Adland: Please give your teams the space to feel sad during this bushfire crisis
Marnie Vinall returns to work today. It feels surreal for her to go back to briefs in the midst of a national bushfire emergency, but the work is there and it needs to be done. As teams across the country return to the office though, they need the space and support to feel sad.
Last night, I sat in my bed and wondered how I would get dressed and go to work this morning while my country burned. While Australians felt the incredible pang of heartbreak that comes with lost homes, towns and community members.
Last year, over the second last weekend of November, several states were severely hit by bushfires. In New South Wales, 1.65m hectares were destroyed, and six lives and more than 600 homes lost. In Queensland, 180,000 hectares were burned and 20 homes ravaged. But we watched this unfold with the terrifying knowledge that Australia’s fire season hadn’t even properly begun.
Image: Matthew Abbott
The following week at work, I pored through updates during my lunch breaks in a desperate attempt to find out as much as I could. Then, I would return to my desk with a heavy heart. Often, when I could, I would take my computer into private meetings rooms or nooks, working away from my team.
I didn’t want my solemnity to come across as being ‘negative’ in the office. I was conscious that I was quieter than usual and didn’t want to appear to be ‘bringing other people down’ (something I’ve been reprimanded for in the workplace in the past).
But now, in January 2020, it’s even worse. To date, in the 2019-20 bushfire season, we’ve lost an estimated 6.3m hectares, 1,300 homes, 25 people (with a further 6 missing), and half a billion wildlife. And it rages on.
I’ve had a lot of conversations with my friends about the surreal nature of going to work and pretending for nine hours a day that our country isn’t in a crisis.
Over the Christmas and New Year break, the majority of my conversations friends, family and strangers were about the fires. When I’m at home, I’m constantly scrolling Twitter and refreshing Celeste Barber’s donation page. But as of today, the time I’ll be able to dedicate to that will decrease substantially.
And that’s okay. Life goes on. The work is still there and needs to be done. #ScottyFromMarketing isn’t nailing the PR game, so someone needs to.
But, as employees, we need the space to feel sad about what’s happening. We shouldn’t be scared that, if we don’t put on a happy enough face, we’ll seem ungrateful for our jobs, like we’ve got a bad attitude, or too negative in a positive work environment. You don’t know who around you has been touched by these fires and how. You also don’t know how it’s affected their mental health.
Natural disasters have an enormous effect on stress and anxiety for those who suffer through them. This trauma can extend to those who witness events, including the destruction of homes. Watching towns that you’ve grown up in, holidayed to, or have a special connection to burn and suffer has an impact.
There is also sufficient and convincing evidence that the unprecedented extremes of Australia’s bushfires are linked to climate change. As research suggests, climate change is likely to have significant negative mental health effects, especially felt by those already vulnerable to pre-existing mental illnesses.
I’m not saying the work shouldn’t be done and we should all just simmer in sadness. But we do need to give ourselves, and our co-workers and employees, a break to feel the impact of the utter devastation we’re facing.
For the past few weeks, when someone asked me how I was, I gave a sombre reply.
From today, I’ll have my game face on, ready to build relationships and hit KPIs. But inside, I’ll still be as saddened and angry as before I returned to work.
From today, I’ll sit at my desk and go through emails, write copy for campaigns, smile at my co-workers and access certain content. But my heart will still be utterly broken.
How do we carry on with spreadsheets and briefs while our country is literally on fire? We just do. But in the background is the fear, the loss, the devastation. We can’t turn it off.
Marnie Vinall is a publicist and copywriter for 3 Phase Marketing
If you’d like to assist with bushfire recovery, relief and rescue efforts, please explore the options below:
- New South Wales Rural Fire Service
- Victorian Country Fire Authority
- South Australian Country Fire Service
- Queensland Rural Fire Service
- Salvation Army Disaster Appeal
- St Vincent de Paul Society Bushfire Appeal
- Australian Red Cross Disaster Recovery and Relief
- WIRES (Wildlife Rescue) Emergency Fund
- Koalas in Care
- Western Australia Volunteer Fire and Rescue
Heartfelt read! @Marnie you really nail the hard to talk about subjects. <3
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Returning to work with eyes swollen from crying, thanks for writing this.
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No problem. Just keep on spruiking the same old mass consumption mantra that has caused this problem to begin with. Buy buy buy, consume consume consume (while “Rome burns”). The share price is all that matters. And when you get to “heaven” you can say: “I was just following orders”
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How about you get out and do something rather than refreshing twitter and then you won’t need a space to feel sad.
Army Reserves, SES, RSPCA, Red Cross they’re all looking for volunteers.
@Mumbrella I know it’s a slow news day, but this kind of crap is really damaging your brand.
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welcome to 2020 everyone – your Peak Millennial moment has arrived early
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I tried to enjoy your witty remark… but I was simply to sad 🙁
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This… The World’s economy is based on ever increasing consumption of things that we generally do not need. Taking up ever more resources to build and manufacture. It’s a runaway freight train thats very difficult to stop and its fuelled by the promises of happiness that the Ad world claim will come from having that car or the house, or the watch or handbag…
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What’s to say she hasn’t already done something? She’s more than likely donated at the very least.
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Hi Wayne,
I understand your knee-jerk frustration when there is so much utter devastation and so many areas in need during this crisis, but the best I can do from my personal position is continue to work, pay my rent and then donate as much as I can to organisations that are helping those suffering.
We need to be coming together, not attacking each other.
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Surprised you had time to write that comment with all the volunteering you’ve obviously been doing mate.
Writing something that helps people who have to make a living during a national crisis feel less alone, or leaving pointless negative comments on industry websites: which is a more positive action? Kind of seems like you care more about maintaining a sense of self-superiority than the SES etc.
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There is no where that she has stated being a hero.
I’m appalled by the backlash on this article – stop the judgement and be kind to one another.
Australia is going through a hard time, and we need to band together, not attack each other.
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Boom – great comment and sentiment! Could not agree more.
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Stunning that anyone takes the whining of these fools seriously.
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Stoicism by definition is: the endurance of pain or hardship without the display of feelings and without complaint.
And yet here you are, complaining. Take your own advice, mate.
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Classic Boomers vs young work force in these comments.
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Classic common sense vs overly sensitised drivel
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Overly sensitised
F-ing LOL
Wake up to yourself mate.
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Whilst everyone in this country enjoys the freedom to express a feeling on any matter maybe new year resolution for mumbrella editorial staff is simply make a judgement call on petty hurtful commentary allowed on the site and don’t post it. Think history in my experience is that there are serial offenders who have nothing better to do than poor shit on another persons opinion not with considered responses but just because they have chips on both shoulders
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Climate change bandwagon! Really?? What about the large number of arsonists lighting these bushfires? That’s far more evidence of the extent of the cause of the devastation sweeping Australia I would think.
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I think the reason you’re getting pushback on this article is, though most likely well intentioned, the writer seems to be making it about themselves, in the midst of a crisis. Which obviously also plays in to the millennial cliche.
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These situations call for good leadership in a company. Unfortunately the article doesn’t appear to recognise the fact that most people around her would have be feeling the same, as this is not a “self-contained” experience.
A good boss or team leader should bring everyone into the shared experience feeling by acknowledging what’s happening. Discussing positive contributions such as a joint donation or some team pro-bono work.
Marnie, why not step forward and discuss this? You might be surprised rather than feel isolated.
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Hi Share,
Thank you for your comment. I absolutely agree that these situations can bring people together.
I’ve been apart of many discussions and conversations around what we can, and are doing, collectively as a public. (Also how in a professional sense we can rally funds). The fact that a lot of financial assistance has come from grassroots fundraising is incredibly uplifting. You’re right in the sentiment that some light in this really dark time is the human effort in rallying together in arms to help.
I was trying to tap into a feeling that a lot of people around me had – that one can feel a sense of community and positivity in the human effort, while feeling immensely devastated and sad. You point out that I didn’t recognise this enough as a shared feeling or experience, and I’ve taken that feedback on board. (Along with the comment above about making it about myself. I tried to used my experience to tap into a wider feeling, but obviously made it more about me, which I’ve taken note of).
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I’m sure your article was an attempt to bring people together. But even as a collective work thing, the point is I think we’re all more worried about actual victims in the rural areas affected by disaster than a bunch of city marketing types feeling sad (myself included). It just had tinge of self indulgence about it. The opposite behaviour played out in London after terrorist attacks when everyone came back to work with a stiff upper lip and got on with it, in defiance of the awfulness they just experienced. It’s not exactly the same thing but its close. It’s a more adult response. People these days especially on social media seem to be coming more adept at finding the personal victim angle in everything.
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I couldn’t have summed this up better myself Bob.
I also like the juxtaposition of the London attacks / stiff upper lip – which is of course, a very British way of dealing with emotion.
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You may see the ‘stiff upper lip’ as the “more adult response” but I’d hazard a guess that it’s also played a fairly significant role in ever increasing rates of mental health issues… when people feel like they can’t talk about their emotions they are less likely to seek help, all too often with tragic consequences (particularly among men).
Yes, the actual victims of this crisis are doing it much, much tougher than us “city marketing types” (no one here is denying that) but research has shown that traumas can also have a mental health impact on onlookers/general public, particularly when many of them are now experienced in real time via the media (e.g. September 11).
So rather than minimising anyone’s feelings or judging whether they are “allowed” to feel a certain way about something, surely it is more important than ever to be supporting each other through this awful time?
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Are you one of the #ArsonEmergency Bots?
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