Oregon, as we all know, is full of makers, crafters, and creators. And if you’ve been watching NBC’s Making It, now in its third season, you may have recognized a few familiar faces—or maybe even one very recognizable beard.

That’s right—Waldport’s own Gary Herd, also known as the Bearded Woodworker to his some 9,000 subscribers on YouTube, made the cut for season three of the goofily good-hearted crafting competition reality show. Hosted by Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman of Parks and Rec, contestants compete in challenges ranging from making an interactive toy that reflects their personalities to transforming a closet into a tiny-yet-meaningful nook for a friend or family member.

In this week’s episode of Footnotes, Portland Monthly news editor Julia Silverman sits down with the Bearded Woodworker himself, Gary Herd, to talk about what it was like filming the show during COVID, how Making It offers a kindler, gentler approach to an often cutthroat genre of reality TV, and how Oregon inspires Herd’s craft

Guest

• Gary Herd, the Bearded Woodworker

You may be familiar with "The Great Resignation." It’s a term coined by Anthony Klotz at Texas A&M and refers to a mass exodus of US workers leaving their jobs as we emerge from COVID. In April alone, about four million people clocked out for good, and it’s got a lot of people wondering what the heck is going on. Part of that has to do with our redefinition of success post-pandemic. 

But another piece to this Great Resignation puzzle, however, predates the pandemic: burnout, a prolonged psychological response to chronic work-related stress. In layperson’s terms: you’ve got too much to do, you’re not feeling rewarded, and you’re exhausted because of all of it. But, of course, it’s a little more complicated than that.

So for this week’s episode of Footnotes, we wanted to chat with Regan Gurung. He’s a social psychologist and professor at Oregon State University, and we wanted to pick his brain a little bit to help us break down what exactly burnout is, how to recognize it, and how we—as employees and employers—can prevent it and recover from it.

Guest 

• Regan Gurung

Last weekend saw a record-breaking heat wave in the Pacific Northwest, with some areas experiencing over 115 degree temperatures. As someone who spent a lot of my adolescence in Arizona, I can tell you that is exactly how it feels in Phoenix, and it sucks, and it’s why I left, really. But one of the saving graces of living in a town like Phoenix is that just about everybody and every building has air conditioning.

In Portland and the Pacific Northwest, it’s not quite the same, and so when the historic heat wave hit us this weekend, it hit hard, revealing just how underprepared our region is for such a climate disaster and resulting in at least 60 heat-related deaths in Oregon. 

So for this week’s Footnotes we wanted to chat with Jola Ajibade. She’s an assistant professor in the geography department at Portland State University, and her research focuses on how individuals, communities, and cities respond to global climate change. In this interview, we talk about the record-breaking heatwave that slammed the Pacific Northwest and the need for adaptation measures and climate action now. 

"It's hard for me to use the word 'normal.' I really don't want this to be normal, but if this is going to happen a bit more frequently, we need to be prepared," Ajibade says. 

Guest 

• Jola Ajibade