Vino Vethavanam: Bringing the world outside into work

00:00:00:04 - 00:00:25:15
Sam Orrin
Welcome to Human at Work, where I ask people about their lives and how their work life really works. How does family, friends, children, lovers all intertwine together with work? Today's conversations with Vino Vethavanam and Vino is a proper creative at heart. She's built an amazing career as the editor of Pink News Spotify. She's worked at bSKYb and Sony.

00:00:25:17 - 00:00:42:05
Sam Orrin
But today we'll be talking parents, children and post-COVID. Lessons learned on On how to juggle work with life. Enjoy. To start, could you. I don't know if this is going to be possible, but could you explain What you do is if you're talking to a five year old?

00:00:42:07 - 00:01:09:09
Vino Vethavanam
Yeah. So if I were to explain what I day to girls and sometimes I do explain what I do. It's my niece who are four. I basically I write stories, and that is all I have ever wanted to date. I like to understand what stories there are in the world, and then I like to tell those stories in my own way.

00:01:09:11 - 00:01:13:18
Vino Vethavanam
And that is the essence of what I do.

00:01:13:20 - 00:01:39:21
Sam Orrin
I love that I'm as work for you in life. You know, your life is your is is writing and storytelling. I'm I don't assume anything, but do you separate it? And you've been out here in Reno here, or is that just one the blends you know, you talk to friends and family about how passionate you are about this and what you do or is it about women's lives that.

00:01:39:23 - 00:02:10:00
Vino Vethavanam
Look, I don't know. That's a tricky question. Um, I think because I've always really loved what I have and I've been really lucky to work at some amazing places that I might. I talk about my work a lot and I think about my work a lot, but I also think that life influences the work that I did because I am absorbing culture every day.

00:02:10:01 - 00:02:35:02
Vino Vethavanam
I'm aware of news, I'm thinking about trends. I'm watching the world outside my window and I'm bringing that into the work that I do. And I think that might be partly because when you are a journalist or an editor in chief, your core role is to bring the world outside into your publication or business and create something unique around that.

00:02:35:02 - 00:02:43:04
Vino Vethavanam
So I think work is a big part of what I do because I love what I do.

00:02:43:06 - 00:02:48:14
Sam Orrin
Nice. What would what do your parents make of what you do? What do they do?

00:02:48:16 - 00:03:06:15
Vino Vethavanam
Yeah. So my mom was a nurse for many years and my dad thought, let's earmark thing for IPC, which was a publisher. Nice. It existed, actually. So he sort of understood, you know, the the world of publishing.

00:03:06:17 - 00:03:09:04
Sam Orrin
But how do you. Yeah. Yeah.

00:03:09:06 - 00:03:41:23
Vino Vethavanam
I think my parents have always had a massive respect for good writing. They often talk about newspaper journalists. My dad was the Daily Mirror for many years under Robert Maxwell, so they weren't, uh, against it. I only ever talked about being a journalist from when I was a very young child. It didn't come as a surprise. I definitely think coming from an Asian family, it is a natural career path.

00:03:42:00 - 00:04:23:18
Vino Vethavanam
Yeah, and a lot of the conversations that I've been in when I do work around the I when businesses talk about attracting Asian talent in particular, there's a bit of an assumption that businesses don't hire primarily go out and fire hire Asian talent. And I think that is the case for some. But I also think it isn't a natural career path in and so you gotta think hard home isn't something that's really considered and that's part of the reason why you don't see lots of Asian people in creative industries.

00:04:23:19 - 00:04:33:09
Vino Vethavanam
I used to joke that for the first part of my career, the only Asian people that I met would be either in accounts or in I.T.

00:04:33:11 - 00:04:34:03
Sam Orrin
Yeah.

00:04:34:05 - 00:04:45:11
Vino Vethavanam
You would very rarely meet like an Asian creatives. All right. Or an Asian editor in chief. It's definitely changing now, but I think my parents are always very open to it and they could see that that's all I wanted to do.

00:04:45:12 - 00:04:51:06
Sam Orrin
So what do they want you to be? Do you know though they were quite free spirited like that.

00:04:51:08 - 00:05:13:14
Vino Vethavanam
They talk about being a lawyer a lot, but they talk about it in the context of, Oh, you're really argumentative. You should be a lawyer. Yeah, Yeah. But I, I never any other felt any pressure and I wasn't. They, they just let me get on with it. And I made that decision probably when I was five or six that I was going to write stories.

00:05:13:14 - 00:05:25:22
Vino Vethavanam
That's how I articulated it. And my sort of academic career just went down that path that I never considered anything else. And I certainly wasn't interested in what anyone else thought anyway.

00:05:25:24 - 00:05:49:06
Sam Orrin
MM Love that. Let's talk practical. Practical. So work. How do you like, how do you fit it in with your, with your day? Like, you know, if you don't, if you don't like separate work in life or it kind of blends into one, how do you, especially in the world we live in now, I'm talking to you on a on a screen and what works for you?

00:05:49:08 - 00:06:12:19
Vino Vethavanam
Well, discipline is really important and it's something I struggle with a lot. If I need to write copy, if I'm doing something which is just purely creative, not strategic, I can write any time of the day. I have to be in the zone and ready for it. So that could be, you know, in the morning it could be at night.

00:06:12:19 - 00:06:26:20
Vino Vethavanam
So it depends on my task. But if I'm doing something which is more structured, I'm more strategic only to discipline myself, to sit down at my desk and get an assigned time and get it done.

00:06:26:22 - 00:06:31:15
Sam Orrin
As I go, as I got harder since the constructive offices have been removed.

00:06:31:17 - 00:07:02:02
Vino Vethavanam
So, you know, I think I've actually really flourished in the sort of working from home, sets up because I wake up later on. I definitely feel rested when I wake up, so I'm more ready to start work. I think I really learned discipline during lockdown because I woke up at 7 a.m. every morning at, you know, had a shower, got dressed inside my desk, and I just got in the rhythm of that.

00:07:02:04 - 00:07:18:22
Vino Vethavanam
I mean, a lot. I was just sort of all over the place. I found myself sometimes working 70 hour weeks because that was such a time of high stress and panic and anxiety, you know, started I didn't know if I was going to still have a job or not.

00:07:18:24 - 00:07:28:10
Sam Orrin
Yeah, yeah. So was the advertising industry took a real hit in the early probably the first, but probably Really what, the first year.

00:07:28:12 - 00:07:29:07
Vino Vethavanam
Yeah.

00:07:29:09 - 00:07:36:07
Sam Orrin
And yeah I 2021 it probably just started to pick up again. Right. Clients kind of got that confidence.

00:07:36:09 - 00:08:08:11
Vino Vethavanam
Yeah. That I mean looking for ways to be active, be proactive, be visible, be of use and be of value, which is a little pressure to put on yourself. But it also helped me sort of foster, you know, being really disciplined about stuff. I think what I worked so hard and I definitely experienced a sense of burnout probably late last year, I just thought, Oh my God, my brain just hasn't rested.

00:08:08:13 - 00:08:11:18
Sam Orrin
What did you do to get over it?

00:08:11:20 - 00:08:36:06
Vino Vethavanam
Oh, well, I like it. My job. I, I got lost sleep for about a month, which was routine. Um, but also I think having spent two years. Just what. And working. Working, working. It felt really alien to not work. Yeah. And that is my biggest challenge now is to switch off my brain.

00:08:36:08 - 00:08:37:06
Sam Orrin
I mean.

00:08:37:08 - 00:08:47:17
Vino Vethavanam
You're about staff. It's like I've always got this ongoing spreadsheet or that in my head about ideas and things that I can use. It's it's not good, it's not healthy.

00:08:47:19 - 00:08:58:23
Sam Orrin
I think I think a lot of people who live like that, I live like that. I think a lot of people do. I mean, we we we have chats about this all all the time. Yeah. Because of just the nature of what we do.

00:08:59:00 - 00:09:00:07
Vino Vethavanam
Yeah.

00:09:00:09 - 00:09:18:14
Sam Orrin
Companies and nations trying to implement things like four day working weeks to try and solve the problem of people, be able to switch off. And for oh, for me personally, I just don't think it really works like that. Um, you know, you can give me a three day working week, four day working week and three day weekend. Will I stop thinking about things?

00:09:18:14 - 00:09:19:00
Vino Vethavanam
It might.

00:09:19:00 - 00:09:25:05
Sam Orrin
Help, but will it really? I don't know. It's kind of horses for courses, isn't really.

00:09:25:07 - 00:09:57:20
Vino Vethavanam
I just think you go through phases. I spent a good proportion of my career just being really good at switching off and just leaving the office at 530 or 6:00 and thinking, Yeah, you know, I don't care. I don't care about work until I'm back in the morning. But I don't know. I don't know if I have experienced a creative peak or something has changed in the energy, but I've definitely done some really good work and that has been a motivating factor.

00:09:57:20 - 00:10:12:06
Vino Vethavanam
And so you always end up putting pressure on yourself coming up with another great thing and another great idea. Mm. I didn't know if that's good or if it's toxic. I don't know. I haven't figured it out yet, but I find it helps.

00:10:12:10 - 00:10:27:05
Sam Orrin
Oh yeah, Yeah, I might well be just with you. You care about what you do, right? Is it kind of like it's the kind of irony of it. All of it, isn't it? If you really care, you think about it, then. Yeah.

00:10:27:07 - 00:10:32:11
Vino Vethavanam
Yeah. Always got ideas and stuff about call. So the switch thought I thought.

00:10:32:13 - 00:10:59:06
Sam Orrin
Oh, it's a good place to be sometimes, I guess. Right. So final, final question. Vino. So let's take a step back in time. When, you know, hunter gatherers were going up every morning and trying to find food and that was their job. Um, or it could be, you know, let's say, sooner than that. Maybe London during the plague, you know, that kind of time when people were, you know.

00:10:59:08 - 00:11:00:13
Vino Vethavanam
Yeah.

00:11:00:15 - 00:11:15:07
Sam Orrin
Fucking grim period of time. What's, what's the worst that with the worst, what's the worst thing about work today compared to when it was simple, you know, when it was about just getting food on the table.

00:11:15:09 - 00:11:37:21
Vino Vethavanam
It screens, but just life is all about screens and, you know, and email pings on your phone at 8:00 at night and you feel compelled to respond to it. There is no off button. We are always on on eight that phrase. But we all you I think think.

00:11:37:23 - 00:11:42:09
Sam Orrin
Horse drawn car over an iPhone every day of the week then is a.

00:11:42:11 - 00:12:00:23
Vino Vethavanam
Well yeah from in many different ways because the horse drawn car and the way that we used to work well we're not sitting down at the time was much better for our bodies and our posture and operating and our mental health. Yeah. Um, I think screens of sort of kills a part of arts, but also opened up the world.

00:12:01:00 - 00:12:17:19
Sam Orrin
Yeah. So that Yeah, it is. And the fact that you've got to put down your screen to enjoy the world is quite hard as well as that. I mean I'm fully, I'm fully this is my phone. I had to delete apps because I just, I'm watching a film, I'm this guy.

00:12:17:21 - 00:12:22:10
Vino Vethavanam
What have I done that. Yes, I know all the time. All the time.

00:12:22:12 - 00:12:27:08
Sam Orrin
It's really bad, isn't it? What's the best bit about? What's the best thing about work today?

00:12:27:10 - 00:12:54:14
Vino Vethavanam
That you can work from anywhere that Yeah. That there aren't just no boundaries anymore, you know, And partly the always on is great because you can do stuff communicate, be available because we have screens. It's, it's difficult but it's also good. I don't know I don't have the answers.

00:12:54:16 - 00:12:59:15
Sam Orrin
I'm a not night cheers It's great really fun chat.

00:12:59:19 - 00:13:01:02
Vino Vethavanam
Oh that was fun.

00:13:01:05 - 00:13:21:24
Sam Orrin
Well I that was human at work. Thank you so much. Listening. If you've got any suggestions or if you'd like to be on the podcast, please do drop me a note. It's Sam@worksome.com, Obviously if you enjoyed the podcast, not much. Please follow it on whatever you were listening to on and I guess you can like and feedback and stuff like that.

00:13:22:00 - 00:13:24:23
Sam Orrin
So thank you very much and I'll see you again soon.

‍