As this unit stress on both project and collaboration, my report will cover both parts and evidence are attached below.
For the project, at first, we had many broad thoughts and landed on the topic of wellbeing and the scenario of live to work VS work to live. However, we could not decide on one tangible workplace, but agreed to speculate human resource in a more general way. As the Guardian reported, People in 20s more likely to be out of work because of poor mental health than those in early 40s, we started our research with consent and sensitivity on people in their 20s, we found most people tend to focus on wellbeing, especially mental wellbeing when being asked the ideal future scenario of work. And when we dug deeper, the problem is highly related to work structures, our generation, or even more generation is deeply affected by exploitative work culture and class solidification. For example, when my interviewee graduated and stepped into her workplace for the first time, instead of feeling excited, she already felt numb. From Mazzucato’s book The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy, I learned that government play a much more important role and can redirect capitalism to focus on breaking the class solidification and reducing the gap between the rich and the poor thus benefit the majority of citizens. Then our team came up with the idea of the ministry of human resources, using job key to ducument primary, secondary and tertiary jobs of people, aiming to make invisible work visible, and use universal basic income to raise equity over equality.
Of course, there is no perfect solution, I think the process of implementation of job key is with good intension and will promote social equity, but at the same time, it will meet a lot of resistance. For upper class, instead of the concern of paying more tax, they might be more concerned about being monitored by government. For middle class, their living standards will decline as they cannot afford too much tax. For lower class, even they seem to be the most beneficial class, some of them might have trouble with illegal entry so they do not want to be documented by government. In that case, the middle class will be the most negatively effected group.
Another double sword is the universal basic income. The benefits of UBI are obvious, it can reduce poverty, and simplify the existing social welfare system, even reduce the administrative cost. But in another hand, UBI can cause inflation. It is obvious that to put up UBI requires huge amounts of money, meanwhile, when people have more purchasing power, the lower class still have the relatively low purchasing power, the situation will somehow remain the same or just a little bit better. In the Chinese podcast East Accent West Tone, it is pointed out that there was an investigation, the people who got the money and then refuse to work and take drugs were actually very few, normal and rational people will focusing more on a long-term gain. But still, UBI will increase laziness and drug use in a short term, which will cause social instability.
Other than the project, for me, the collaboration opened a new door towards the world and enhanced my ability towards becoming a global citizen. First of all, I learned cultural difference by the website course tutor recommended me named shades of noir, I become more sensitive towards culture respect. Secondly, I learned conflict dealing by tutor and myself, when course tutor is solving conflict, actually it is an opportunity for place myself in a similar situation, similar role of her and learn. Thirdly, I learned to balance my self care within extreme emotion. From unconscicous tears to more calmed facial expression, in the future when I am at a work scenario, I can look more professional. Meanwhile, I developed my transpositional consideration and empathy by trying to understand people from the other side and appreciate other people’s compromise within conflict. Thus, I conquered my fear of conflict because I can see opportunity in risk. Accroding to What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team, the study found that team composition had no significant impact on team performance, while other factors such as the way the team interacted and communicated were more important. I will pay more attention to the interaction and communication in my future collaboration. During the unit, I also developed anti-stress ability within a tight schedule. Moreover, I also benefited from peer to peer learning, my fluent-English-speaker teammates are very good at academic English, every time I encounter unknown words, I put it into my English-learning app, now I have a new vocabulary list and can express myself more accurately. Peer to peer learning is not just within my group, I also reached out to new people from CCC, and one of them is a very experienced curator, during the conversation, he is willing to give me potential opportunity of trying to participate in an exhibition as an artist, and used the ground floor exhibition as an example to show me how to appreciate an art piece in a more professional way. Peer to peer learning in both invisible and visible way opened a new gate for me. Last but not least, the process of being the bridge between less-fluent-English-speaker cohort and fluent-English-speaker cohort, and the bridge between two courses in an invisible way contributes to my ability of leadership. The collaboration unit is a hidden treasure and a valuable lesson. With the ability and courage, my future is more unlimited than before.
As the sentence said by Confucius and mentioned on the beginning of this unit says: Tell me, I will forget; show me, I may remember; involve me, I will understand. I am glad this unit gave me the valuable opportunity to involve myself fully in the whole process of collaboration. Please allow me to say it proudly, now I understand.
Resource:
Ambrose, T., & agency (2024, February 25). People in 20s more likely to be out of work because of poor mental health than those in early 40s. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/feb/25/people-in-20s-more-likely-out-of-work-because-of-ill-health-than-those-in-early-40s
Mazzucato, M. (2019). The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy (London: Penguin Books)
Dong Qiang Xi Diao. (2021, July 17). Vol.31丨Thought Season: If you are offered money every week, will you choose to stay out of work? [Audio podcast episode]. In East Accent West Tone. Retrieved from https://www.xiaoyuzhoufm.com/episode/60f15b1d291fb9c2ed949266?s=eyJ1IjogIjY0MjNjMWE1ZWRjZTY3MTA0YTUwODFkYyJ9
Duhigg, C. (2016, February 25). What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html
