have to, we’re we’re going to events at night. We’re going to events in the morning, like we’re driving doing stuff. So P32: it’s, you know, very inconvenient to be like. All right, I need to go to a dinner tonight with the President, but I can’t, because, you know my eyes are, you know, watering too much. S: Yeah, I think I totally understand, because I have a quite, you know, severe migraine, S: and I kept painkiller everywhere in my bedside, kitchen, my car, and office wherever I go. S: Because without a painkiller I can, I cannot function. P32: Yeah, my wife has migraines. And so, yeah, I know exactly how that goes. Yeah, that does those suck. Those are debilitating. S: So S: when you talk about talk with your boss that you need to skip a day because you need you need to stay home. I think. It might not be quite, you know, comfortable for you, because it seems like you want to be a best forever in every area you are handling. So how do you felt when you talk about that issue to your boss? P32: I’m very fortunate my boss has really bad allergies, too, and so we’ll sit there in our meetings, and we’ll have to. We joke and like we’ll be like, Hey, you know I’m not crying, you know. I’m just like my eyes are burning, and so he has the same issue. He moved from Texas. P32: And so, yeah, he has the same Bakersfield blues, you know, like the air. Everything is changing his life, too. So it’s actually very comforting to have someone that’s going through the same issues that you’re going through. And you can let him know like, Hey, you know, today’s not my day. And I would fully understand if he told me. Today’s not my day, but I’ve been. He’s been in his role, doesn’t allow him that kind of flexibility, like. P32: you know, as the VP. You have to show up unfortunately, even when you’re not feeling good sometimes. And so but he jokes that, hey, so people probably think I’m you know, did drugs or something, because my eyes are so like red and irritated and stuff like that. But yeah, it’s the unfortunate P32: reality of it. But I’m so glad that I have someone that it can empathize with me in real time. Be like, yeah, I know exactly how you feel like I was like that last week, like I’m I’m exhausted from allergies because, you know, I did the same thing yesterday, like, oh, like I would try this medication. I’ve been doing Zyrtec, and you’re doing Claritin. Maybe we should switch like. So I’ve actually been in a very fortunate position to deal with someone that’s not a Bakersfield native, because I feel like there are people that have kind of grown up, and it might be a little more used to. You know the highs and lows of it. S: Yeah, it feels like, you know, if you share the same symptom, I know it’s not good, but if you feel this P32: Yeah. S: Same negative symptom. Actually, you are having ally. Who could understand your situation, P32: Yeah. S: And you could have more flexibility because you are having a colleague who could support your life or and also your well-being. S: So do you think that so? When was the time you have first talked about air quality issue with your boss? P32: Well, I mean, this is like the 1st job I’ve ever talked to anyone about it like that’s the interesting part is like, you know. For all the years P32: I’ve been alive, and I’ve been alive for 37 years like it’s never been an issue. I’ve never had. I’ve always been the one in my family. There’s other people, my family, that have been more negatively affected. I have a brother that has asthma, and so sometimes he has to like, go to the coast to, you know. Get that kind of salt air in the breathe a little better, my mother-in-law, a lot of these people, but the the last 2 years have been the worst for me, as far as, like allergies, air quality that has affect me on a personal level. P32: And so I’ve I’ve had the same boss, fortunately for that last 2 years. So you know, when I started, P32: and he was kind of telling me about, hey, you know. Be careful that there’s dust all over the place, and bigger. So there’s smoke in the air. All this stuff, and he kind of gave me a heads up, and I was like, I’ve always been good with allergies, never been a problem. And so like 6 months in, I’ve been like, like, Oh, you’re right like this is gig of my butt like what’s going on. So yeah, I got to go to Costco and get like the big like, you know fun, Nace Pack. I got to do all that stuff now, like I’m P32: heavily heavily invested in, like, you know, making sure I manage the issue. But you know again, like it’s nice like you said to go. I guess I had to go out like, you know, we’re going out to Santa Cruz in a couple of weeks. So just like. P32: take in the salt air, let the the ocean breeze hit you in the face, and and just take a deep breath and kind of enjoy that like salt smell, and and clear your sinuses a little bit. S: Yeah. So S: I really enjoyed this interview because I feel like I’m finding friends who also share the similar topics. S: But when I talk with the the people who lived in Bakersfield for like 30 years or four years, or born and raised here. S: I sometimes feel lonely because they really relate with my symptoms and the concerns my families are going through. S: Have you ever felt some difference in understanding about your, you know concerns about the air quality issue between the people who are born and raised in Bakersfield and the people who came from other region? P32: Oh, yeah, it. It’s P32: they have a way of life that they’ve, you know, grown up in. And so it’s not. It’s it’s nothing new to them like the, you know, when there’s a dust storm, and you know, or there’s, you know, a bad pollution day like they can go out and run a mile like it’s not a big deal like it’s it’s insane, like, you know. I’ve been at the gym, you know, during one of the the fires. And I’m just like P32: Whoa. And people are just going at it. And so it’s, P32: you know, it’s a whole different breed of people. Yeah, they’re just accustomed to that way of life. And I but I know I mean, I would assume. You know, I think I’ve read somewhere that you know the current county has a lot of, you know, respiratory cases and things like that. So you know, when you just become when it comes normalized. I don’t think you realize it’s a problem, you think. Oh, my! It’s you’re at a comparison. You go, my friend, my brother, my sister. We all we all have asthma like, how could it be a bad thing? It’s just what everybody has, and like, they don’t realize that. Oh, yeah. Like, if you go to a place. P32: you know, that has better air quality in Northern California, like, you know, far north by the Oregon border, like. It’s probably the the P32: prevalence of it is so low. It’s like, you know, but we’re, you know. We don’t have a lot of trees. We don’t have a lot of, you know ways to get the smog out of here. So it’s P32: yeah, they’re they’re fine with it. They they just P32: they just they just think that it’s life. But I guess that’s part of like being a native. S: So as a new employee in [company name]. Who came from other regision, do you feel comfortable talking about bad things S: in Bakersfield, especially, you know, air quality issue with the people who, born and raised in Bakersfield mostly? P32: Yeah. S: It feels like. P32: Are you comfortable? S: Oh, you feel comfortable about that? P32: Yeah, yeah, I mean, like again, like, that’s part of my job is to kind of P32: be, you know, in the muck of it, right. I get to kind of see Bakersfield for what it is. So the fundraising part of it. You’re beating people where they are. So you get to see the good and bad of Bakersfield, and there are great people here, but you know, I think P32: there is a P32: infinity and and a a connection to oil and gas. You know that. And people are not ready to let go of that industry like they’re so committed to it, although, you know, you know. P32: companies are leaving the State. They’re shutting down refineries. You know, the global demand for some oil is down like, there’s just a lot of things working against that. But Bakersfield is really old school in that sense, like, I think, a lot of the innovation that’s come to Bakersfield have come from people that have come from other parts of the state like transplants from P32: LA County, you know, transplants from north, like, you know, Bakersfield is just a cheap place to live. So I get to meet a lot of people that are from all over the country sometimes that have, you know, going to events, trying to like, reestablish their businesses or redo things here. And so it’s really interesting. But I think the P32: there is a segment of Bakersfield that is just committed to that that part of that industry that you know obviously has negative effects like the oil and gas has pollutants like, that’s kind of the, you know. Yeah, we have people that are making good money. We have companies that are paying taxes, things like that, but it’s also polluting. The water is polluting. The land is polluting the air. And so I think that’s one of the negative parts of it is that if P32: you know, we’ll never be able to clean it up or make it better until we’re able to kind of move past the the Old World. You know, industries that have kind of run Bakersfield, for you know, hundreds of years. S: Yeah. The one of the reason why I asked the previous question was that there were some folks S: who thought that if they, if they open a discussion with about air quality issue, they were afraid of S: of that, the people around them might think that, S: that discussion, not that discussion will open up a whole, totally new conversation around political discourse. So usually, if if they talk about the bad air quality, S: they might think that it will connect it to the argument that they want to, you know, shut down the oil field or oil industry, and that’s quite against what the propaganda from, you know, S: Republican party. So so that’s why they they don’t start their discussion around air quality issue. So. P32: Yeah. And I, I totally understand that point of view. Because again, we have colleagues and people in the community that I’ve had the same conversation with, but I think it’s such a needed conversation, and you know we keep P32: falling back on the same talking points, saying that, oh, this industry like. Look what it’s done! Look what it’s built. But you know you look at other similar-sized cities as Bakersfield, as far as population and size, and how far ahead they are, you know, with their mixed industries. And this is thinking like, oh, like oil and gas is not really P32: built the infrastructure and built this city in a way that you know you would see like we’re so close to like. I think we’re, you know. I think the next city to us that we’re kind of growing towards is Oakland, and you go to Oakland, you have, you know. P32: great infrastructure, as far as like, public transportation, you know amenities, things like that, and not saying that it’s a it’s a better city, the way it is. But I mean, like, P32: you know, I’m I’m from a place where you could walk to the grocery store like you could not walk to the grocery store in Bakersfield, you know you could not do these things. And so it’s just like, Hey, like, if this industry has been so good like, you know, what has been the benefit to the people is what my argument would be. And and I just think that we need to start finding alternative ways to, you know, P32: do that. And I know some people in the city have already started like thinking like, Oh, we could be a tech hub we could bring in companies from LA. We could bring companies from the Bay area like, it’s a nice, cheap place to move people that you don’t have to pay the high rents of the Bay Area, high rents in LA. P32: but yeah, I’m not too afraid of the political conversation of it, and not that it needs to be political. But it’s just like, Hey, like, you know, we need to start looking at the horizon and not looking towards the past is where P32: my rebuttal to that is, it’s like, Yeah, there’s a lot of older people here that P32: we’re here when getting good oil money. I know there’s people used to get, like, you know, $80,000, $100,000 bonus checks doing oil. But you know those times are gone, and P32: you know we need to, we’re holding on to a dying industry. S: Okay, I totally align with your argument as well. S: Have you ever wanted to take mask, but felt hesitant to wear it due to you know, social pressure? P32: Oh, no, I mean as you can tell already, like I I’m I’m an extrovert, you know. I you know. P32: outgoing, and can talk and do those things. And you know I’m not too worried about social pressures. The only person I’m worried about impressing is my wife, like everyone else, is just, you know, extra right? It’s just I just want to impress her. And if she’s okay with it and fine. But you know P32: like, if I was getting on a plane today, like I would consider wearing a mask, and not even not even worried about the the looks of you know, if I was going to a place like Disneyland, or something like a mass place where people are congregating like, yeah, like, you might want to do a mass to kind of, you know, be safe, especially if I’m around my nieces and nephews. I don’t wanna get anyone else sick. And I have family that is elderly and and compromised, and so I don’t want them to get sick. So I I P32: wear a mask probably frequently if I’m going places with a lot of people like a concert or something like that. But yeah, no pressure, no, no fear in that. S: You said you care for your wife’s, you know, opinion very low very S: much. And I also hear lots of complaint from my wife. So that was one of the primary reason. I moved to Santa Clarita P32: right. P32: Like my wife has been recently sending me a bunch of like places on Zillow and stuff like that. And I was like, are we? Are we getting ready to move like this is what I would like. We we honestly had that conversation this morning, and I was talking to her about like. Oh, I would rather move to a place, if if you know, if not now, then, in the in the future that has better air quality like yourself, like, you know, when the time comes, if there’s no internal promotion, and I had to look elsewhere outside of P32: [company name] or elsewhere in the [company name] for a role. I would prefer to go someplace that had, you know, good air quality, you know, that had, you know, great amenities to like, take kids because we want to have kids. And we don’t. You know, it’s gonna be. It’s tough to take your kids to the park when it’s 103 degrees out here, right? So like, how do we? How do we do those things, and and also have a good quality of life? S: Okay. So you moved to Bakersfield because of your job, not because of your wife’s job right? P32: It was because of my wife. So my wife got a job here in Bakersfield. I was working in San Francisco in sales, and so my wife was working. She was working in Bay in the Bay Area as an accountant CPA. And she wanted to foster kids, and so she looked at all these places where she could foster kids. And so she P32: interviewed at [company name], at the [company name] she interviewed at [current company name]. And she didn’t get the job at [company name], and I was hoping she got the job because I was like trying to start dating her. This is three years ago, or maybe four years ago, and she P32: didn’t get a job, but she got the job as she should be, and then and so she moved out here, got a house and was like fully ready to like foster kids. And then I was like, hey, let’s be boyfriend girlfriend. Let me. So the whole. When we got married 2 years ago, we decided at that point where I was living in San Francisco. She’s living here, you know, like it’s P32: better financially to move here, and also again, I care about her opinion. She she was comfortable. She likes her commute to work. She doesn’t want a long commute. She that’s one of the reasons she left the Bay Area she would commute, for, you know, hour 45, both ways. And so she hated her commute, and she wanted to be closer to her mom, who’s in Fresno, and P32: wow. P32: And so, yeah, we we moved. I moved here, and I had grown up again in Modesto, and I’d come to Bakersfield many times. My dad was a truck driver, and I hated coming here, but you know I came to visit, and I liked it, and I’ve liked it ever since, and you know it’s a great place to raise a family, a great place to, you know. Just have a slower pace of life. That’s what I don’t miss about the Bay area. Is that like it’s just P32: I can. I can relax like you said my schedule is like very relaxing to use like I just have, like a very set like relaxing schedule. I don’t have to like go and do crazy stuff commute all day, and you know the the tempo is is what I like. S: Okay. S: Yeah, for let’s move on to the next question. So, P32: No problem. S: Yeah, people feel a sense of connection with others when facing common challenges. And we talk a little bit about this. When you share your experiences with your boss? Have you learned that others share similar environment concerns? How does that affect you? P32: I think it makes me want to do better. I think that’s what the reinforcement is is, you know, when you get people that P32: around you that are supporting, you know, P32: improvement, you know. You’re like, Oh, we want to recycle. Oh, we want to, you know, you know, a lot of people in the office are in the Chamber of Commerce, and they do the beautiful bed of Bakersfield. So they clean up the city. They go repay murals. They, you know, do these big campaigns campaigns, and so, you know, and it’s great being at a [company name]. So there’s so many other places to find inspiration like we do the campus cleanup with [name of colleague], you know, every other Monday. He does it, I think, and so it’s just. P32: you know. It’s reinforced in me. It’s not just something that I think that’s really hard P32: to be self motivated in a lot of things, especially this is like, Where do I start like how do I do it? But it’s nice to have avenues internally within the office, and then externally within, you know, the campus that that really help. You know, I’ve changed my habits, at least at home, and and you know how we, you know, consider waste and all those things. S: Do you think that because of those actions, do you think that the air quality in Bakersfield can improve? P32: Ummm…Yeah! You know, I think that you know, with the blue zone projects, things like that. I don’t know if you guys are, yeah, I think that it’s just a lot of times P32: we’re as a society are going like, well, where do we start like, how does it work? How do I get people to go? And so, you know, fortunately, we’ve had enough people here in town that have pushed that. You know. I’ve talked to some people here on campus like [colleague name] in [colleague’s department name], who’s like, put a list of trees together. That’ll make that all, or Bakersfield friendly, and they’ll grow better, and things like that. And so there’s a lot of people working on making Bakersfield better, and and ideas that make it better. And I just think that as those start getting adopted and P32: people start, you know, gravitating towards those. Yeah, I I do believe that. You know it’s not going to be overnight, like, I’m not saying. I’d say the timeframe is, you know, 50, 60 years, probably for a noticeable change. But I think, yeah, we have more people. P32: Yeah, I think my view is kind of skewed, because a lot of people I deal with are at the [company name]. So I think the [industry name] has a lot of people that are very pro changing Bakersfield for the better. And so I’m around a lot of people that are doing that. But I’m sure, if you worked at a company like a [company name] or something like that, it may be different. You may not have the same kind of support structure of people wanting to make Bakersfield better. S: You talked that you shared, that S: you became quite close to your boss, or when your boss shared and shared the symptoms, he deal his dealing with the air quality issue, and also he understand your symptom. So how those sharing experiences regarding, you know, air pollutions or health, health, risk, help, you help you feel more connected with S: the others in your organization. P32: Yeah, I think you know, you hear a lot of times when people are struggling with something they don’t reach out for help because they feel they’re alone. Right? And so I think it really helps to have someone that understands a particular issue you’re having. And it ranges, you know, from extreme to, you know, negligible. But it’s nice that no matter what I can go, man, I had a rough day yesterday, and they understand. I don’t have to like explain that, or I don’t have to be a, P32: or feel like a burden right? It may not be a burden, but it’s like, hey, like you have this time, you know, we’re talking, and I’m like, well, my allergies, and they want to talk about something else. But it’s nice that that could be a part of the conversation. So that was really good, P32: and it made me feel very safe and very, you know, seen, you know. It’s like, oh, yeah, like, this is not something that I’m struggling with alone. And you know someone can, and it makes it easier for your work. Like I I think a lot of times like we all get that. You know. You want your boss to appreciate the work you do. Be impressed work you do, but for them also understand like, hey, I can’t give 100 percent today because P32: of this. And so like if you, for example, you like. If your boss didn’t have kids and you have three kids. And you’re trying to explain like, well, my days are busy. I can’t commute because of kids like, and they have no regulator like oh, well, you know, get it done. Who cares like? You know? I need it done like you’d like you’re not. You don’t understand it, but it’s nice to have someone understands it. S: Yeah, I feel like, you know, if your boss understand your situation by having that symptom by himself, you can just push the button. Then, you know, boss can understand your situation instantly. S: But if the boss don’t have those symptoms you need to describe in the lengthy words and sentences. So I P32: Yeah, you’re right. S: changed. P32: Yeah, it takes away that awkward kind of conversation part where you’re just like, oh, like, I gotta like, you know, you’re trying to like, work it into a conversation. But you you can just go direct and be like, Hey, this is the problem. Instead of P32: talk. P32: Yeah, not being able to talk about it. So you’re right. I agree with that. S: Okay, other than your boss. Did you have chance to talk about your health issue with other colleagues? P32: Yeah, here in the office we talk about all the time like we have people. You know. My boss is just one of many. I think we have big, maybe, like four or five people we have. We have some people actually from [area name], which is in the P32: grapevine area, and so they have the same. They used to live there in the mountain with the great air, and they’ve come down here, and they’ve had some issues and people from [area name] work here. And so we have people that are actually a lot of transplants from outside of Bakersfield. There are some Bakersfield people here. P32: But definitely, the people that are natives don’t have any of these issues. You go talk to them about it. They don’t, they don’t, they don’t have any of these problems. They just go. You know. What what are you talking about? But you talk to someone like our my colleague from [area name]. And she, you know, grew up with, you know, nice kind of P32: forested area, you know. It’s it’s nice looking town, like, you know, clean water access to good foods. Like she, you know, but her and I today went on a walk, and she was like, yesterday I had to take 2 medicines, and the day before that I had to do this and do that. So I have a lot of people to confide in. If I don’t have my boss, I don’t have to again like it’s nice to not P32: feel like a burden. It’s like I I get to. It’s a it’s an exchange of, you know. Sometimes I’m the person that gets to listen. And sometimes I’m the person that gets to talk, and we get to have that that perfect exchange. So I think in the office we have a great dynamic in that is that like there’s not a lot of there’s not that kind of burden in the conversation, you know I could be honest with someone. They could be honest with me, and we could just talk about it. And this is what I do like. You know I can sympathize. I can. You know all those things. P32: It’s been really good in that sense, in this office, at least. S: Oh, wow, I think you’re in the working with the very ideal, you know, colleagues and environment. Some people, among the other interviewee some interviewee feel hesitant to share their health issue related to air quality. S: Because they might think that their colleague might weaponize my weakness. S: and, you know, not support for their career success. Have you ever worried about those concerns? P32: No, and I could be again. I feel like a very comfortable in that sense, I think. I’m really drawn to P32: the human condition, the human interaction that that’s part of the role. That’s what makes it very unique. And sometimes, like P32: you have to disclose those things. And you know, and I’ve had to talk about some of the issues you know me and my wife have had. But I think the realness of it gives you a connection that I think a lot of people are afraid of retaliation, but they’re not prepared for connection. P32: And so often you’re afraid that someone’s going to weaponize it. But you know, I think you’re more afraid that, you know are you’re not looking at the fact that you know, hey? Like, you know, for example, like me and my wife had a miscarriage last year. P32: And we thought about just keeping it a secret. But the more people we talked about the more we learned that, hey? Like I had the same issue, and it gets better, and we’ll get over it, and we’ll do that, and we’ll do this. And so the support that you get outweighs all the retaliation you thought you’re gonna get. No one has P32: looked at me and been like, Oh, look at this silly guy with allergies. He’s crying again, you know, like, if not me making fun of myself in a self, deprecating way. But it’s more of just like, Oh, man, I understand how you feel, because I’ve been there where you know you’ve got four more meetings in the day. Your eyes are burning, and you were, you want to fall asleep. And so like, I think, P32: maybe it’s maybe being an older adult that makes that P32: mindset a little bit different, like. But yeah, I would never weaponize that for someone, and if they did that towards me, I think if it says more about them than it says about me. S: Yeah, I also had a miscarriage. When we had a 1st child S: and actually, we did not share that, but I searched in the website, and I heard that many people are having that miscarriage. S: So chances are really high and. P32: Yeah. S: And yeah, because you had shared that you had experienced miscarriage. I could also share that. I we had also went through that you know sad experience, you know, miscarriages. But do you think that sharing those kind of S: you know, health related issue or concerns could help you share other things that could help S: you connect with your colleagues? P32: Yeah, you know. And you know, it’s all about relationships. And you know, we’re here sometimes at work with people longer than we’re at home with our family, you know. That’s the truth, for a lot of people is that you’re working, P32: you know, 12-13 hours. Sometimes you’re at home, for you know most of your sleep for 8, maybe present for a few like you’re just not with your family as much as you are here, so you know, I think it is important that you. You have some sort of relationship with the people that you work with. P32: And if you have a bad relationship like, you know, how do you overcome that? It’s the adversity, the resiliency that we need to build up to work on these things like, we’re not going to always agree politically and all these things. But we can be humans with each other. And so I think there’s always a lot of topics that are taboo and off limits and things like that that HR has told us things like that. But you know, I think, as as health is concerned. P32: There’s so many things about people that were so taboo to talk about that we should talk about. And it’s like, hey, if I’m having this pain, you know, you know, something in my body is hurting. I should be able to talk about that and be like, hey, are you doing this the same way? And I, you know I’ve been very proactive about that in my family. Personally, it’s like, Hey, like, if you guys are, you know, having any kind of issues like, let’s not make it like, Oh, I don’t want to talk about P32: how you go to the bathroom, or how you do this and do that. It’s just like, yeah, like, your problem might be my problem. And I might have a solution. Or you might have a solution. But you know, especially for African American men, right? Like prostate cancer and colon cancer things like that. It’s like, you know, hey, like, what’s is that a symptom? Is that something that we need to talk about like, you know. P32: because, like, you could save someone’s life, you know, like, so I think, yeah. P32: shared experiences, shared conversations. Even the uncomfortable ones, you know. P32: They have to be had, in order for us to, you know, help each other out like, I think, a lot of people, the silent majority, you know. They, you know, hey? Like, I’m having trouble breathing. But I don’t wanna talk about it to someone. And like they have, you know, asthma or something, and then, you know, they pass out somewhere, and it’s like, well, you know. P32: you could have prevented this if you would have maybe talked about your symptoms a little bit, or confided in a coworker and a spouse, or something like that. So I I push for full transparency that way. S: Thank you. Bad air quality could impact our motivation to continue to continue to work in the company located in Bakersfield but when we share, as you said, when you share the air quality concerns with our colleagues, actually, we can have some good relations with our colleagues. How do you think that the sharing you know air quality concerns with your colleagues S: could make you feel more connected with your organization. P32: Oh, P32: you know, I think again, I’m very fortunate to work at [company name]. There’s so many great people here doing great work. And so the integration is everywhere. And I think you know a lot of times I’ve talked to people about stuff at campus and they go well. Have you talked to this person. And so I think that that’s the benefit of working at some place like [company name] is that you know you’re interested in some kind of P32: pathway. You want to learn more about it. There’s so many people here that could help you learn more about it. And so we are very fortunate like. If you work. I’ve worked in private industry before, and it’s like man. I would love to learn about air quality, I wish there were someone doing research on it. But you know, I probably in 6 months from now, could email you or go to your office hours or something and be like, hey, you know, Sunjin, like P32: what happened with that research? Where? How’s it? Go? And things like that? And like and like, you could give me whatever information you have at the moment, if you were willing to share and be like, Wow, this is this is amazing. And I just feel like P32: the [company name] setting, it’s just very beneficial in that way. But outside of it, like, you know, I think we have a lot of community programs that probably need more advertising. And you know, you know, presence in schools and things like that to kind of get the next generation thinking about it. Because, yeah, I think as things are moving at the at the upper levels, they’re not. They’re just thinking about, Oh, I need to retire. I need to make money. I need to do these things. I need to buy this. Do that like we need to kind of instill that in the youth to, P32: to do that. S: okay, thank you very much for your valuable, you know. Sharing of your experiences and your perspective. I think I had we had consumed all your time. 45 minutes. P32: If you have any other questions, I mean, I can go a little longer. If you have other questions. You guys wanna ask like. But yeah, it’s up to you. S: Okay, Sung Hyoun or Hoon. Do you have any questions for [participant 32]? S: No, okay. For last question. So we are kept doing this interview with the people. What kind of questions do you think it would be helpful for our research. P32: I wonder if anyone has, you know, had family members that have passed away from kind of any respiratory issues, you know, if you’ve had, you know, any extreme loss in your family that has really changed the way you do things. You know. P32: you know, for example, like my wife’s father passed away from alcoholism. So we don’t drink. Let’s just say that’s kind of a thing of that. I would say, P32: Hmm! It’s a good question. So any other ones, anyone, I probably email you. But that’s the only way I can think of like at the top of my head really fast, but you know, or ask them if any other companies they’ve worked at have had any kind of incentives for P32: clean air quality, whether it’s fan pools, you know, carpools, you know, buses to work things like that you know of. Of. You know what you would like to see brought to. You know, [company name], if there’s a chp player or something like that, so P32: or how long their commute is as well, because that also plays into Co2 and, S: Hmm. P32: Emissions. S: Okay, I think that’s a great questions we can consider. And after this interview we will conduct a survey research. We will weekly Biweekly survey. A weekly survey lasts for 11 weeks. S: We might have a chance to contact you again, and it’s also compensated. So S: if you’re comfortable can I send you an email about that? P32: Yeah, yeah, I’ll do that, and I’ll also be in your HR class in a couple of weeks, so we’ll you’ll be Professor Pak at that time. But yeah, we’ll we’ll be. We’ll be crossing paths soon. S: Okay, great talk to you soon I will have a a Zoom Meeting for that class to for the advertise for like kinda open office hour. And also I will record it for the folks who cannot join that meeting. So S: okay, I hope we can have a meeting soon. P32: Yes, we will. S: Okay, thanks for your time, and I hope you have a great day. P32: Alright. Thank you. Guys. H: Thank you so much for your time. Take care. P32: Have a good one. H: Bye-bye.
Leader initiated AQ discussion
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