Head of Events at the Centre for Effective Altruism
Amy Labenz
Karma: 3,331
I’m not sure if this is helpful, but the other night, my 3-year-old son Teddy decided to start screaming for milk after we were in bed. He already had two cups of milk when we were downstairs, and there was no more milk. I explained and asked if he was thirsty. He said he was. I gave him a bottle of water. He screamed, “I want miiiiiilk” over and over and rejected the water. Eventually, I just cuddled him in bed. He cried for about a minute once I cuddled him up, and he passed out. It seems like he was overtired but also wanted to go downstairs and delay sleep for some reason? Or maybe he was just desperate for milk for some reason, even though he had a bunch. I’m not totally sure what was going on.
We now have a deal that I will ask him about milk right before bed, but once we are upstairs with teeth brushed, I won’t be going down for milk. Wish me luck!
Aw, so relatable! Thanks for sharing. And I love how you’re modeling how parents apologize to kids when we get it wrong, that is really important to me with my kids.
I hope she is feeling better!
Thank you! I’m glad. :)
I was feeling a bit bashful after Peter reminded me I forgot to include Split and Commit, but when I pinged Duncan (the author) he said the more reinventions of it the idea the better! That seems like a great attitude, since different things work well for different people.
In some cases, these kinds of stories tend to be better for me too (even though I came to EA through the rationality community!). I think this is especially true when I’m explaining something in conversations.
Thank you! Added a footnote.
Thanks so much for all of your work on the search committee!
I’m very excited to welcome you to the team, Zach! I like your vision for CEA, think you did a good job managing a very challenging situation with EV, and I’m personally very enthusiastic about the opportunity to work together!
To add to what Caitlin said, my experience as a hiring manager and as a candidate is that this often is not the case.
When I was hired at CEA I took roles on two different teams (Head of US Operations at CEA and the Events Team role at EAO, which later merged into CEA). My understanding at the time is that they didn’t have second choice candidates with my qualifications, and I was told by the EAO hiring manager that they would have not filled the position if I didn’t accept (I don’t remember whether I checked this with the CEA role).
I should note that I was applying for these roles in 2015 and that the hiring pool has changed since then. But in my experience as a hiring manager (especially for senior/generalist positions), it can be really hard to find a candidate that fits the specific requirements. Part of this is that my team requires a fairly specific skillset (that includes EA context, execution ability, and fit with our high energy culture) but I wouldn’t be surprised if other hiring managers have similar experiences. I think as the team grows and more junior positions become available this might be more flexible, though I think “indistinguishable” is still not accurate.
Hey Emma,
Thanks so much for your bravery in sharing your story. I’m so sorry to hear about your experiences at EAG and the afterparty. I care about and value you a lot as a community member and a colleague and it makes me very sad to hear that you were uncomfortable.
As I mentioned in my other reply, we are working with the community health team to investigate the EAG incident, and I plan to do what I can to help.
I’d like to clarify that “using the event app to request meetings for romantic or sexual reasons” is clearly listed as one of the behaviors that “don’t belong at EA Global or related events” in our Code of Conduct (also found on our FAQ and registration form). Agreeing to this is a condition of attending, we take violations seriously, and we are working with the community health team to investigate this incident.
Thanks for the nudge! We’ve now posted more information here.
Thanks!
You need to be an attendee of the conference and then you can access it from within Swapcard.
Working with you as ED for the past four years has been the happiest I’ve been at CEA. I’m really proud of the work we have done together and I’m so sorry for the personal toll it has taken on you. I hope you get some well-deserved rest and I look forward to working with you in your new advisory role. Thank you for everything, Max!
We have used a few Swapcard alternatives at previous events (Bizzabo, Whova, Grip) and sadly Swapcard was the best despite its weaknesses. I know the EAG team has talked with you about this some Yonatan, but I’d be keen to hear if you have any updated recommendations!
Thank you! That’s encouraging :)
Generally, we get our contracts to have alcohol “by consumption” so we only pay for what we use. My experience with EA events is that people usually don’t drink that much so the portion of spend on alcohol is typically not significant.
Hi Evan,
Thanks for asking! I agree this can be pretty tough, especially because people are really different.
In most cases (aside from external contractors) we don’t pay people based on the number of hours that they work. So, salaries don’t really vary based on the hours exactly.
But, if someone truly is able to sustainably and productively work long hours, they will probably perform better. As a result, this could increase the chances that they get promoted, which means higher salary etc.However, I have also seen cases where people have needed to scale back their work in order to make better judgment calls, and take care of their health, and that ultimately led to promotion. It varies a lot!
I’m not sure. She linked to both sources her post, so I don’t think the issue is that she doesn’t know about them.
I did give her quite a bit of feedback on her application and things she might include/ways she might get involved in the future, which would have given her some additional insight into how we think about the process. That might be what she means.
A number of people have asked me whether I gave Constance permission to post a selection of my private Facebook communications and my email/the events team’s emails as part of this Forum post. I did not. I felt a bit uncomfortable with this, but I also did not ask her to take them down.
I saw that she had some suggestions for how I could improve my messages and my emails / other events team emails in the redline comments, and I agree some of her suggestions would have been improvements.
I was the person at CEA who spoke with Constance. I don’t remember asking her to promise anything, and CEA certainly didn’t suggest an NDA. (Though I was surprised to see my private correspondence with her published here, since we didn’t discuss publishing it.)
I don’t think I gave Constance additional insights into the admissions process that aren’t already published fairly widely (see here and CEA comments here). I did give her specific feedback on her application and her fit for the event, and other advice about how to get more engaged with the community but I did not ask her to keep that between us. I agree that we could improve communications, and we are reflecting on that.
My five-year-old Earnie generally doesn’t lie. For example, if I ask, “Why is Teddy crying?” he will say, “I took the bike from him”. He sometimes does “tricking,” but usually that’s something very silly and obvious. (Note: I can imagine looking back at this in a few months and being surprised. Things often go in phases with kids.)
I think he learned about deceit and trust, at least in part because I make a point of not lying to my kids. When they are skeptical of something I’ve said, I’ll ask them, “Do I lie?” and they will reflect and say, “Mommy doesn’t lie.”
Our 3-year-old seems not quite on the no-lying page yet (he seems to enjoy it and giggles about it sometimes). Recently, he has seemed to treat pinky promises with more reverence, but we’ll see.