Episode Eight - The Fire Scientist

0:00:00 - (Nicole): Bring Your Kid to Work is being recorded in Meeanjin and we acknowledge and pay our respects to the Yugerra and Turrbal people as the traditional custodians of the land and waters on which we learn, work and play, and we extend our respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It's time to Bring Your Kid To Work. Hey, everyone. It's time to bring your kid to work. It's the family podcast that explores the world of work through the eyes of parents and their kids.

0:00:26 - (Nicole): Each week, we interview one parent and their child to chat about what they do for work, what they like, what they don't like, and how they got there in the first place. Let's find out who we're talking to today. Our remarkable guests today are Sam, Toby and Georgia. Dr Samantha Lloyd is principal scientist for the Queensland Fire and Biodiversity Consortium, with healthy land and water. They're the regional natural resource management group for Southeast Queensland.

0:00:56 - (Nicole): Her job sees her helping keep communities safe by working with lots of different people to manage fire and biodiversity. As if that important job isn't enough, Sam is also a dance teacher with Achieve performing arts studio specializing in tap and performance technique. And she's an author, having published her first children's book with CSIRO. It's called Alight and it's a story of fire and nature.

0:01:22 - (Nicole): Her kids couldn't decide who got to be on the pod this week and they're both fantastic, so we interviewed them both. Toby is twelve and Georgia is nine. I loved this conversation. I actually learned a lot. I know you will too. Let's get on with the show.

Welcome to Bring Your Kid To Work. Guys, thank you so much for joining me. I am very excited because this episode is called The Principal Scientist and I have some really cool guests today and I would love them to introduce themselves. So I'm going to start with youngest to oldest. So, youngest, how about you introduce yourself, please?

0:01:55 - (Georgia): Hi, I'm Georgia.

0:01:56 - (Nicole): Hello Georgia. How old are you?

0:01:58 - (Georgia): Nine.

0:01:59 - (Nicole): You're nine? And what grade are you in?

0:02:00 - (Georgia): Grade four.

0:02:01 - (Nicole): Grade four? Excellent. Okay, and who else is with you? I've got another person next to you.

0:02:06 - (Toby): I'm Toby. I'm twelve and I'm in grade six.

0:02:10 - (Nicole): Toby, you're in grade six of high school next year.

0:02:13 - (Toby): Yes.

0:02:13 - (Nicole): Very exciting. Guys. Who did you bring with you today? Our mother. Georgia, what's your mum's name?

0:02:20 - (Georgia): Sam.

0:02:21 - (Nicole): Your mum's name is Sam. And what is her official name when she's at work?

0:02:26 - (Georgia): Doctor.

0:02:27 - (Nicole): Doctor. Dr. Samantha Lloyd is with us and I'm very excited. Sam, thank you for joining us.

0:02:33 - (Dr Sam): Thank you, Nicole. Thank you for having us. This is very exciting.

0:02:36 - (Nicole): I'm very excited because I have read a little bit of the things that you do and well, firstly, I'm exhausted, but I'm also excited. Georgia, what is your mum's job?

0:02:46 - (Georgia): She works at the Fire Biodiversity biodiversity at Queensland, and she helps sort out fires and make unplanned fires less frequent and helps plan out planned fires.

0:03:02 - (Nicole): OOH, that sounds really important. What does that mean, do you think? In her day to day life, Toby, what does she actually do all the day in that planning?

0:03:11 - (Toby): She has a lot of meetings where she talks about fire seasons and planned burns and drinks a lot of tea.

0:03:21 - (Nicole): My kind of girl. Sam, is that a pretty apt description.

0:03:25 - (Dr Sam): Of what you do? Well, it is definitely part of what we do. We work with all the different levels of government and stakeholders for fire management and planning to help improve fire in the landscape and outcomes for biodiversity and outcomes for private landholders and public land managers and traditional owners. So that's quite diverse in terms of the people and the organizations we work with.

0:03:47 - (Nicole): So you say biodiversity improving biodiversity, what does that mean?

0:03:51 - (Dr Sam): So that means what we're really trying to do is help find a balance between ensuring that plants and animals are able to function in their role in that sort of natural setting, but also supporting farmers and graziers people to have the properties that they're interested in having.

0:04:06 - (Nicole): So using fire to go through a landscape to make sure that it can regenerate, but also making sure that it doesn't damage things along the way, does.

0:04:16 - (Dr Sam): That sound like about it? Yeah, because fire has a role in the Australian landscape for millions of years through lightning strikes and tens of thousands of years through traditional burning, of course. And what we're really trying to do is better understand the role of fire in the landscape. The role of fire varies depending on the vegetation type. So grasslands, for instance, need very different fire to, say, a wet, sclerophil forest, or a rainforest, for instance, where we wouldn't have fire, and so it changes. And in savannah areas, up in far north Queensland and Northern Territory, it's different again.

0:04:50 - (Dr Sam): So it's really variable depending on the type of vegetation and what else is happening in that landscape, the assets and all of the values across the landscape and manage the fire accordingly. And when you talk about that, that will be different for different sectors of sections of a property. So somebody might have a property and have grazing in one area. They might have their house of wings and sheds and fences and dams all that sort of infrastructure. And then they might have patch of bush that they're looking to protect that hasn't had fire in it for a while that they're interested in putting a planned burn. Or they might have a patch of dry rainforest that they want to keep fire out of completely or a creek line that we want to protect from fire as well. So you're looking across the landscape at what the different needs are, what the different values are in terms of fire, and the idea with planned fire, and we hear about this in the news, in media, often referred to as a hazard reduction burn. That's just one type of planned fire. We can have ecological burns and cultural burns, but when we're talking about planned fire from a hazard perspective, we're looking at reducing the fuel in the landscape so that when wildfire or unplanned fire does occur, that it is not as intense, it's not as ferocious as it's not as damaging, shall we say, as it could be.

0:06:09 - (Nicole): Gotcha. So there's been wildfires bushfires that we would call them in places like Hawaii and in places like Canada and things like that. So your job is partly to make sure if that happens, it's not as bad as those kind of events.

0:06:25 - (Dr Sam): It's a mitigation tool. That's right. But it's also looking at the health of the environment as well, because we have plants and animals that need fire in order to stay healthy. So, like the creatures in my book, for instance, some plants need fire to reproduce in the same way.

0:06:41 - (Nicole): Wow.

0:06:41 - (Dr Sam): And if we don't have fire in those eco, some of those ecosystems, like grasses, for instance, need quite regular fire, and if they don't have fire coming through those ecosystems, it starts to be changed and becomes a different type of vegetation. Top. Wow. It's a real balancing act. It's very complicated.

0:07:01 - (Nicole): Sounds like you're a bit of a tightrope walker in what you do. That sounds intense. But you said there that some things need fire, and I find that fascinating. And I know, Toby, that your mum did something about teaching people about things that need fire. What did your mum do?

0:07:19 - (Toby): She wrote a book called A Light, about fire ecology and what that does for the bush.

0:07:26 - (Nicole): Wow. Your mum writes books and she has a job and I know she also does other things. Georgia, what else does your mum do?

0:07:35 - (Georgia): She teaches my tap class.

0:07:38 - (Nicole): Unbelievable. So, hang on, how many jobs are we up to right now? We've got author, we've got principal scientist working on all this planned fire burn stuff, which is very intense. And then you've got tap teacher, dance teacher as well. I'm exhausted. How do you keep up with your mum?

0:07:54 - (Georgia): I do not know.

0:07:56 - (Nicole): So, Georgia, tap dancing, is that the only kind of dance you do?

0:08:00 - (Georgia): No, I do ballet, jazz, tap, lyrical, progressive ballet technique, hip hop, cheer, acrobatics, a stemfords.

0:08:14 - (Nicole): Okay, so keeping busy is something that happens in your family quite naturally, by the sounds of things. Toby, what do you bring to the table on this one? What kind of dance do you do?

0:08:24 - (Toby): I don't do any dance, but I do do AFL, swimming, mountain biking and, umpiring.

0:08:32 - (Nicole): Oh, umpiring for.

0:08:34 - (Toby): Yes.

0:08:35 - (Nicole): Wow. You guys are very busy and I don't know how you all keep up with it. I'm guessing there's a very big calendar with all of your stuff on it, is that right? No, you just remember.

0:08:46 - (Dr Sam): No, we don't.

0:08:47 - (Georgia): There's Mum's diary.

0:08:48 - (Nicole): So, being a principal scientist, is that what you thought you were going to do when you were little? Could you think, I'm going to do a job where I can help manage fire?

0:08:57 - (Dr Sam): Not fire so much, but definitely science early on. Yeah. So when I was quite young, I think I wanted to be a vet in primary school, which is very common. But then when I got to high school, I realized I wanted to do science, but I wanted it to be environmentally based. So, yes, very much. Always around sort of the environmental ecology. I didn't get into fire until I moved to Queensland after I'd had a number of other roles.

0:09:20 - (Dr Sam): But I come from an ecology department at my university that had a lot of people in fire and a lot of experience around fire. So I spent a lot of time with people in that space. So it felt very natural to move into the role.

0:09:32 - (Nicole): Yeah, I'm just thinking I'm trying to put things together. So, author of a book called a Light Tap Dancing Teacher planning burns. Do you twirl a fire stink on.

0:09:44 - (Dr Sam): You if you're tap dancing?

0:09:45 - (Nicole): Just trying to see how it fits together.

0:09:48 - (Dr Sam): I've always done a lot of dancing. I've been dancing since I was in high school. Primary school, yeah. And eventually when you're in a studio and you do lots, you end up becoming a teacher. So I became a teacher in tap and jazz and taught a lot at my studio in Sydney and then moved up here and missed it and missed teaching a lot. And then Georgia started when she was in prep, started teaching there at that studio.

0:10:10 - (Nicole): How do you fit it all in, though?

0:10:12 - (Dr Sam): Teaching is in the evenings, twice a week, so that's manageable. It is a juggle, though, being in my role. Four days, but it's quite a full on jobs and it's not like a nine to five type thing, as you can imagine, which is very common, I think, across the sector. And then the book has been something I've sort of made time for in between. But that was a challenge. And I'm sure there are people who've done it far quicker than I have because know, fitting it in in between existing priorities.

0:10:40 - (Nicole): Yeah. Gosh, it's a lot of balls that you're all juggling. I'm very impressed. So you thought you might have wanted to be a vet when you were little? Toby, what right now is the thing that you think, maybe when I grow up, I'm going to do this thing.

0:10:53 - (Toby): I honestly want to be either an engineer or some sort of online detective.

0:10:58 - (Nicole): Oh, online detective. Sounds like both of those require problem solving skills. Are you good at solving problems?

0:11:05 - (Toby): Yes, I love problem solving activities in school, things like that.

0:11:11 - (Nicole): What kind of subjects do you love in school?

0:11:13 - (Toby): I particularly like math. That's definitely my favorite subject in school. I'm good at English, even though it isn't my favorite subject and I'm also good at science.

0:11:26 - (Nicole): Yeah, they sound like they could all lead you to a career in engineering or in online detective work. Fascinating. Is there a big call for online detectives?

0:11:36 - (Toby): I don't actually know right now.

0:11:40 - (Nicole): But maybe you could make a whole industry, if there isn't one already. Yes, I love it. Georgia, right now you're nine. What about you? What do you want to be? Do you think?

0:11:50 - (Georgia): I want to be a dancer, a chocolateier or a paramedic?

0:11:56 - (Nicole): Why do you think you want to be what? Those things? Obviously you love dance because you spend a lot of time doing it, but chocolateier and paramedic.

0:12:02 - (Georgia): Well, my dad's a paramedic and he sometimes brings like the ambulance home and I like what's inside it and I like medical stuff and I want to be a chocolateier because once I went to a chocolate making workshop at New Farm and it was really, really fun.

0:12:24 - (Nicole): That would be very fun. You could be the next Willy Wonka, Georgia.

0:12:28 - (Georgia): Yeah.

0:12:28 - (Nicole): So in school, what do you love doing?

0:12:30 - (Georgia): I like reading and English and art and drama.

0:12:36 - (Nicole): Yeah. Nice. Sam I called you, Dr. Samantha Lloyd earlier. You're not going to fix a broken leg. What kind of doctor are you?

0:12:44 - (Dr Sam): I have a PhD in pollination ecology. So the PhD is a doctor of philosophy in so I did an undergrad in biology and did honours in ecology and then went took a year and a half working as an ecological consultant and then got a PhD scholarship and went back to do my PhD in pollination ecology, wollongong University.

0:13:08 - (Nicole): So pollination, we're talking bees? Yeah.

0:13:10 - (Dr Sam): Well, in Australia we're talking invertebrates, birds and mammals, because honeybees are European, so they're introduced and not a native pollinator. But we have 2000 species of native bees. It's just that only one of those species is social, which is the sugar bag bees, the little tragonula, which we have. Yeah. We have a hive out the front, which is cool. Yeah. I was looking at a gravilia, so it was pollinated by eastern pygmy, possums and native birds.

0:13:41 - (Nicole): I had no idea.

0:13:42 - (Dr Sam): Yes, so we have lots of beautiful native mammal. Pollinators in Australia play a very important role, but they're largely nocturnal.

0:13:49 - (Nicole): Wow. I love learning new things. I thought only insects were pollinators. So I am fascinated by this and I'm going to go figure out what the possums around my area are doing and see if they're dropping seeds places that they should be. Being able to tell stories helps other people understand things. Has your mum told you a story about her first job, Toby?

0:14:07 - (Toby): I think she said that she used to work at a cafe with one of her school friends.

0:14:13 - (Nicole): Yeah. What about you, Georgia? Is that the same story you've heard? Yeah. So dance, teaching and cafe, is that about right?

0:14:21 - (Dr Sam): Yes. Well, I started my first job was at a cafe at what was then called Miranda Fair in the Shire in Sydney, when I was near eleven. And it was a cafe called Miss Mauds. And I started with one. Of my best friends from school and it was really fun and we had a great time then, as you do when you're at university. I had various sort of retail jobs, but I was teaching dancing at the same time. So, yeah, they were sort of my early workforce experiences.

0:14:46 - (Nicole): When you're big, Georgia, have you got any worries? Know it sounds like your mum's been to university for a long time, do you think that's something you're going to do?

0:14:54 - (Georgia): Well, I don't want to spend too much time in university because I want to maybe like, if I try out dancing first, you have to retire dancing at an earlier age, like a sports player. And then I would have to go to university again. But if I went for a lot of years, I would be, like, too old to do some other sort of jobs.

0:15:27 - (Nicole): Yeah, so you've got that worked out already because obviously dancers require a lot of physical fitness and they're often a lot younger when they retire so yeah, that sounds really sensible. What kind of dance do you think you want to do?

0:15:42 - (Georgia): Well, I really like jazz dancing and lyrical they're the favorites. Yeah. Also like some tap and musical theatre.

0:15:55 - (Nicole): So do you think being in musicals is something that maybe as a dancer you might like to do?

0:16:01 - (Georgia): Yeah.

0:16:01 - (Nicole): Toby, when you think about end of high school, going out in life on your own, anything that worries you about uni or jobs or anything like that?

0:16:10 - (Toby): No, not really, I mean, I know for any of the jobs I really want to do I'm going to have to go to uni but I don't really have any worries about that.

0:16:20 - (Nicole): Awesome. So what are you looking forward to then?

0:16:23 - (Toby): Graduating.

0:16:26 - (Nicole): And so if you want to go down the engineering route that's definitely a university kind of route to go down yeah but online detective, is there a university course for that or is that a policing kind of thing?

0:16:38 - (Toby): I don't know but I'm assuming you'd have to do some sort of policing work because normally you have to be a police officer before you become a detective true.

0:16:49 - (Nicole): That will be fun I think both of those things, yeah. And I think that's something that's really important is to have fun with the job that you're doing what's the point.

0:16:58 - (Toby): In having a job if you don't like it?

0:17:00 - (Nicole): True. Georgia, do you think your mum likes her job?

0:17:03 - (Georgia): I think she likes it, yeah.

0:17:05 - (Nicole): What gives you that impression then?

0:17:07 - (Georgia): Because she does a lot of it she's only had a few breaks from work she doesn't just work one day a week, she works like four days.

0:17:19 - (Nicole): A week when she gets home is she like or is she happy that she's done a good day of work, do you think?

0:17:26 - (Georgia): Well, sometimes it's a bit of both.

0:17:30 - (Dr Sam): Very accurate, George.

0:17:33 - (Nicole): And what on those bit of both days, Sam? What are the things that are hard about your job?

0:17:39 - (Dr Sam): I think so. I love my job. And I'm really passionate about the Queensland Fire and Biodiversity Consortium. Having fire in the landscape is, in an appropriate way, super important because it's like a vaccine. You put a little bit of fire into the landscape to help prevent it from becoming really bad later on. That's the idea, yeah. So I think that that's a really important concept, but it's tricky to communicate because often what we see in the media is fire is a catastrophe and it can be, of course, and recognising that trauma for people and communities in the environment is super important. And I grew up in Sydney. I grew up 3 meters away from Royal National Park, literally.

0:18:19 - (Dr Sam): So we lived through that a lot. So I have a lot of experiences with that. And I did my PhD in bushfire affected areas, so I have that understanding about what that means to grow up like that. And now we're seeing more of that in Queensland, too, as the weather changes and as climate change progresses. Think working sensibly across all the sector partners. And there's so many good people, there's so many people that really want to make a difference and work together.

0:18:46 - (Dr Sam): And that was one of the reasons why I wanted to write a light as well.

0:18:51 - (Nicole): Yeah. Just demonstrating that working together part.

0:18:53 - (Dr Sam): And on the dancing thing, I think for me, that creative side is super important. And when I moved up here, I wasn't teaching. I wasn't teaching for a long time and I just missed it. I missed it so much. And I think it's really good for your brain, it's good for your mental health to have these other opportunities. And I love teaching. I love working with children and at Achieve Performing Arts, it's all about that, building up the village and supporting our kids to have those opportunities.

0:19:19 - (Dr Sam): And, yeah, we have a great time.

0:19:21 - (Nicole): Yeah, it sounds like a lot of fun with people that you enjoy working with. It sounds to me like a good job for you.

0:19:27 - (Dr Sam): It is. It's very full on, though. I should say it's very full on. I mean, this isn't a surprise to people who work in this sector. It never stops. And so I much like some of your other interviewees that I've listened to the balance, trying to find the balance in terms of being a working parent and having other interests. It's tricky to try and juggle.

0:19:48 - (Nicole): That what makes a good job, do you think, Georgia?

0:19:52 - (Georgia): Something that you enjoy and that isn't super harsh and always business business?

0:20:03 - (Nicole): You don't like it to be super business business all the time. You want to have a little bit of fun. Yes, I think that's really sensible. What about you? Toby, what do you think makes a good job?

0:20:12 - (Toby): It needs to be something you enjoy. You don't want to have some super dull, boring job that you hate because what's the point in that? And it's not just about what you're earning, it's about what you're doing.

0:20:27 - (Nicole): Yeah, I think that's something that's really important for us to remember. I mean, money is important, we need to pay for things. But also you need to be feeling good about what you do when you go to work. When your mum started working, she started in a cafe. What do you think your first job's going to be, Georgia?

0:20:44 - (Georgia): I think most people for their first job work at, like, fast foods or cafe, so maybe I might work at a shop or something like that.

0:20:56 - (Nicole): What about you, Toby? What do you think your first job is going to be?

0:20:59 - (Toby): I technically already have my first job by, umpiring, AFL games. I get paid, of course.

0:21:06 - (Nicole): Wow, they pay you. Of course they should. You're doing a job.

0:21:09 - (Dr Sam): I know, it's very exciting.

0:21:10 - (Toby): Twelve people as well.

0:21:12 - (Nicole): Really? Should I be looking into this? Yes.

0:21:16 - (Dr Sam): Okay.

0:21:16 - (Nicole): I used to umpire netball back in the day. They didn't pay us back then, that was a bit rough. So, Mum, having written about then in her job, working with fire and things like that, does that mean that your family has a really good fire plan for your house?

0:21:31 - (Georgia): Well, we have gone through the plan.

0:21:35 - (Nicole): A few times and that's something that people can do in their own houses, can't they, Toby?

0:21:41 - (Toby): Yeah. So because we have a lot of bushland across the road, we do have a plan because bushland can very easily catch fire, but updated it last year and we talked about it, but we haven't really done anything about it this year.

0:22:01 - (Nicole): Yeah. So that's a good reminder for everyone, I think.

0:22:04 - (Dr Sam): So pertinent as well, sydney at the moment, or New South Wales Rural Fire Service are running their Get Ready campaign at the moment, queensland are running their Prepare Act Survive campaign and they can be called a Bushfire Survival Plan or an Emergency Evacuation Plan. And therefore you're dwelling and your family to keep you safe and be organized with your pets and your documents and all those sorts of things, these important discussions you have with your kids. So if something happens, you know what to do.

0:22:28 - (Nicole): Yeah. Because you don't have time to think, do you? No.

0:22:30 - (Dr Sam): And that's what we talk about with the kids, like, what are the exits in the house and where would you go and how would we deal with it? As best you can anyway.

0:22:40 - (Nicole): Exactly. So kids listening can annoy their parents about that and make sure they've got their own evacuation management plan.

0:22:46 - (Dr Sam): Yeah. And it's all online. They're just little PDFs that you can download and print out and then fill in everything.

0:22:51 - (Nicole): Yeah. Okay, well, we'll make sure that we put in the show notes and on the website, all the details. We're certainly going to put the details of a light because I'm very excited about that book. I wanted to ask you, we didn't really get into the whole what's a hard day at work on a blur day, what kind of has happened that makes it a little bit challenging?

0:23:11 - (Dr Sam): I don't have blur days as such, it's just the intensity, it's just the busyness. So I'd say feeling overwhelmed by having more than is manageable. That's probably more what it's about. So the passion or the drive is always there. There's only so many hours in the day. And the role is there is a lot of diplomacy because we'll get brought in to help with a situation where perhaps there's been there's a community that's impacted by fire and some of the other agencies or local governments. Will come to us to bring everyone together and help look at what the issues are for that community and try and find some mitigation measures and what we can do to work and better support the community or the private landholders and bring the risk down for that community.

0:23:55 - (Dr Sam): And because we're non government and it's easier for us to bring everybody together than it is perhaps for a government agency. So that's a really important role that we play and something that we're really proud of.

0:24:10 - (Nicole): Yeah, for sure. Fire doesn't really doesn't respect boundaries and it doesn't respect no, not at all. This is this local government and this is another local government. Fire doesn't care.

0:24:21 - (Dr Sam): No, that's right. Exactly. So bring it that's why they're bringing everybody together is yeah.

0:24:26 - (Nicole): Yeah. Do you like bring people together when you're solving your problems, Toby?

0:24:32 - (Toby): Sort of. You kind of do it yourself. Like doing them myself more.

0:24:37 - (Nicole): Yeah.

0:24:38 - (Toby): I am a very solo sort of person in some ways I like being by myself and doing things by myself, but there are some things that I do enjoy doing in groups.

0:24:53 - (Nicole): Yeah. And Georgia, do you like working in groups?

0:24:56 - (Georgia): Well, in some cases I do and in some cases I don't.

0:25:02 - (Nicole): Yeah. So in your job so if you're going to be a dancer, that's going to be something I'm probably guessing you're going to do in a group.

0:25:09 - (Georgia): Yeah, like I might do a couple of solos, like I do some solos now, but I'll probably mostly do it in groups.

0:25:17 - (Nicole): Yeah. Because that's another thing about jobs, right? You don't know a job that you're thinking of whether somebody sits at a desk all day or whether they get to go out and meet people or whether they are working with lots of other people or whether they're working by themselves. It's really interesting to figure that out so that you know when you're going into a job, whether you're going to like it, do you get to get out and about, Sam?

0:25:39 - (Dr Sam): Yes, I do. I mean, I work from home, but yes. Getting out. Yeah. That's a big part of what we do as well. Absolutely.

0:25:46 - (Nicole): Yeah. So when you were little, did you think, I want to work with a bunch of people, or, I want to work by myself, or I want to work on a computer?

0:25:53 - (Dr Sam): I'm not a massive computer person. I'm happy to work independently. But it's just, of course, essential. To be part of a team, you need a spectrum of views and a spectrum of skills and expertise that all builds in together. So you can work with your mapping people, or you can work with your comms people, or you can work with your finance people, and then you have your other experts and you bring everybody together. So I think having that ability to work across disciplines and then within your own team is pretty essential.

0:26:23 - (Nicole): Yeah.

0:26:24 - (Dr Sam): And it's just an important way of respecting everybody's contribution as well. So you bring one thing, but somebody else brings another thing? That's just as important as what you do.

0:26:33 - (Nicole): Yeah, because we're not all the same. And so if someone has one skill that they're really good at and you have a completely different one, they can actually work together really well. Do you guys work together well? Toby and Georgia?

0:26:45 - (Toby): That's questionable. There are many times when we don't, but there are some instances where we do, yeah.

0:26:58 - (Nicole): What about you, Georgia? Do you think Toby works well with you?

0:27:01 - (Georgia): Well, sometimes if it's like I'm doing my homework and I'm stuck on a question, then he will usually help me figure it out.

0:27:10 - (Nicole): That's very cool. But other times, yeah, sometimes he'll just.

0:27:14 - (Georgia): Be like, keep reading his book or something.

0:27:18 - (Nicole): But the thing is, you guys are the only ones who know what it's like to be kids in this family, so you kind of have to stick together. Is there anything that I didn't ask you about jobs or work or training or anything like that that you think I should have asked you, Georgia?

0:27:33 - (Georgia): Well, I don't think you should have asked me anything, but I did not put some stuff in.

0:27:38 - (Nicole): Tell me, what did you want to sell me?

0:27:40 - (Georgia): So also I could do for an early job. I could be a student teacher at my dancing studio.

0:27:47 - (Nicole): You definitely could do that. Is there anything that I should have asked you, Sam?

0:27:51 - (Dr Sam): I was thinking the other day about in terms of jobs and what your interests are and sort of what success is, because I think a lot of the time people associate success with money, of course, which is one very narrow measure of success. But I think a lot of it it's self drive, it's talent. But it's not just talent, it's luck. It's affluence or education. Access to education is hugely important. So I think there's a whole suite of things that sort of come together in your life to help drive or guide where you might feel like you'd like. To go, but then the opportunities, everybody needs those opportunities for education in the first place so that they get an opportunity to make a decision rather than feel like they have to just do something.

0:28:41 - (Dr Sam): So I think that that's something I'm really grateful for, that I had had those opportunities and would like to think in Australia that's something that we value and that we strive for, because what.

0:28:51 - (Nicole): Did your parents do for work?

0:28:53 - (Dr Sam): My father was a medic in the army in the Vietnam War and the army were going to put him through medical school, but he got really badly injured, so unfortunately that didn't happen when he came back. And he worked for the Reserve Bank for decades. And Mum was a bookkeeper and administrative support for a long time as well. And both my parents were super clever, didn't have the opportunity to go to university. Unfortunately, I was the first person in my family to go to uni.

0:29:19 - (Nicole): Me too.

0:29:20 - (Dr Sam): I think that Dr. Zeus book, all the Places you Will Go is a good one because I think that's largely it's looking at the opportunities from a really broad mind rather than thinking about sort of stereotypical ideas of success.

0:29:34 - (Nicole): Yeah.

0:29:35 - (Dr Sam): And for us, it's about values. What are our values and how does that fit in with what you're interested in doing and what does that mean? And that's part of our volunteering and a lot of the pursuits that we have.

0:29:47 - (Nicole): Yeah. And that's a really cool way for us to end, I think, the idea of connecting your values to what you do, I think is a really cool way to end it. So I want to say thank you, Toby. Thank you. Thank you, Georgia.

0:29:59 - (Georgia): Thank you.

0:30:00 - (Nicole): And thank you, Sam.

0:30:01 - (Dr Sam): Thank you, Nicole.

0:30:02 - (Nicole): This has been a really great chat. I've really appreciated it and I can't wait for everybody else to be able to listen to it. So see you guys.

0:30:08 - (Dr Sam): Bye.

0:30:10 - (Nicole): Coming up next week, our first bring your grandkid to work. We'll meet Tracy and her grandson Jackson. Tracy a chief digital officer. What does that mean?

0:30:22 - (Tracy): Look, I think it means spending most of your day building relationships and putting out fires, but especially means that I'm in charge of things like digital data innovation, It, and my job is basically to manage teams that deliver amazing things that we can put out into the world and hopefully make the world a better place. That's how I like to think of it.

0:30:49 - (Nicole): Wow. And with the It part of it, you like that kind of thing?

0:30:54 - (Tracy): I'm a complete nerd, so, yes, I love computers and technology and gadgets and gaming and all of those things. And I think that's probably why Jackson loves hanging out here so much.

0:31:08 - (Nicole): You don't want to miss this one. Talk to you, then. Bring your kid to work is a Lioness Media production. This episode was produced and edited by me, Nicole Lessio. Our music is composed by Rikuo with graphics and design from Anastasia Makhuka. Subscribe to Bring Your Kid to Work wherever you're listening right now to hear all our episodes and you can also share with your friends. We hope they enjoy listening too.

0:31:33 - (Nicole): You can follow us on Instagram at Bring Your Kid to Work and on Facebook at Bring Your Kid to Work. The podcast. And you can follow me on TikTok. Nicole Lessio visit BringyourkidtoWork.com to see bonus content, transcripts from our episodes and to sign up to our newsletter for the latest updates. Thanks for listening.