Life Between Cultures
A book reco on cultural adaption and an article on work loyalty
Mind and Body
A BOOK RECO: We had an Employee Resource Group (ERG) event at my workplace this past week where America Ferrera, the award-winning actor, director and producer was a guest speaker. It was the perfect dose of motivation when you may feel lost and purposeless. She talked beautifully about the identity crisis that immigrants and women face. More to come on that in future posts. But for now, I wanted to share the book authored by her that is next on my reading list: American Like Me: Reflections on Life Between Cultures.
AN INSTA POST: Also, here’s a beautiful post I read on Instagram - if you are running on low self-love or self-esteem, hope this makes you feel a little lighter :) As the post says, “Just in case you needed to see this today…”
Work and Finance
AN ARTICLE: Low employee engagement and burnout are modern day challenges - I can speak from the perspective of US and tech industry. Last few years have been characterized by astronomical business growth for tech companies driven by its human capital: hardworking employees who are pushing the boundaries and working harder to meet the ever growing expectations and pace of changes. However, employees haven’t benefitted proportionately from this growth. In fact, they have been facing layoff risks and lack of financial freedom. With this pressurizing work environment and the detachment period from pandemic, lot of employees are rethinking why and how they work. In this context, I came across this interesting article on Business Insider that I wanted to share with you all: What I got wrong about loyalty at work. It talks about the perception of loyalty to employer across multiple generations and the conclusion may surprise you! “Now, in his new job, the only thing he feels entitled to is his agreed-upon salary — and in return, he puts in eight hours of labor a day, five days a week, and not a minute more. "I'm not going to ever go above and beyond," he says. I don't think this is actually the world most of us want — a kind of hyper transactional relationship between employers and employees where no one owes anyone anything, where we all adopt what one of my readers called a "mercenary mindset."
Miscellaneous
A COOKING EXPERIMENT: After my recent Mexico trip, I was feeling experimental with beans. I randomly picked up some new type of beans from Safeway that I hadn’t tried before Mayocoba Beans. Now that I got the beans, I started searching for specific recipes as I didn’t want to do the same Indian style curry base. While exploring, I learnt that these beans are commonly used in Peruvian cuisine and that there are some chile pastes that are essential to this cuisine: Aji Amarillo and Aji Panca. I ordered these ones from Amazon and the dish turned out super comforting, creamy and yum. It is a bit high on the heat factor, even to my Indian palate (I would give it 4 out of 5 on spiciness level), but using less chile paste may tone that down. I paired the beans with white rice (sona masuri rice) and avocado slices that helped balance the heat and create a hearty meal. Check out the recipe for these Peruvian Aji Amarillo Beans here: