Sami Unrau

This is my version of flexibility.

Here I am on a 4pm call, off camera, starting dinner for my family. So when they come home at 5pm, we can be present and eat together instead of rushing - which inevitably leads to someone yelling or crying.

I can't do this for every 4pm meeting, but I can for some.

When I say I want flexibility, I don't just mean I want the ability to go pick up my kid when they are sick.

Flexibility, to me, is the autonomy to get things done in the best way for my job and my life.

Flexibility is the ability to own the ebb and flow of my day and my week to meet all the needs.

Flexibility doesn't pit needs - the needs of work and family - against each other. Flexibility says, “How can I meet all the needs in a way that is sustainable.“

Flexibility says “Hold me accountable to the results and let me take care of the rest.“

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I have received enough comments and DM's with unsolicited cooking and safety advice, criticism of my commitment to my job and my performance, questioning if I care about frontline workers and unwarranted commentary regarding my capability to perform. I will always write posts from my unique perception and position. And all I ask is that you consider that it's a human behind this profile.

Update 2.8.22:

I got pretty nervous when I saw this post start to go viral as there are a million ways that people will interpret what I wrote. I encourage each of us to try not to compare and grade people's struggles and challenges to try and determine who has it the hardest. I believe that sharing your challenges doesn't invalidate the challenges of others. Parenting in a pandemic, in a culture that does not value working parents as it should, is a traumatic experience - there is trauma in the unknown, in financial insecurity, in being a single parent - in all of it. Sharing our collective experiences highlights the need to do better across the entire spectrum of how parenting comes to life in all the various circumstances. We need family leave, sick leave, Covid leave, ways of working that support parents, subsidized and consistent childcare - all of it. I wrote this post in a brief moment of pride as we were coming out of Jan during which I had zero days of uninterrupted childcare due to Covid and I was wondering how we did it. Some will relate, some don't. And that is okay.

Final update: I have restricted comments to connections only. I value the mental health of myself and the working parents who read and connect with this message and who deserve nothing but support.
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Original post:

He gets up at 4am to start working from home before the girls get up at 6am and we shuffle them off to daycare.

He heads to the chemistry lab where he processes environmental samples and I head to my desk in the living room for my email - Zoom - deck - packed day.

He gets home around 3pm and starts Zooming too.

He starts dinner while I wrap up my last meetings and email. 
He leaves to pick up our girls from daycare while seamlessly handing off finishing dinner to me.

I get dinner on the table while he corrals the kids through bath time.

We eat together - sometimes with my laptop on the table for those evening calls with Asia.

He cleans up from dinner, every night, while I tackle entertaining the kids and any chores that need to be done.

We sit on my eldest's bed and read a book at 7pm - then it's bedtime for the kiddos.

He takes out the trash, empties the dishwasher, and folds any laundry in the dryer while I finish any remaining work tasks and place the grocery order or meal plan for the next week.

We watch a show.

We go to bed.

And we get up the next day and do it again.

Covid and childcare closures have made this even harder, we are both exhausted, but at the end of the day, having a supportive partner who is knee-deep in the invisible labor of parenting with me directly correlates to my sanity, health and career success.

This is what my girls will grow up seeing. A mom and a dad who are successful in their own career aspirations because they support each other first.

(And, he will also undoubtedly give me a ton of shit for posting this. ❤️)
#worklifebalance #workingmom #workingdad #invisiblelabor

I workout at lunch every day.
I get up, walk away from my desk and don't look at my email or slack until I'm back.
With zero guilt.
As we should all be able to do.

I’m laying on the couch feeling quite Covid-y today.

And this is nothing less than a shameless brag about my husband.

You hear a lot from moms about how they don’t have time to be sick. They keep the family afloat with fevers and chills because they feel they don’t have any other choice (shoutout to single parents - you all are absolute rock stars).

But, that is not my experience. When I’m sick, I actually get to be sick. I lay on the couch and binge watch shows while my household life happens around me.

He pulled out the cook books last night and picked meals for the week. He got up and took care of the kids while I slept in. He put in the laundry this morning before heading to the grocery store to get two weeks worth of food. I asked him to do none of this.

And while we usually do a pretty good job at equally tackling house work, when I am sick, he just does it all.

Behind the success on my resume, is that support and partnership. Because life is a wave and you can’t always give it your all, all the time.

So there, shameless gratitude for my best friend.

She didn’t even look back.

She’s got enough sparkle in just her little pinky nail to power the world.

The best job I’ll ever have is giving her guidance and then getting out of her way.

Go get ‘em, girlfriend.

(If my emails have typos today, it’s because I’ve got something in my eye 😭)

“My world was crashing down around me, and nobody knew.

They were asking me to edit a PowerPoint while I sat grappling with the sense that my body had failed me.“

That's what she (who chose to remain anonymous) told me as she described what it was like to be at work while actively miscarrying. And while we know that miscarriage is complicated and certainly no one's failure, the emotional processing one goes through is valid, consuming and very, very real.

She hadn't told anyone yet that she was pregnant, and now, she wasn't sure if she wanted to. She didn't want to have to explain, she didn't know if she could.

She knew she could get a doctor's note and go through her leaves company to get some approved medical leave, but that also meant using PTO that she didn't have a lot of while it all got sorted out. Her company's bereavement policy didn't cover this scenario. And so, she worked.

Miscarriage and stillbirth is one of the unique scenarios in which the time off required is two-fold: bereavement to grieve the loss of the baby you hoped for and the medical leave required to heal.

Supporting women through pregnancy loss is just as important as supporting them in pregnancy and postpartum. At least 1 in 5 pregnancies ends in miscarriage - it is a shared experience of a huge part of the workforce and requires an immense amount of trust and compassion to provide the right level of support for the individual.

When we talk about the need for better care for mothers and those with uteruses, we must consider every potential path to motherhood and parenthood, which is sometimes rocky and includes loss.

Here’s the thing.

This man right here, is raising two daughters. And he has a great responsibility in doing so.

A responsibility to be a model for equal partnership so that his girls see it as the norm.

He does the dishes, every night. I actually have unloaded the dishwasher probably a whopping five times in the time we’ve been together.

He does the girl’s laundry.
He makes their annual wellness appointments.
He will filter through their closets and pull out what doesn’t fit.
He picks up and drops off.
He takes them on sick days and is the captain of puke (because I am a wuss).

Is it always equal? Nope.
Carrying the mental load is a learned skill, a skill he’s committed to learning.

I could not be the mother and professional woman I am today without him being the father and partner he strives to be.

He’s setting a new bar. A high one, for our girls.

Happy Father’s Day babe.

I don’t work a 9a-5p.

I work a 6a-8a.
A 8a-4p.
A 4p-6p.
A 6p-8p.
And an 8p-10p.

Between 6a-8a I wake up, get ready, and prepare two tiny humans for their days. We dress them. Feed them. Clean up after them. We discuss the laws of physics and the potential existence of ghosts. We each buckle one into the car and drop them off at their respective schools and drive to work. During this moment, I chug my coffee.

Between 8a-4p, we do the job that we get paid for. This is sometimes fun and sometimes stressful. But we also don’t stop being parents, so sometimes we also make Dr appointments, answer calls from schools, and place Amazon orders for more Elsa toothbrushes because “Olof is not my favorite.” Sometimes I do these things as I walk between buildings for meetings.

Between 4p-6p, I try really hard to leave on time. My team will tell you I have a 50% success rate. I drive home, sometimes while listening to a call. I pick up the littlest human and talk to her teacher about how she had big feelings about having to be the caboose during lineup (this is understandable). We go home, and pull a bunch of food out of the fridge and into the microwave. I simultaneously wrestle little human into a swim suit while I get dinner on the table. We eat. Husband cleans. I run around picking up random things around the house yelling to get ready for swimming and “where are your goggles!?”

Between 6p-8p, we go to swimming. We take two cars because why would their classes be at the same time? I bring my
Lap top and get some work done while my fishes swim. Then we wrap them in towels, throw them in the car, bathe, brush teeth with Elsa brushes, and say goodnight seven different times before they fall asleep.

From 8p-10p, we pack lunches, search backpacks for papers we need to sign or something, look at the family calendar, figure out who is taking the big one to her orthodontist appointment, and try not to fall asleep as we watch 45 minutes of TV.

Some people just call this “adulting.” But I think that undervalues the effort. As a working parent, most days I work from the moment my eyes open until the moment they close.

(Yeah, I know there's a big ol' typo in the paragraph formatting. What can I say? I am tired - kind of the point of this whole post. I'm not going to fix it. Y'all get the gist. ☕ )

I don't mince words.

I don't often use phrases like...
“If that makes sense...“
“A 'little' project I've been working on...“
“I'm no expert...“
“Sorry, but I have a question...“

Intentionally softening our language is an unconscious mechanism used to fit into gender stereotypes. Unless the situation demands a special attention to emotional wellbeing and a softer delivery, women should feel confident speaking clearly, concisely and with the authority required to get the job done.

#internationalwomensday2022
#IWD
#breakthebias

(Yeah, yeah, I know there’s a typo. I’m human, I make typos.)

Y'all, I never intended to gather almost 20k followers. In fact, one of my first posts on LinkedIn was about how I never wanted to be an influencer. I've worked in social for as long as there was social - I know what being an influencer entails - and I didn't want it. \n\nAnd then I had a post go viral, and another, and another. I was surprised at people's reactions to things that live rent free in my head. \n\nAnd with that visibility comes the opinions and personal attacks that I didn't want to deal with. \n\nMy latest posts about ways of working attracted some very condescending comments. People saying things that I would assume they would never say to me in person - at least I hope not, because lordy - SO RUDE! Everything from calling me entitled, weak, soft, lazy, the works. \n\nAnd you know what, I don't have to put up with that. Like all working parents and caregivers, the past two years have been rough to say the least. And my truth is the truth of millions of others. And the last thing I will put up with, are condescending comments from people who are stuck in the dark ages. \n\nBut, here we are, and we are sparking good conversation, so if you'll have me, I'll keep going for now. \n\nI am adopting a new policy in these cases, I am calling you out - if you are sexist, I am calling it like I see it. When I do this, the algorithm doesn't like my post anymore and the views and engagement stall. I've seen it happen on several of my posts that when I start sticking up for myself, the post goes dark. \n\nBut I never wanted to be an influencer anyways.

Nike turns 50 today.

It was always my plan A to work for the Swoosh. I grew up just 4 miles from campus.

I remember when I got the call that I’d won the internship. I called my mom. We both cried.

I get to spend my days helping athletes become better versions of themselves. And I can think of nothing cooler.

Thanks Nike for helping this athlete live her dreams.

Just do it.

It’s mental health awareness month.

This picture was taken 1.5 weeks before my husband carried me into the ER on the verge of an absolute breakdown.

I was 10 weeks postpartum and my thyroid was dumping thyroid hormone into my bloodstream. This left me sleepless (completely), rapidly losing weight, shaky, anxious and in a constant state of panic with these adrenaline surges that would feel like falling off a cliff.

The day my husband took me to the ER, I hadn’t slept a single hour in over 5 days. He found me sobbing at the end of the hallway, curled up in a ball, afraid to pick up my own baby because I feared dropping her.

I talked to three doctors before ending up in that state of crisis. And it was written off as “just hormone changes” or “normal postpartum mood swings.” I’d never had thyroid issues before. So I believed them.

I tried so hard to keep it a secret - this total spiral I was experiencing. Because I felt like a failure.

It wasn’t until two weeks later, an eternity trapped my my own mind and body, that I found a doctor who really listened. A blood test diagnosed me with postpartum thyroiditis.

It took six months, four medications and weekly therapy for me to start feeling somewhat normal again. And it was a full year before I felt physically healed.

That experience left me with PTSD that I am still working on today. I still can’t tolerate being startled - natural adrenaline surges take me right back and I take beta blockers to avoid the worst of it. I still deal with sleep anxiety. I’m still processing the fear I feel when I drive past that ER. But things are slowly getting better.

The most important thing people did for me when I was in the thick of it, was to listen. REALLY listen. Not just to the words that were coming out of my mouth as I told the lies to myself and everyone else that I was fine, but the hesitancy I expressed at being left alone, the concern I tried to hide at how quickly I was losing weight and the way I tried to go to sleep at 6:30pm out of desperation for getting rest.

And in a way, continually talking about that time period has become part of the healing. ❤️

It's crazy to me that I have reached the point in my career when I have new and incoming Swooshies reaching out to me for advice.

It honestly doesn't seem that long ago that I was the new one on campus - with a folded up PAPER map in my pocket. I mean, I still get lost, but at least I have the map on my phone these days.

When an incoming intern (there is a special place in my heart for interns) reached out to ask what they should know, I had to sit with it for a minute. And here is where I landed.

1. You will never know everything - and there will be a lot of times when it will feel like you don't know anything. But, you know more than you think, and even if you don't, there is someone else who knows what you need to know. Find them.

2. Ask the question. Early in my career, I was always afraid of asking stupid questions. Now, I ask stupid questions everyday.

3. Bring your whole self to work. Every introverted, extroverted, messy, chaotic, structured, quirky, funny, serious, piece of you. Show up in a way that feels true to yourself. You will be too much for some people, those are not your people. You'll have to figure out how to get along with most people, but not at the sacrifice of being true to yourself.

4. There will be projects you don't like doing. There will be work that you think is pointless. Do it anyways - but after you're done and the work is delivered, figure out a better way to tackle the work for the next time. We don't slow the train, but we can divert the tracks for the future.

5. Let yourself drink the Kool-Aid. You will get to work on some really cool stuff, but you need to BELIEVE it is cool. You need to occasionally allow yourself to get wrapped up in the storytelling, inspiration and heartbeat of the brand - because that's where the magic is.

6. Invest in people. Put people at the center of everything. The people you work with and the customers you serve. It starts and ends with people.

7. Let yourself go on tangents. I had a 20 minute conversation with a coworker last week about the ecosystem created by mushrooms in the forest, and time relativity and its connection with stress. We nearly started tackling the meaning of life. There's crazy creativity in tangents.

8. Do the right thing. Even when it's the hardest thing to do. I have never in my career regretted choosing to do the right thing.

There you have it.

Actually...I'll throw in an obligatory...

9. Just do it

...for good measure.

Tomorrow is National Working Parents Day.

I always knew I wanted to be a mom. And I always knew I wanted a career.

What I didn’t know was just how deeply those identities would shape the person I would become. My children AND my career are a great source of accomplishment, pride and growth.

And also, at times, I can feel like I am caught in a middle of a battle between the two. There is a constant effort to make peace between these two aspects of my life and force them to coexist - a struggle that takes up way more effort than it should.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, around 61 percent of families with children have both parents working outside the home. That number increases to nearly 65 percent for families when the youngest child is at least six years old.

That means that we cannot base working models off the outdated misconception of the one (male) breadwinner household where any and all childcare and house management is handled by a spouse at home. We need to scrap that idea, look at the realities of today’s workforce and the (lack of) available resources and write the new playbook on how to set up workers (and ultimately businesses) for success.

We need to stop looking back at the pre-covid way of working as a reflection of the “good old days“ because those days were only good for one demographic.

We have to stop using outdated playbooks for a game that has completely changed.

Schools start anywhere between 7:15 and 9:30 am depending on the school and district.

And in my experience, work meetings tend to start anywhere between 7am and 9am depending on the company, job, and role.

Few nannies are going to sign up for less than a hour long shift to get kids to school for you in the morning, and even fewer daycares are going to accommodate a before 7am drop off and school shuttle bus.

Parents are legally obligated to get their children to school on time.

Do you see the conflict?

I was so worried about these Covid babies.

The babes that were in their mommy's tummies when the world shut down.

Would they be marked by the fear their parents felt as they struggled to understand what their birthing experience would be? As they attended ultrasounds alone? As they had prenatal appointments cancelled?

These babies who were born into a world where the village had to stay six feet apart, their parents had to do it all alone, and pediatricians had little guidance to give on how to keep these new little lives safe.

I worried a lot about my relationship to my last baby who probably felt my frustration as I juggled her and her sister on my lap while I attempted to work.

I worried a lot about our little girl whose experience was so different from her sister's.

My baby turns three this weekend. 🌈🎂

And let me tell you that this girl has a fire in her that matches her red hair, and that she is fearless and bold and bright. The mayor of preschool. The jokester. A boundless bundle of energy and a belief that her own opinion has merit as she tells me “no“ fifty times a day.

These toddlers are going to be okay. Better than okay. They will be the ones that grew up on their parents' laps with the greatest display of work life integration we have seen to date.

They will expect nothing less. They will be the good that came out of a very scary time.

Some of my favorite leaders wear hoodies every single day.
And it doesn't impact their performance in the least.
They come across as competent, kind and approachable.

I would throw on a pair of dunks and a denim jacket and head into the office in this. And while I understand that I am fortunate to work somewhere where that is a accepted, I can't wait until we live and work in a world that places less emphasis on dress and appearance in the professional world and more attention to a person's impact and the way they made you feel.

Being able to dress casually and around the function of my day helps me navigate motherhood. I can wear clothes that translate from work, to workout, to chasing kids and attending swim lessons.

I know it seems trivial, but I don't think it is.

I posted this morning about my kiddo’s 3:30am wake up call.

And over the course of the day, no less than four beautiful absolute saints from my LinkedIn community, people who I don’t even know in real life, sent me real life coffee.

So, thanks for making me cry in the elevator… “I’m fine… allergies😭😭😭.”

Seriously, the kindness of total strangers ❤️ you all know how to pick a mom up.

I am an introvert.

I love (most) people.

But, I really love space. I NEED it.

I tend to socialize in spurts where I thrive in groups for about 2-3 hours before my brain starts short circuiting.

Maybe that's called extroverted introvert? I don't know. I'm not a psychologist.

I require people breaks - 20-30 minutes away from people a couple times a day, where I can pause conversation and and bury into my own brain or just stare into space and zone out.

I've always found the workplace to be catered to extroverts. It's something that I hope people will consider, when they design working environments - those of us who love to collaborate, but also find constant socialization and access to our personal space to be a heavy lift.

Me: wears white pants on my day for pickup and drop off for the toddler.

*adds to resume ✍️*

…”Takes informed and calculated risks…absolutely fearless.”

🫡

I sat this little squirt on the counter tonight while I cut out portions of premade lasagna to stick in the microwave.

She was playing on her tablet. And I kid you not, she goes, “Can everybody see my screen?”

😳😬

I need to watch what I do, because she does.

You want to make the parents and caregivers on your team feel valued and supported in their caregiving?

Do you want to limit added stress for your team so they can focus on producing good work?

I mean, caregivers do make up over 50% of the workforce - so I hope you do.

Here are some things to try/consider:

1. School schedules - schools and childcare options have different drop off and pick up times. Survey your team to learn which windows impact your team and then create rules of engagement around those windows such as limiting meetings during those times.

2. Look up the local school district calendars and don't schedule things like offsites on days when there is no school and caregivers are likely scrambling for care or need to work from home - these days are usually pretty consistent across districts.

3. Pay attention to school district alerts such as closures for snow days (super easy to follow on platforms like Twitter) and proactively adjust meeting schedules on the fly to proactively offer grace.

4. Don't schedule big, important meetings on Halloween, or Valentines day, or the first or last day of school.

5. Give AMPLE heads up for travel. Like, as much as possible. And when the travel isn't necessary, don't.

6. Early morning and late evening calls sometimes can't be avoided when you work in a global role - make these meetings short with tight and effective agendas. Default to virtual and don't expect people on camera. For those who can't make it, record or take notes.

Oh yeah, and don't forget the BASICS like flexible working models, remote and hybrid work, parental leave, sick leave, childcare subsidy and mental health support.

My perspective is that of the working parent, and there will be different ideas and considerations for those doing other kinds of caregiving like in the case of the elderly or special needs - and I welcome those ideas to the list as well.

The number one thing I hear from working parents that they need is FLEXIBILITY.

But, depending on who you ask, flexibility means something totally different.

For some, flexibility means the ability to go to a doctor appointment in the middle of the work day. (But, if you were to ask me, that's baseline human care and decency.)

For me, it means the space to work how, where and when I need to in order to keep all the balls in the air. It means leaving campus at 3pm, so I can take that 4pm call from home and not be late for daycare pickup at 4:45. It means, the ability work from the ER where we waited for 5 hours when my kinder stuck a bead in her ear canal. It means deciding to be off camera without guilt because I got zero sleep with my sick toddler and I am a zombie.

So what are the tangible manifestations of flexibility that move the needle for you? What does that look like?