The Janus Oasis - Anne Comer - Culture in hybrid/remote work
[00:00:00] Nola Simon: This is the Janus Oasis. And I am Nola Simon. The host. I am honored today to have the woman who hired me 19 years ago. And her name is Anne Comer she works for hydrocodone. But back 19 years ago, I was being interviewed at a company. If you're familiar with any of my stories, you may have come across my most viral posts where I made a joke about Arnold Schwarzenegger.
[00:00:32] Nola Simon: I got over probably 70,000 views on that. And I had the editors at LinkedIn commenting on it and it was funny and they were trying to get Arnold to comment on it. So Anne was not the hiring manager in the middle of that story. She was not there when that fire alarm went off. And in fact, she actually didn't even know about the story.
[00:00:49] Nola Simon: It was funny. I told it to her online. And but she was the second interviewer. She was the person who made the final decision. She was the director at the time. So that's how I know Anne, [00:01:00] but many different things have happened to Ann since we first met. And I'm going to turn it over to her to introduce her work currently.
[00:01:09] Anne Comer: Thank you. And that was a wonderful interview. I still remember that interview and how impressive you worried about this big binder of all the kudos that you would've received. And I thought this is amazing. So yeah. So my name is Anne Comer. I'm a principal at Heidrick & Struggles. I work in our organizational culture and diversity equity and inclusion practices.
[00:01:30] Anne Comer: And this is something that I really been focused on really my entire life. This is a law has long been a passion for me. So I grew up in rural. As a person of color and an English speaker. I had a couple areas where I was not fitting into the majority and creating an environment where people really felt that they belong and people become more comfortable with differences and start to see that underneath those differences.
[00:01:54] Anne Comer: We have a lot in common with each other has been a passion of mine, really all of my life. And [00:02:00] so first starting to work in organizational culture and helping people work better across differences, collaborate better. Better teamwork was the beginning of that. And then in the last few years, I've really branched out into diversity, equity and inclusion, where there's even more of a focus on helping people work more effectively across difference.
[00:02:17] Anne Comer: Be more inclusive.
[00:02:19] Nola Simon: Yeah. And it's wonderful. I remember honestly you were always like that, right? So I think that's wonderful that you're able to bring something that you've really been working on your entire life and then just bringing that to your work and making that a focus to really be able to help people.
[00:02:34] Nola Simon: And belonging is a huge aspect of hybrid remote work. It's one thing to bring people into the office. They have a sense of belonging. I remember once when my kids were small, I remember walking through the office stores and just being grateful that I had a place to go where people would actually speak full sentences in English and not scream at me.
[00:02:52] Nola Simon: They might've been screaming at me, but at least I would understand what they were saying. So how do you create a sense of belonging? That's [00:03:00] not necessarily even tied to a desk.
[00:03:03] Anne Comer: So from our perspective, having a sense of belonging comes from the intentional act of making people feel included and that's helping people feel valued, respected, and supported.
[00:03:18] Anne Comer: And when people feel valued, respected, and supported, usually what comes out of that is that feeling of belonging that I belong here, my views are valued. People want to hear them. I feel comfortable expressing myself, sharing my ideas. I'm not holding back. So that sense of belonging comes from that intention.
[00:03:38] Anne Comer: Action from the people that we work with. And if it's in a workplace where you can physically meet each other, that's one way of doing that. But you can also do that. You can make people feel valued, respected, and supported in a virtual environment as well. It doesn't have to be in person. You can ask people for their opinion, you can I appreciate their opinions.
[00:03:59] Anne Comer: I just ask a [00:04:00] couple of simple examples.
[00:04:01] Nola Simon: Okay. Yeah, absolutely. That's right. I personally always used online for that and that's really where my. Interest in social media really started taking off. I started using teams and I started using Yammer, which are our internal Microsoft tools that companies sometimes use.
[00:04:20] Nola Simon: And I use the same sort of social media. Skills internally and that's where I really had to raise my profile. So what I discovered was I was working in the American division for 16 years, and nobody knew who I was. Nobody in Canada understood that even they were actually U S division employees in Toronto.
[00:04:40] Nola Simon: So I really had to amplify my profile so I could actually transition and get hired in the Canadian division. So that was something that I found, even though I'd worked for the company for years and years, I didn't feel that I would, I was, I belonged and I recognized in that bigger division.
[00:04:59] Nola Simon: And so I [00:05:00] use the tools to be able to do that. And honestly, the same sort of skills that I've used to get that different promotion, to actually do all the work that I've been doing. On LinkedIn and Twitter that is the same sort of skill that I've been using in bringing in media interviews as well, too.
[00:05:16] Nola Simon: So I've been interviewed by the CBC CTV news. I've had four interviews with Toronto star now, and it's an excellent way to really raise your profile, but she really get recognized and rewarded. Now most people are not looking to get into media. Most people really just want to be able to build a network that allow them to do better.
[00:05:35] Nola Simon: But that's an example of how you can start small and then escalate it.
[00:05:39] Anne Comer: And you can do that internally because internal organizations have tools that allow you to connect beyond your own geography, whether it's a, or, whatever tool that your company uses and the more active you can be in there selecting the channels that, you're most interested in, so that you're using your time judiciously.
[00:05:58] Anne Comer: It can be a great way to connect with people [00:06:00] with a similar. That's right. Yeah. And get people to know who you are as a person.
[00:06:05] Nola Simon: Yeah. And the tools I actually find you're able to approach people More directly that are more senior in the organization. It's easier really to have conversations than it used to be.
[00:06:16] Nola Simon: I remember like back when I was hired, there was a real reluctance to approach anybody who was senior.
[00:06:22] Anne Comer: It's really nice. Now it really breaks down the hierarchy because we live in a social media environment and you can just reach out to anyone. You can respond to anyone and it's a, it's very equalizing.
[00:06:31] Nola Simon: That's right. And you're talking to them like, they're a person, right? There's no, there's a lot less formality. And so I find that really enhances the sense of belonging as well. Yeah, absolutely. Yep. Now one of the things that I've noticed a lot of people are talking, especially if they have if there are people of color they've been talking that they've actually found it.
[00:06:51] Nola Simon: Yeah. Better to actually be at home the last few years because they've experienced fewer microaggressions. [00:07:00] Have you come across that. And have you come across companies that are trying to, who are struggling that with that in their culture, how are they actually accommodating and addressing that going forward?
[00:07:11] Nola Simon: Because it's hard to walk back into. Knowing that you're opening yourself up for something that you perceived as negative, right? That is negative.
[00:07:21] Anne Comer: Yeah. That's absolutely been an issue for a lot of people, particularly people of color, as you said. And it's really, I think about. Creating that environment where there is greater awareness.
[00:07:34] Anne Comer: I think people weren't always aware that these things were happening. And I think there has to be a conversation that these kinds of micro exclusions actually happen in the workplace and educating people on what it is, what it looks like, because there are often. Conscious, when I say something to someone that is received as a micro exclusion, it's not necessarily because I'm intending to do that.
[00:07:58] Anne Comer: It's because of maybe an [00:08:00] unconscious belief that I have or conscious belief that I'm not consciously expressing. And it comes out in these ways. And I think it's really important for people to have these conversations and start educating. Leaders and team members on the dynamics of these micro exclusion how that happens to become more aware of it so that we can actually start celebrating people's differences as opposed to being uncomfortable.
[00:08:25] Anne Comer: With people's differences.
[00:08:27] Nola Simon: Yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely. And naturally the kids book that I meant that you've got quirks by Christian Sherry that book is actually about how to talk about differences. Cause every character in the book actually has something different. There's somebody who has fiddle ago.
[00:08:41] Nola Simon: My Wardenberg syndrome. That's why my hair is white. There's a character that doesn't have arms and legs. There's a comedian from Australia. She used to. Blow snot bubbles out of her nose when she was a kid, when she laughed. It could be a lot of different things in a lot of different differences.
[00:08:57] Nola Simon: And that's why I wanted to be a part of that [00:09:00] because I really perceived that. An opportunity to really have those types of discussions as kids with their parents, with their teachers and their, just their community. In, in, honestly Christian's getting like amazing feedback from people who are recognizing themselves in this book and hearing stories about something that was really challenging to deal with.
[00:09:20] Nola Simon: I was called grandma's since the time I was seven years old. And really. Being able to talk about it with transparency and help others necessarily avoid the, maybe not completely avoided the scenario, but know how to deal with it and know that eventually, like if you're coping through it and living through it, it becomes a strength and you can make it better all the way around.
[00:09:42] Anne Comer: Yeah. And once people start valuing different, all the research shows us that diverse teams outperform. Homogenous teams, right? There's all kinds of research to support that. And once we start valuing and recognizing the value that different perspectives and all types of [00:10:00] differences, bring to our work to our lives, then we start behaving.
[00:10:06] Anne Comer: Once I start valuing differences as opposed to being uncomfortable or intimidated or whatever my reaction might be to difference. Once I started valuing it, then I can really start. I will behave differently. I will ask more questions. If people have different perspectives, I won't feel threatened when someone has a different perspective, because I understand that it's actually adding to the bigger picture that I can now see, I'm seeing.
[00:10:29] Anne Comer: I'm seeing more than I used to see before someone else can fill in some of my blind spots, for example, someone who has a very different perspective. So there's, there's an element of a really big element of self-awareness in creating this environment of inclusivity and making everyone feel that sense of belonging.
[00:10:47] Anne Comer: We talk about these inclusive mindset. Self-awareness. Is one of them it's foundational to good leadership and of any kind but inclusive leadership. It's still a part of that, but there's also curiosity, [00:11:00] so about, how do we approach differences? If I get curious about, how did your experience, having white hair, when you were really young, how did that, what impact did that have on you and how do you, what do you bring from that into the workplace?
[00:11:11] Anne Comer: What perspective does that give you? That's different from the one that I have. With my different background. So getting curious about people's differences about. Different ideas that they can bring is another those mindsets really asking questions from a place of humility, understanding that I don't see the whole picture.
[00:11:27] Anne Comer: I can never see the whole picture, but other people, if we put all of our perspectives together, we can get a much richer view of what's actually going on. And, research shows us that when we're doing simple tasks it doesn't really the diversity of. But we work in organizations where work solving complex problems.
[00:11:44] Anne Comer: And when we are dealing with more complex types of tasks, that diversity is a huge advantage. And so being able to tap into that with curiosity, that's why that's one of the best, the second inclusive.
[00:11:57] Nola Simon: No, I'm. I'm sure it's very extensive.[00:12:00] But to answer your question, how white hair affected me when I was a child I was very alert to ages from a very early age, right? So like when I was 32, I had my first baby and I remember I was at the store and a gentleman who's worked there.
[00:12:15] Nola Simon: He was very kind, but he was not necessarily observant. And he asked me if it was my first grade. Yeah, I was 32. I remember being extremely upset and working an appointment with my doctor to say, okay, what's wrong with me? And he's Nope, it's him.
[00:12:31] Anne Comer: It's people moving fast and not
[00:12:33] Nola Simon: paying attention.
[00:12:34] Nola Simon: Yeah, exactly. That's right. And I, if I go out with my dad, I'm offered seniors discounts, which I declined. When I went on the cruise with him, I fit in completely well because we went on Holland America and it was like full of seniors. The only thing that gave me a way where my knees, apparently I moved to well for eight, but that's a huge part, because everybody's aware of. [00:13:00] Those different biases. And, if you're surfacing that and you're voicing the concern. I think one of the best questions you can really ask as a leader is really who else needs to be in this room? Who haven't we heard from
[00:13:13] Anne Comer: well, and speaking of biases, I can see.
[00:13:16] Anne Comer: Someone else's biases, but I don't see my own light. Notice someone else's blind spots, but I don't see my own. It's hard to see that stuff in yourself. That's why the self awareness piece is so important in leadership and inclusive leadership because it's the foundation. And if I'm not asking those questions coming from curiosity, I'm not even going to notice that I have blind spots, but the richness of, you get, when you ask those questions, it's really quite.
[00:13:43] Nola Simon: Yeah. Yeah, no, definitely. I I spend most of my life asking questions.
[00:13:48] Anne Comer: Yeah, my, my curiosity is really high.
[00:13:51] Nola Simon: Exactly the same. So when we talk about other biases that come up in hybrid remote work I've heard it called distance bias slightly, but it's also a [00:14:00] proximity bias. So the idea that. Yeah.
[00:14:03] Nola Simon: People, if they're going to continue working remotely or they're hybrid, and they're not necessarily in the office all the time, they're going to suffer from lack of opportunity to impress people so that they get promotions. There's a real fear that proximity bias is really going to be a factor that's going to inhibit their career.
[00:14:21] Nola Simon: Is that something that you've worked with?
[00:14:24] Anne Comer: It's something that I'm definitely hearing that. That issue that if you're, what does work look like? So sometimes leaders want to see work happening. But what we need to be looking at is the output, right? What are the outcomes that we're actually paying attention to?
[00:14:40] Anne Comer: And something I've been hearing about more recently is distributed leadership. Assigning, empowering people on your team to be responsible for areas that maybe they have expertise in and making sure that they have decision making authority so that they are empowered to reach out and connect, to get input from people that they need input from, but to be able to make decisions within their [00:15:00] area.
[00:15:00] Anne Comer: Of of knowledge or expertise. And so we need to get more comfortable with different models like that, of, how do we lead rather than walking around the office and checking in with each person one by one, how do I connect with people in in a virtual environment, some of them might be in the office sometimes, but I also need to connect with people in a virtual.
[00:15:20] Nola Simon: Yeah, definitely. And honestly, just one of the things about being in the office too, is just the screens. So if you're having a meeting, like the worst experience you can have as a remote worker is really just being like the screen on the end of the conference table and nobody else is on screen.
[00:15:36] Anne Comer: Yes. Yeah. So we have to be much more intentional about asking, remembering to ask the person online. Having them go first. That's. Those are just meeting techniques that become more important. They're important when we're all together in person, because there are always going to be some more extroverted people who will have all the airspace and, talk a lot more introverted people.
[00:15:58] Anne Comer: So there's always a need in an [00:16:00] in-person meeting to draw out the people or give them an opportunity to think before the meetings so that they come in prepared to share their ideas. There are things that you need to do, but it becomes even more important in a hybrid.
[00:16:11] Nola Simon: Exactly. Those at asynchronous tools are actually really important.
[00:16:15] Nola Simon: The agenda having things actually completed before you even really get to the meetings so that you really understand what the purpose of the meeting is trying to achieve the work isn't necessarily happening at the meeting. A lot of times the work is happening outside of a meeting. But that's a different way of. For a lot of people. So that's interesting. And then the other bias is recency bias. So a lot of people are influenced by the person they most recently spoke to. So if managers are forgetting, like you said, like the person who's at home who might have input, how do you stay top of.
[00:16:49] Nola Simon: Really? Like you said, like developing and using the tools. And I personally found, as I said, like using the, like Yammer and social media, I had no problem staying top of mind because I was [00:17:00] in their pocket.
[00:17:03] Anne Comer: Yeah. And in my own experience, what I've found has been really helpful. It's just, it's simple. It's pretty low tech. It's setting up meetings with people. When you're working in an office, you don't really have to do that because you know that you're, you'll run into them at some point and you can stop them in the hall and have a conversation.
[00:17:20] Anne Comer: But what I've been doing over the last two years is being more intentional about setting up recurring meetings with people. Just to make sure that I stay in touch with them and that's been really helpful and they don't have to be long. It doesn't have to be often, but it's just a little touch point to make sure that I'm staying in touch with people that I need to work with, collaborate, with, learn from whatever it might.
[00:17:39] Anne Comer: Yep. Exactly.
[00:17:40] Nola Simon: And even participating in like employee resource groups, that was actually an interesting part. When I actually went a hundred percent remote. I actually didn't like it because the employee resource groups, I had no access to the building and neither did my boss or my boss's boss.
[00:17:55] Nola Simon: So if, for me to actually go in and network with people that I wanted to. [00:18:00] In person to be able to achieve better results for the employee resource group. Again, this was all volunteered. It wasn't paid. I basically had to track down somebody who had access to the building to be able to authorize that.
[00:18:13] Nola Simon: And I can tell you that went over with a lead balloon in the leadership team because they couldn't even approve it. I had to negotiate it myself. So it was a form of exclusion that I never even considered before I took a remote job.
[00:18:30] Anne Comer: Access to the physical access to the building was something that we don't have as a remote
[00:18:35] Nola Simon: worker. Yeah. Because the perception was it was sales oriented. Your job was completely focused on external vendors. Why would you need to have access to the building? And it was a whole security function.
[00:18:49] Nola Simon: So they, you didn't have access. Like I, I had my past because I never gave it back. But all the access had been removed from it. So I [00:19:00] did an innovation challenge. I was actually the finalist in the innovation challenge, and I had to hunt down people to allow me to come in, to participate in and challenge that the company had organized.
[00:19:13] Anne Comer: Yeah. That's so funny. Yeah.
[00:19:15] Nola Simon: It wasn't really, I felt excluded,
[00:19:18] Anne Comer: you were physically excluded from the building.
[00:19:20] Nola Simon: Yeah, exactly. But what was funny? It was I actually took a photo at that day of the newly renovated area in the building and post that online and I actually beat the CEO to actually posting it.
[00:19:30] Nola Simon: So I felt excluded, but yet super connected.
[00:19:34] Anne Comer: That's yeah. Upside down world.
[00:19:36] Nola Simon: It's really weird.
[00:19:38] Anne Comer: But what strikes me about what you're saying is we get trapped in our thinking, we get locked into a particular way of thinking about it. Those leaders in your organization were thinking she's doing a sales job.
[00:19:50] Anne Comer: It's external. Why would she need access to this? But if you're thinking from a broader perspective while you're still part of the company, what does a [00:20:00] company, if not a collection of individuals.
[00:20:02] Nola Simon: Yup. And even grade nine days. So my daughters were both born when I worked for the company, because I worked for the company for 17 and a half years.
[00:20:11] Nola Simon: It was the only company might either of my children had known. And so when grade nine came around, I was a hundred percent remote. I didn't have an office to take them to. So I had to beg, borrow and steal my way into a grade nine events out in Kitchener. And that was like, Two and a half, two hour commute we got lost.
[00:20:33] Nola Simon: So it was probably two hours, two and a half hours. Cause I don't go to Kitchener very often. But yeah, I, we didn't have a job to really do there because my job was not focused in the office. So it was actually really interesting. I signed up to, I volunteered for a change management video. They had renovated the office.
[00:20:50] Nola Simon: So I did a like videos to help people adapt to that change. I was actually a star of the show and my daughter got to operate the video. So have a and use [00:21:00] it for it. Yeah. Yeah, it was so it was like the video clapper that they use for like movie shoots and she had a ball and it was just so much fun.
[00:21:07] Nola Simon: There were other grade, nine days, people who are actually volunteering for that as well too. And she, when she actually went back to class, she had the best story to tell, but it was because we completely had to invent it. We created it, but I almost didn't even get permission to do that.
[00:21:26] Anne Comer: Because you didn't fit the mold, they didn't
[00:21:28] Nola Simon: fit the mold.
[00:21:29] Nola Simon: Yeah. And it's just who I am that, I ask for things.
[00:21:33] Anne Comer: But that's important. I think it's really important that we take advantage. This is a moment in time when we may have opportunities to speak up where maybe we didn't before. I think that we're at a point of transition.
[00:21:47] Anne Comer: We're hearing about. People really reconsidering their roles and their jobs and resigning. And we hear about the great resignation or the great rethink or whatever we want to
[00:21:59] Nola Simon: put air [00:22:00] quotes around it,
[00:22:02] Anne Comer: but it is definitely a time of transition, which means that it's a wonderful opportunity for us to really speak up and negotiate.
[00:22:11] Anne Comer: What do we mean? In our work lives, because if we don't speak up, it'll just be the parameters will be set for us. But if we set, we S we speak up and we say, okay, these are the non-negotiables, this is what I need in a hybrid work environment. This is the opportunity to do it because it's a little bit more of an employee's market than it has been for a number of years.
[00:22:32] Anne Comer: And so that gives us a little more, leverage, a little more power in those conversation. Yep.
[00:22:39] Nola Simon: Yup. I agree. I was reading a book about influence. The professor actually responded to me on Twitter. It was cool. It was Saturday night. She was answering my questions. She runs the most popular course at Yale university and she's answering my questions on the Saturday night.
[00:22:53] Nola Simon: And so to her she has a question that she actually calls the magic question and it's what would it take?[00:23:00] What would it take for me to achieve this? And she tells a story about a company that had a, it was overrun with a demand for product they were producing and they needed all hands on deck to really work over time over.
[00:23:15] Nola Simon: A holiday weekend, and they could have mandated it. They could have mandated all the overtime and that wouldn't have gone over well. And what they did instead was they asked what would it take? And so they arranged for daycare. They arranged for Christmas, present wrapping. They arranged for pizza, and this, they met all of the requests from the employees and what they ended up with was a collaborative event that helped the company.
[00:23:42] Nola Simon: Exceed their goals. Everybody obviously got overtime pay too, but it just really improved the morale, even though everybody didn't want to work over Christmas.
[00:23:51] Anne Comer: It's a great question for employers, but I think that also would wait question for individuals to ask what would it take for my needs to [00:24:00] be met?
[00:24:02] Nola Simon: Yeah, exactly. That's right. And like a lot of employers are starting back with the, like the three days a week trying that out to those remote. So I think that a lot of employers are set in stone. That's what we're doing there. They're mandating it. But I think that's a question that you could ask and say, okay, I really need for this purpose.
[00:24:20] Nola Simon: I really need. To be at home, say four days a week. I only want to come in one day a week. What would it take exactly. Negotiating strategy. Yeah. It is definitely the time to negotiate. And the other thing we had talked about briefly before we started recording was about. So it's a change process.
[00:24:38] Nola Simon: What are you losing by going back to the office? People are feeling that they're losing autonomy, they're losing flexibility, they're losing safety all kinds of different perceptions of loss. And you had commented that, it's almost like a grief process. You have to go through a grieving before you accept something.
[00:24:56] Nola Simon: But to your point about the great resignation, what happened. [00:25:00] If you have a choice, like if somebody dies, you don't have a choice to grieve them, but when it's this type of loss and there are other employers who are offering that flexibility and that autonomy and that care and respect, do you really have to grieve if your employer chooses not to offer that to you?
[00:25:20] Nola Simon: That's I think fundamentally part of the great Renaissance.
[00:25:25] Anne Comer: Yeah. And I think what's interesting is when we fell into the pandemic, it happened so quickly that there was this mass distress. It was even beyond grieving. I think everyone was very upset and having all kinds of reactions to it, but there was a grieving as well, right?
[00:25:42] Anne Comer: When we lost the connection that we had at work and interacting with our colleagues who had become our friends. And there was a lot that we lost through the pandemic and I think everyone. This feeling bad and feeling the strain of that, the issues that we've had with mental health over the last two years.
[00:25:58] Anne Comer: I think that's pretty significant. [00:26:00] And now that we're coming back, it's another change and it's just human nature. Whenever we're faced with the change. Oh, now we're going back to what we missed two years ago and we still need to grieve because it's still a change. And when we experienced a change.
[00:26:15] Anne Comer: As something new is emerging. Something old is ending and you have to honor the something old that's ending. And sometimes we even have to grieve that something old that's ending, but it creates a possibility for something new. And so what I see is how do I start articulating what is, what does something new might be one of the possibilities that I can step into?
[00:26:37] Anne Comer: How do I start asking for that? How do I negotiate that in my. In my work life and exactly to your point, the employers that are not going to be agile enough, flexible enough to deal with what people's needs are in this hybrid environment. They may lose out on employees that they may not have the they might be able to attract people.
[00:26:58] Anne Comer: They may not be able to retain [00:27:00] people. And the way that employers that are more more comfortable with the flexibility that's required from hybrid working.
[00:27:08] Nola Simon: Yeah, exactly. And it's all about the reframe, right? Like how do you reframe it to be something that honors the perception of loss, but gets them excited about the potential of the future.
[00:27:20] Nola Simon: And that's really honestly what the Janice Oasis is about is like, how do you bring the best of the past into the future? And co-create the future that you want love that. Yeah, I love that I'm getting actually chills to be able to tie that back to the mission statement of my podcast.
[00:27:39] Anne Comer: You do learn from the past and I always love to be future oriented.
[00:27:42] Anne Comer: What can we do? And that's what you want to do. You pick up the lessons that you've learned and move on. Yeah,
[00:27:49] Nola Simon: exactly. And that's exactly why I wanted to have you on because you are my past, but you're also going to be part of the whole future of everything that's going to be happening in the [00:28:00] workforce.
[00:28:00] Nola Simon: And so I really appreciate having you here and it's so lovely to connect with you again. And I can't wait to see the work that you do.
[00:28:07] Anne Comer: Thank you a lot. Likewise, I'm really, I'm just loving the work that you're doing and I love the mission of your podcast. And so it's a real pleasure and honor to be here with you today.
[00:28:16] Nola Simon: Yay. Anyways, thank you so much.