Hello Alameda. Welcome to the Island City Beat Podcast. I'm your host, Angie Watson Hajjem . Well, today's podcast is a bit different.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Instead of interviewing a guest, I will be sharing with you a speech that I gave recently to an audience in Berkeley. The speech is about finding one's work in the world. In Mary Oliver's poem The Summer Day, her famous last line is, Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild, precious life? This piece chronicles my journey in trying to answer that question, and it's called My Work in the World. In 1994, when I was 29 years old, I found myself in this existential crisis.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:The homeless women's shelter I have worked at for the past six years lost its funding and was closing down. The shelter was the first grown up real job I had after graduating from college, and I was thrilled to get the position. It fit perfectly what I wanted to do, what I thought I realized I wanted to do with my life. When I was in college, I had a difficult time trying to figure out what I wanted to major in, what field of study I wanted to dedicate myself to. When I was a freshman, I decided to study journalism, put my love for writing and talking to good use.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:In fifth grade, my classmates and I would pretend that we were broadcast journalists making up stories for our pretend TV audience. I still remember back in the 1970s as a kid watching TV news anchors Frank Reynolds and Max Robinson, who I thought was so handsome, coming to the screen, reporting the news, and me thinking, wow, what a cool job it was to share the world's news with the world. But before the end of my first year of college, I had a change of heart about journalism. I still really enjoyed writing, but I knew I could still do that without the restraints that so many journalists have to work under. I'll devote myself to the arts and become an actress.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I have always loved acting since I was very young, and so I declared theater arts as my major. I did some college theater, learned some things, but I knew that if I were really serious about an acting career, it was going to take a lot of grit and sacrifice, and I would need to have a tough backbone to survive all the rejection that so many performers face. Being honest with myself, I knew that I just did not have it in me to pursue a career in acting. I'll become a teacher. I had always adored children and always had so much respect for educators and the teaching profession.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I eventually found a job at a wonderful family run preschool. This would give me some great experience working with children. But I had a very difficult time managing my classroom. Those kids just ran all over me. I failed miserably trying to provide discipline and bring order to the class.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Clearly, I was not going to make it as a teacher. During my junior year, I started to freak out a bit. I still did not know what I wanted to do, what major was right for me. Time was running out, and I knew I needed to make a decision, and very soon. One day, I was at my parents' home in Benicia, sitting around dining table reading an article in the San Francisco Chronicle about these deplorable, unsafe housing conditions low income tenants in the tenderloin were living under.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:They were dealing with mold, rats, lack of electricity, and water in their apartment units. The owner had just allowed the property to fall into the abyss. Total neglect. I was furious as I read the story. No one should have to live like this.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:And then right then, it came to me. I was going to study sociology. I was going to go into a field that was trying to improve the lives of the people like the ones that I read about in that newspaper article. I was going to be an agent for social change. So when I was hired at the homeless women's shelter as their youngest head counselor, I was ecstatic.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:But two or three years into the job, I had become detached, disillusioned, and exhausted in my role. I didn't know at all much about homeless people back then in my early 20s. I didn't have much experience or understanding about the abject consequences of poverty and social inequities that made it so difficult for people to create healthy, productive lives. But in my youthful idealism, I thought I could help these women. I could help them get back on their feet.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I could help them forge a new path. Often, that was not the case. The woman could only see at the shelter for about two to four weeks, not enough time to help make a real difference in anyone's life. It seemed also that I spent far too much time navigating conflicts among the women who stayed at the shelter or making sure they weren't bringing in drugs or sneaking out late at night to meet up with a male friend. That happened on more than one occasion.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:There was drama with the staff members who worked at the shelter as well. At times, they did not get along, and there would be infighting among them. I did my best to try to mediate those disputes that they had, but often I had no success. It was a tough job. I desperately wanted to leave and find less stressful, more fulfilling work.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I must admit I was unhappy about the shelter closing down, even if it meant me losing my job. The ending of my employment at the shelter would be the opening for my next new grand, rewarding work experience. Well, that didn't happen. I would spend the next year of my life working multiple part time jobs, trying to make sure I had money each month to pay for my little tiny studio apartment in Alameda. It was a year of one interview after another, leading to not much more than a mountain of polite rejection letters.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:It was also heart wrenching. Not only was I dealing with a serious lack of money and doing my very best to not fall off the financial cliff, but during this time, I started to ponder the profound question, what was my work in the world? What was my purpose? There was a spiritual longing in my heart to not just find full time employment with those wonderful perks we all look for, like medical insurance and paid time off, but to find a job that made my heart sing, a job that I couldn't wait to get to each morning, a job that allowed me to share the very best of myself. But I had no idea of what that job was or how to bring it into my life.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:One of the jobs that I had during this period of time was working part time as administrative assistant to the director of a fair housing agency in Fremont. I took the job because I was guaranteed twenty hours of work each week, giving me a sense of peace to know that I would have some steady dollars coming in every two weeks. But I am not a detail oriented person, not by a long shot. And I was always making mistakes on the job. I was not skilled in typing, filing, playing the role of secretary.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:And although there were parts of the job that I did enjoy, like doing fair housing workshops and trainings and providing housing counseling to tenants, but outside of that, I was miserable at that job. It was not a good fit. Both my boss and I knew this, and it was a painful realization for both of us. You see, my boss had pushed to hire me. Her boss had wanted to go with someone else.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I had this angst and guilt that I had really disappointed my boss. I wasn't the star administrative assistant she thought I would be. And what made it worse was that it was only a two person office, just she and I there. And there would be days where there would just be this icy silence between us, neither of us to saying a word to each other as I just kind of keep my head down looking busy. One morning, I came to work, and there was a letter on my desk, not a termination letter, but a letter my boss had typed out, basically with laying all the things I was doing wrong at my job.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:My carelessness, not paying attention to details, not following through with assignments, not taking initiative, wasting stamps. My heart sank as I read her words. A day or two later, we talked about the letter, and she plainly looked at me and said, I could fire you. I knew she was right. All I could do was to look at her with sad, desperate eyes and say, my life's not working.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Well, I didn't get fired, but I wanted nothing more than to leave that job, feeling more and more of life drifting away from me each day I was there. Michael, my boyfriend at the time, told me that I should make peace with my job because, well, I may be there for a while. This was not what I wanted to hear. But you know what? Slowly, I started to do just that, make peace.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I might be here for a while. Let me make the best of things. I'll make it okay to be here. And things actually did start to get a little better. My attitude about my unfortunate employment situation did improve.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Weeks later, my boss, who knew I had been looking for full time employment, shared a job announcement that came her way from Echo Housing, a fair housing agency based in Hayward. They were looking to hire a full time fair housing counselor. I really enjoyed the fair housing part of my job in Fremont, providing tenants with information about their rights, doing housing workshops and so forth. This new position would be strictly doing just that, providing for housing counseling, education, advocacy, and not all of that uninspiring, soul questioning administrative work that has set up so much of my energy at my current job. How gracious it was for my boss, I thought, to share this job announcement with me.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Well, immediately, I applied for the position. And about a week or so later, I was asked to come in for an interview. I was so excited. And the interview went very well. I felt confident, and knew my Fair Housing experience, although limited, would be a plus for the two people who had interviewed me.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:At the same time, I had been disappointed before, feeling that a job had my name written all over it, and then it going to someone else. I was going to have to just wait and see how this all turned out. On an early Sunday morning in August 1995, I got a call from Penelope, one of the two women who had interviewed me. They wanted to hire me. Echo Housing wanted me.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I was cool and professional over the phone as I accepted the offer. And then after I hung up, I started screaming and jumping while you're in my apartment, and I couldn't have bit about waking up my sleeping neighbors. After a challenging year of dealing with unemployment, underemployment, stressful workplaces, financial challenges, unanswered questions about my purpose, passion, mission, life, Echo Housing offered me a warm, welcoming place in the world, doing important work that was meaningful to me. I would have full, no cost health insurance, vacation, and sick time off, all those benefits that were lacking in my three part time jobs. I appreciate the comfortable, carefree office vibe at Echo Housing.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I have a couple of coworkers, except for my office mate who ended up being fired not long after I got hired, but that's a different story. More than anything, it was such a relief to be bringing in enough money to easily pay my bills, and I put money to the debt that I had racked up over the past year. I could breathe again. I was truly grateful. Everything was finally in place in my world of work until it wasn't.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:After a couple of months of being in Echo Housing, I found myself in the same emotional turmoil that I felt after the homeless shelter had closed down. Those questions of what was my true work in the world? What was I really meant to do in my life? What was my true calling? These questions were still left unanswered.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I was still feeling this emptiness inside, this ache that something was missing. My dream job was out there somewhere. The void that I thought my new wonderful job at Echo Housing would fill just grew wider. I started to have fantasies about leaving Echo Housing. I had a good friend who worked at Mills College.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Maybe she could help make a connection for me. Or maybe I could work with low income women who wanted to become entrepreneurs. I knew about a local nonprofit that was doing work like this, and it really appealed to me. I would continue to show up from my work at Echo Housing each and every day, giving the best I had. But I was struggling emotionally, feeling uncommitted, willing and ready to leave any moment if a new opportunity came my way.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Then one day, I had what I could only describe as a spiritual epiphany. It was in December 1995. My coworker Denise and I were at a social services networking meeting in San Leandro. At some point during the meeting, this voice just spoke to me. I heard and felt it so clearly.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:The message was simple, but would change my life forever. Your work in the world is to be. Wow, I just sat with that. My work in the world is to be. After the meeting, Denise and I drove back to her office, and I knew something huge had shifted.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I felt it. It was like the shadow that had been cast over me just dissipated. The light came back on. My incessant search of finding my place in the world, finding where I fit, where I belong ended just like that. This revelation allowed me to bloom in my work life at Echo Housing and was the beginning of a thirty year honeymoon with Echo.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:It would be thirty one years this year that I have been working there as an employee. I cherished my job. I had opportunity to do so many things that light me up, helping people facing illegal barriers to housing get the housing they need and want, educating tenants, property owners and managers about their housing laws, mentoring and coaching new employees, writing articles for housing industry publications, using my mediation skills to help build bridges between tenants and housing providers. Through my work at Echo Housing, I have been fortunate to meet and collaborate with some of the most inspiring, passionate people, learning so much from them. One of my favorite parts of my job is working with the media.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I delight and be interviewed on TV or radio about the work we do at Echo Housing. Several years ago, I was part of a documentary that a local filmmaker produced about the housing landscape here in the Bay Area that was so much fun. I'm one of those people that you might run into that feels this deep satisfaction for what they do for a living, that find meaning and fulfillment in their work in the world. Now, I am not crazy about every aspect of my job I could do without doing monthly and quarterly reporting or having to prepare for yearly audits commissioned by our contract funders and monitors. And I've had my challenges, too.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:In 2023, Marci Rocha, the only boss I had ever worked for since I got my start at Echo Housing, retired. A new executive director was hired to take her place. This executive director and I have different styles of leadership, and although I appreciate the positive changes that she has brought to our agency, I've also been dismayed by some of ways she communicates with staff members. But the difficulties I have experienced with my new boss over the past few years have been a catalyst for enormous personal growth. It has pushed me to stay centered in my power, to have the courage to be honest when things don't sit well with me and to speak up about it.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I will continue to do this. The search for discovering one's life purpose, one's work in the world, work that is rewarding and beams us up can be a lonely and painful journey. So many of us struggle to find our place in the world, wondering what our contribution to life is and how we can make a difference in the world. One of the lessons that I have learned on my journey is that my place in the world is not a location outside of myself. I think back to when I first got hired at Echo Housing, and about two or three months into the job, I felt I needed to leave.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:It wasn't a place for me, or so I thought. I longed for something else, although I had no idea what that was. But when that small, still voice spoke to me at that meeting in San Leandro and said, your work in the world is to be where everything came together. The heaviness of feeling so lost in this huge ocean of life just lifted. A peace washed over me that has never left.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I have come to understand that our only real purpose in life, our work in the world is to allow the wholeness, the light, the love that is rooted in the center of our being to unfold, to emerge, to be. Our sacred work is to see the truth of who we are, the truth of our being, and to live from that place of knowing. When this happens, that everything that we do out in the world, whether we judge it as big or small, whether we work at a homeless women's shelter or a nonprofit for a housing agency or at a preschool teacher, a class of four year olds, our work will be significant. It will be rich. It will be impactful.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:It will be joyful. So my friends, be and allow the full beauty and bounty of your being be your gift to the world, your work in the world. Well, that's it for this edition of the Island City Beat Podcast. I hope that you enjoyed this personal journey that I shared with you about my work in the world and trying to find my place in the world. Thank you so much for letting me share my story, and I hope that you will come back to this podcast and listen to another episode that'll be coming your way very shortly.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Until then, I am your host, Angie Watson-Hajjem. Take Care, everyone. Goodbye.