Many homes
Still inside (3 of 3)
Posted to LinkedIn on 2026-09-27. The text below is the post as published.
Folks at CDC deserve to show up whole and to be met whole. People bring their whole selves to the workplace, whatever boundaries and guardrails might help them compartmentalize their lives and experiences.
Like the succession of supervisors who honored my whole self, I tried to extend the same respect and nurture to those I supervised and mentored. I wanted to be the mentor who holds doors for learners at institutions that will rarely hand them the ends they seek. I couldn’t win those ends for them. I could instead stand in the draft so the way stayed open a little longer, ask nothing back, and tie none of it to whether they succeeded.
Like me, my workmates have experienced pride and jubilation. Like me, my workmates have experienced grief, loss, and frustration in their work lives or brought in from their home life. A teammate who experienced a death in their family, so I invited a counselor to talk with my whole team about being present to our teammate. An office mate who endured a racist slur, so our senior leader swiftly removed the source and ensured that the person harmed—and everyone else—knew that such abuse was unwelcome in our office. The person who feels stuck, because opportunities to learn and advance have all but vanished. The one whose clever and creative contributions find no champion. Everyone who has encountered noxious venom or bland indifference or nonsensical bureaucratic barriers. They all deserve to show up whole and to be met whole.
Even now, thousands are living through ongoing frustrations inside CDC. Staff are pilloried and praised by duplicitous politicos. The organization is being starved and eroded, decades of goodwill undermined, channels to serve the public denied. I can’t stand in the headwinds or remove their obstacles. I grieve the devastating losses at CDC even as I benefited from an option to stand outside it. I am grateful to everyone who continues to carry the mantle from inside it.
Whether or not you think of CDC as home, your wholeness matters.
[This is the third of a series of 3 LinkedIn posts on homes.]
Many homes
- 1 · Sledgehammer
- 2 · My supervisors
- 3 · Still inside (this post)