Walrus Creative Works is founded on many failures and heartbreaks, as well as accomplishments and moments of solidarity. For every supervisor I had that tactlessly told me that I was inadequate/talentless etc, I had another one that offered me support, wisdom, and acceptance.
I am very proud of how far I have come, and even prouder of the mental health-first culture my wonderful team at Walrus Creative Works have created and nurtured in an incredibly short time. In less than a year, we have created stellar content for brands like Viatris, B/S/H/, Arçelik Global, and Kinemaster, and learned how to empower each other as a team, to elevate and support one another in a work environment that was healing instead of draining. I had to learn how to start a company from scratch: Countless nights reading on tax rules, setting up a strong technical infrastructure to build a company on, interviewing and hiring global talent that would also be a cultural fit, going over contracts that our lawyer’s prepared antagonizing over every little detail.
Then again, this journey has been one of the most fulfilling, thrilling, and emotional experiences of my life. I hope that is also the way each member of my team feels, and how we collectively make everyone the lives of whom we touch feel. The need for a binary distinction between work and personal life does not mean that we cannot do the things we do with emotion. We can respect each others’ personal spaces while normalizing becoming close friends with our coworkers. We can still have the wild urge to become artists, just like we had in college, and admire the work we do together every day as art. We can accept the fact that a job is something you must do for money but that does not necessarily negate the fact that it can still be endlessly enjoyable. Logging onto Slack every day & chatting with this incredible team about various strategies and sources of inspiration does feel like coming home from school and telling my online friends how my day went on a warm day in April 2003.
I am grateful for the happy nostalgia I feel doing the job I adore with a team of smart and kind people. I am grateful to have the opportunity to write this post without the need to censor myself. I am grateful for the privileged position I have found myself in in many areas of my life, and grateful for the power & dignity I’ve carried myself with in the areas where I was not as privileged. I am grateful for the incredible support system of family & friends. Grateful for all the moments good and bad.
I wish & manifest a future for us, all of us, where Slack notification sounds do not trigger nausea.
