Deez Interviews: Meet Bourree Lam, the Refinery29 editor thinking about female greed, the post-#MeToo workplace narrative, and America’s weird relaysh w/money
Happy Friday, Deezers! Today’s interview is with Bourree Lam, an editor who’s spent the last decade at outlets like Freakonomics and The Atlantic covering the ways work/money/the business of bread-getting affect all of us in weird but real ways. Since 2017, Bourree has been the senior editor of the Work & Money section at Refinery29, which is yes, where you can get your weekly Money Diary fix but also great pieces on the impact of the Great Recession and the modern concept of selling out. Enjoy!
//
The interviewee: Bourree Lam (follow her @bourreelam!)
The gig: Senior editor of the Work & Money section @ Refinery29
What originally drew you to covering issues around work and money?
I started my career in Hong Kong, where the work culture is very different. You clock in, take lunch for an hour, clock out. The boss usually isn't your friend, and your friendships with your colleagues largely consists of commiserating over that. You're not "yourself" at work, and nobody expects that. It's that classic Mad Men/Don Draper line about why you do what you do all day: "That’s what the money is for!"
In America, work culture and money culture are both quite unique. Americans define themselves through their work; they tell stories about work to their friends and their kids to express their identity and values. Whether it's something they learned at a high school job scooping ice cream, or an executive job where they made a tough decision — we judge and define ourselves through these stories of work. I find that fascinating.
These stories also determine the kinds of jobs we’re able to get, since this kind of storytelling is expected at every kind of job interview. In many countries around the world, qualifying for a job means skill and aptitude testing (which some would say is more fair, in many respects), not how your work experience has influenced who you are.
Similarly with money, we're so judgmental about our own money habits and other people's. It's such a sensitive subject because somehow we also relate a kind of morality with the way we deal with money. Are we a "good" money person or a "bad" money person? Work and money are not transactions in America — they shape the way we see and judge ourselves.
So much of your previous work at Freakonomics, The Atlantic, and now at Refinery29 is dedicated to explaining pretty wonky stuff to the average layperson. Was that a conscious decision to hone in on that kind of journalism?
The way I think about the kind of journalism I've been doing for the past 10 years is exploring the ways the macro (or the big picture) interacts with the micro (the anecdotal). So much of my work trots this line — that's why I love working with data, but also telling those personal stories that draw you in. It was definitely a conscious decision. I've always loved reading charts, and spreadsheets, and jobs/Fed reports — but where's the story? What does this data look like on the individual level?
Conversely: I think anecdotes need context. n=1 stories are great for cocktail parties and bars, but not journalism. I think there's a lot of benefit in relating how the wonky stuff affects anyone — actually, everyone.
In the post-Lean In era, sites and services dedicated to helping career women navigate the corporate world abound — but what do you think are the biggest issues that still aren't being talked enough when it comes to women's success in the work place?
In the continuing fallout of #MeToo & Time's Up, I definitely think there's a conversation to be had about being the women who've stepped up to replace men who have fallen. These women are qualified and skilled and deserving, and yet the fact that they got "the job" because their company needed to put a good face on a scandal will follow them for at least a few years — if not their entire careers.
It's up to us to reshape this narrative, also the narrative of women or people of color are being promoted simply because a company needs diversity. These are all stories told to denigrate deserving people, and if someone isn't qualified for a certain position, companies shouldn't set them up to fail to win diversity points. (We have a package coming up at Refinery29 this month that dives into this topic.)
And then the other conversation to be had is about privilege and interest gaps. There's a huge gap between low-income career women and white collar women. There's another huge gap between the interests (in terms of an equitable workplace) of 20-something women and 30-something women. How do you ask someone 10 years away from having a baby to care about paid leave over office snacks or some other kind of perk? Those gaps are challenging to talk about because you don't want to make anyone feel like what they feel would make their workplace more equitable isn't just as valid.
When it comes to the tone that brands/outlets use when talking to millennial women, there's sort of a spectrum that exists ranging from "cutesy" to "conversational." How would you describe the tone of your work, and is it something you've worked to modulate?
I think there's a desire to not sound like everyone else, which is so hard because often everyone on the internet is writing about something similar on deadline. The easiest way around this is to have a unique angle. I think if publications want to be "voicey,” they need someone dedicated to that (like a copy chief). Most online publications don't have that, so writers are left to struggle how they can carry the tone of the publication that will get people to want to read their bylines over someone else's on the exact same topic.
For my work, I always just try to write in a way that's fun and respects the reader. The topics I write about tend to be pretty unique, so I think tone is less of an issue for me. But I love when editors tell me a joke isn't working, or something is too straight, or the reporting is confusing, or something is redundant. For one of my recent pieces, two editors who looked at it felt the last 3rd of the piece was unnecessary. We deleted it. I guess my advice about tone is try hard not to be boring, but don't try too hard.
This past summer, stories about grifters like Anna Delvey and Grace Coddington's assistant captured our imaginations (plus, we had a literal fema-ecentric heist movie, Ocean's 8). What do you make of the so-called "summer of scam" trend?
They're so sexy! How can you resist the story of a good scam?
I talked about this in an editorial package I put together over the summer on the topic of female greed. I think it's counter-cultural for women to be greedy. There's something about rich and successful women that makes people seethe, which is why people love to hear about them getting robbed. These were the questions I wanted to explore: Where does need end and greed begin? When does excess become devoid of ambition? When is greed used to denigrate certain populations, but lift others up? Can greed ever be a virtue and not a vice? Who gets to openly say they want to be rich, and not get brutally criticized for it?
Anna Delvey I found especially interesting because it was as much about her greed and the people she grifted thinking they were taking advantage of her. That was the crux of the story for me, not Delvey's actions but all those who wanted the perks of being around her. Yes, they got scammed. But were they around for freebies? Absolutely.
Finally, what's one piece of career advice that you wish you would have known when you had your first job?
You're going to quit some awesome jobs, and it isn't because they weren't amazing opportunities with great colleagues. You'll just need to grow in different ways at different junctions of your career. Don't be scared or upset about that. Growth is important.
//
That’s all for us this week. Don’t forget to follow Bourree on Twitter, and have a growth-filled weekend!