The Tommy Life
A lifestyle roundtable project exploring nontraditional work, shifting ideas of success, and what it means to build a life outside the conventional script.
FORMAT: Roundtable, Dialogue
STATUS: In Development/ Ongoing
LOCATION: New York, Medellín, and virtual.
FOCUS: Work, Identity, Millennial Life
A roundtable series about work when “What do you do?” no longer has a simple answer.
Inspired by the running joke on Martin that “Tommy ain’t got no job,” That Tommy Life brings freelancers, gig workers, and other nontraditional workers together to talk about jobs, money, respectability, freedom, family expectations, and the strange business of proving that what we do counts.
For a generation shaped by freelance work, entrepreneurship, layoffs, side hustles, the gig economy, remote work, and careers that rarely move in a straight line, the old markers of professional adulthood don’t always fit.
The project uses humor and cultural memory as an entry point into a much larger conversation about labor.
Can’t Cash Compliments
Because “You’re amazing!” is lovely, but unfortunately ConEd does not accept praise.
“Cant Cash Compliments” is co-produced by Denae Patterson and Twanna Toliver, two friends who wished they could use all the compliments they receive for their work to pay bills, and wanted to explore the pattern of using praise in the workplace to avoid fair compensation.
Created for Equal Pay Day, Can’t Cash Compliments uses humor to explore the gap between how women are valued at work and how they are compensated. At the center is a comedic short in which a woman receives an abundance of praise, then attempts the obvious next step: paying her bills with it.
A campaign about compliments, compensation, and why recognition without equitable pay doesn’t quite cover the rent.