Episode 79: Pia Owens (Library Trustee / Negotiation Coach / Tech Lawyer)
Meet Pia Owens! She's done many things in Watertown from having served as a Library Trustee, Co-President of the Watertown Community Foundation, a facilitator for Watertown Community Conversations, and a board member of the Mosesian Center for the Arts. She works as a negotiation coach, tech lawyer, ombudsperson for a writer's collective, among other things. In short, we talk about a lot! Take a listen to learn about her journey through these topics and roles and the lessons and perspectives she's gained from them all.
Released August 25th, 2026
(Click here to listen on streaming apps) (Full transcript below)
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Find out more about Pia at piaowens.com
Pia's Substack - Let's Have It Out
Pia's monthly column in Psychology Today - Getting Comfortable With Conflict
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Thanks to podcast promotional partner the Watertown Business Coalition, a nonprofit organization focused on connecting local businesses and strengthening our community. Find out more at watertownbusinesscoalition.com.
Thanks to promotional partner Watertown News, a Watertown-focused online newspaper. Check that out at watertownmanews.com.
This program is supported in part by a grant from the Watertown Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.
Transcript
Matt 0:03
Hi there. Welcome to the Little Local Conversations Podcast. I'm your host, Matt Hanna. Every episode, I sit down for a conversation to discover the people, places, stories, and ideas of Watertown. This time I sat down with Pia Owens, who does a lot of things from being a library trustee, a negotiation coach, a tech lawyer, a writer, an ombudsperson, a facilitator with Watertown Community Conversations, and a history of doing other things in town. So we'll get into her multifaceted story. I'll let her introduce herself and then we'll dive right in.
Pia 0:34
I'm Pia Owens. I do far too many things. I got elected last year as a library trustee. So some people in town might know me because I went around knocking on everyone's doors, asking what they thought about the library. I am a member of Watertown Community Conversations, which trains volunteer facilitators to have civic dialogue within Watertown. So we do stuff like the kitchen table conversations about redevelopment of Watertown Square.
Matt 1:00
We are sitting at your kitchen table right now, right?
Pia 1:03
Yes. This is a kitchen table conversation that I am officially trained to have.
Matt 1:07
There you go.
Pia 1:08
What else? I teach and write and do negotiation coaching. Kind of my mission is to help people advocate for themselves, and especially people who have been taught don't ask for anything. You know, you don't deserve anything. Your job is to make other people comfortable. I love helping those people develop the skills to say, no, actually, I do need things and I do deserve things. And part of that is I write a Substack called Let's Have It Out. And I have a monthly column in psychology today called Getting Comfortable with Conflict.
Pia 1:40
What else? I write fiction. Some people actually know me from readings I've done around town, which is always interesting because I'm always in my head when I'm reading, and then to have someone come up and say, like, oh, I remember you did that. I'm always like, oh yeah, people heard that and they will remember it. I'm the ombudsperson person, which is like the conflict resolution slash communication facilitator for a group called Periplus, which is a mentoring collective for writers of color. I'm probably missing something.
Matt 2:11
We all are. In these conversations I always say like we’re just getting a slice of who you are, like obviously, we're all more complex than a 45-minute conversation.
Pia 2:20
Oh, my actual job.
Matt 2:22
But yes. Yeah. So yeah, what do you spend the majority of your time doing?
Pia 2:26
I am a tech lawyer. So I have a computer science background. I work as senior in-house counsel at a local software company. So I work on legal issues related to cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, data privacy, all of the big things that we read about in the newspaper, trying to get us to do the right thing.
Matt 2:47
Yeah. So there is a lot going on here. Speaks to me. I'm like that too. I like having lots of things going on. So you're my type of person. But before we dig into any one of those, I always like to go back in time. And you know, it's interesting to go chronological, and sometimes you can see how some of those things develop. So let's go way back. Where are you from? Are you from around here? Where did you grow up?
Pia 3:06
I grew up in New York State on Long Island, about 45 minutes outside New York City. Did not like it there.
Matt 3:13
Why not?
Pia 3:14
A combination of extremely suburban, like no sidewalks, can't walk anywhere, I need a car to get everywhere. And also pretty segregated and racist. My parents immigrated here from India in the early 1970s. And that was a time when Asian immigration had been severely restricted and suddenly they were opening up, but only for mainly engineers and doctors. So, you know, like most people, we were brought here for our labor. And then when we wanted to live and have families and stuff, everyone's like, what makes you think you deserve that? So yeah, when I was little, we lived in a town with a lot of other immigrants. It was very diverse. But when I was like five years old, my parents moved us out to one of the more fancier suburbs. And just no one had ever seen a brown person before.
Pia 4:07
So, you know, I had a lot of those typical childhood experiences that you see in movies. I remember seeing an article where someone said, you know, older Gen Xers, stop talking about how everyone made fun of your school lunch because it was smelly. Like, that's such an old trope, and we don't care. It's not relevant to our lives. And I'm like, no, no, but that's exactly what it was. A lot of people asking me if I ate monkey brains. Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark was the big movie around then.
Pia 4:37
Anyway, so not a fan of Long Island and didn't go back after I went to college. I lived in California briefly and then have lived here in the Massachusetts, Watertown area for like 25 years or so, and most of that in Watertown. I had a couple years in Cambridge and Belmont and then settled down here.
Matt 4:56
What drew you to Watertown specifically?
Pia 4:58
Honestly, originally it was probably the same thing that drew most people, which is that we were looking in Cambridge and Somerville, and we could afford to live in Watertown. But of course, since then we've come to really love it here. I feel like it combines all the aspects of the small town where you walk down the street and you say hello to everyone you know, and the city where you can hop on public transit and you can walk to anything you need. And plus, I just really appreciate in Watertown how I feel like more than anywhere else I have ever been, there is such a high per capita, you know, people who are like, I'm gonna make this community a better place. I'm gonna go advocate for trees or education or whatever it is. Like everyone is really busy building that up, and I love that.
Matt 5:44
Yeah. Before we get into Watertown, let's rewind a little bit. So you went to school in California. How did you decide to go to California? And what did you study in school?
Pia 5:52
Actually went to school, I went to Brown in Rhode Island.
Matt 5:55
Okay.
Pia 5:56
But I had always wanted to live in San Francisco. And I studied computer science. So I went out there. It was 1999. It was at the height of the tech boom, just before the bubble burst. Although I didn't do the whole tech startup thing. I worked at a little educational software company, which was really fun because they were transitioning from an all-print catalog to completely online. And there were like four of us who actually knew anything about the online part. So it was really us doing everything and a bunch of people who were educators and illustrators and people who were really skilled, but thought that what we were doing was just magic. So that was really fun. And then after a couple years out there, I came back to go to grad school for computer science at Harvard, which I left after a year with a master's degree and then worked for a while longer as a software engineer and then switched gears completely and went to law school.
Matt 6:50
Gotcha. What drew you to computer science first? Why did you choose that as an interest?
Pia 6:55
I went to school intending to be a linguistics major. And my first semester at school, somehow, I don't know why they let me do this. I talked my way into a graduate level linguistics seminar.
Matt 7:07
That's some good linguistics.
Pia 7:10
Why did anyone let me do this? I don't know. It was so over my head. It was just a complete failure. And there were only two linguistics professors at Brown who taught the majority of the courses, and this was one of them. So after that, I was like, I can never face this woman again.
Matt 7:25
Gotcha. So you're like, I need to do a quick pivot here.
Pia 7:29
Yeah. And at the same time, I was taking the introductory computer science class for CS majors, which was legendary for being extremely difficult. And like halfway through the semester, the project was coding Tetris. So you're starting from zero and going to that. And that's not even the end. In fact, in another piece of dodgy advising, we had a peer advisor, which was somebody who was like a couple years older. I think mine was like a junior or senior. I still remember when she looked at my schedule, she's like, you can't take computer science. It's too hard. Don't take it.
Matt 8:02
So you were going against the grain.
Pia 8:05
Yeah. Well, I just thought it would be fun. And Brown has this thing that makes everyone say, like, oh, Brown is the very loose, hippie Ivy, which is they let you take any class you want pass-fail. You can take every single one of your classes pass-fail. So I took that class pass-fail. That option is designed to help you explore and try things that you might not be good at. And I was like, okay, I'm just trying this because it seems like a skill that everyone should have in some way. But I ended up loving it. And actually that became a huge part of my life for the next four years. I was a teaching assistant for that class. And then there was a whole staff of TAs. So then I was the head TA throughout my college years. And in fact, that was the professor who wrote me my recommendation for law school.
Matt 8:48
Nice. So then, yeah, why law school? Why did you pivot into law?
Pia 8:51
Mainly because growing up, I was always more of a humanities person. And I was always told by my engineer parents there are not any real jobs in that. You know, that is not an actual thing that you can pursue. You need to do something practical. Also, this is being the child of immigrants, right? They're like, you don't have any connections. You're not getting by on, you know, anything other than what you can contribute. So go get a practical job. You can major in linguistics, but don't come to us when you're living in a cardboard box. Literally, they said that.
Matt 9:24
Gotcha. Yeah. Okay.
Pia 9:25
So yeah, I mean, I feel like I was genuinely interested in computer science, but especially when I went back to grad school, I remember there was this moment where it was like 2 a.m. and everyone's discussing some algorithm and they're very excited about it. And I just wanted to fall asleep. I was like, you guys, like my eyes are glazing over. And I realized their eyes are not glazing over. This is what gets them excited, and it does not get me excited.
Matt 9:52
That's good insight to still have while you're in school because some people don't make that insight until much later. So that's good.
Pia 9:59
Yeah. And also I was just at a time in my life where I had a lot of flexibility and freedom. Like I had been working for a while, so I had some money saved. I was already married. We already owned a house. We did all that stuff pretty early, but we didn't have kids yet. So I was like, okay, I can make a giant pivot and it's not really gonna affect anybody except for me. So yeah, went to law school.
Matt 10:19
Yeah. Any good stories in law school you want to talk about?
Pia 10:22
One thing that tends to interest people is that I had both Alan Dershowitz and Elizabeth Warren as professors in law school.
Matt 10:30
Some good namedropping.
Pia 10:31
Yeah. Alan Dershowitz turned every single day of criminal law into like the Alan Dershowitz show and talked about the O.J. Simpson trial nonstop. Elizabeth Warren, this was before she got into politics, started out with this really inspiring speech about. She was teaching bankruptcy, which is a really dry subject. And there's a very thick, dense bankruptcy code that you kind of have to memorize in order to be good at bankruptcy. And you have to know a lot about like taxes and it's dry. But the first day she said, okay, this is the only day we're not going to open our books. We're going to talk about why this is so important. And I still remember this whole speech that she gave us about how ordinary Americans are teetering on the edge and one divorce, illness, death in the family, you know, any emergency can just tip us right over. And this is one of the only remedies we have to kind of get back on our feet, which I don't think should be the case, but really made an impression on me as somebody who I was a corporate lawyer after that.
Pia 11:35
I worked at a big law firm. And I feel like often the mindset there is we're gonna do what the law says, we're gonna make money, we're gonna have a successful business. And so I really appreciated having that grounding and like, no, no, all of that stuff isn't the point. Actual people living their lives, like that is why we are making all these rules and dealing with all these details. So that made a big impression on me.
Pia 11:57
But really, my most defining part of law school was that I got pregnant with my older son at the end of my first year of law school, and then took a semester off second year when he was born, and then had a baby throughout the rest of law school, which was not a typical thing and was a pretty interesting experience. Like I remember I would walk by my classmates on the street and I'd be pushing my stroller and they would just not even see me.
Matt 12:26
It’s like, oh, that's not a student. Yeah.
Pia 12:28
Yeah. Like people who I knew well, who ordinarily, if I had just been walking down the street, we would have stopped and talked. They just literally filtered me out of their sights. Graduation was like that, too. People would introduce me to their parents, like, oh, this is my friend. The parents would look at me and be like, oh, you're graduating too? Because I was there holding my baby.
Matt 12:48
Yeah.
Pia 12:49
And that actually, I don't really catalog all of my like proudest accomplishments and things like that. But the one that I do really remember is walking across that graduation stage with my robe and with my toddler on my hip and you know, shaking Elena Kagan's hand and saying, okay, this is what I set out to do. It was kind of crazy. Everyone, no one thought it was really a good idea, but look, we're here.
Matt 13:14
Yeah. So how did you get through this? So were you still working while you're going to law school?
Pia 13:18
No, I went to law school full-time.
Matt 13:20
Okay. Still. Did you have like a nanny or were you fully in charge of the childcare too?
Pia 13:25
No, we had a family day care. So I would drop him off in the morning, go to school, which was very motivating. I mean, I think every new parent finds this that, you know, you think, how am I going to do all of this? But in those moments when you are on your own and you can actually complete a thought and focus, it feels like such a gift that like that is all you're going to do. You're not going to like get up and go get a snack. You're like, no, no, these moments are precious. I'm going to do this. So yeah, I mean, after having him, I really compressed my schoolwork into kind of a traditional work day, you know, nine to five, I'd be at the library, which was, again, different than what my classmates were doing. And honestly, you know, I probably could have made more of law school and done more networking and done more social stuff and all the, you know, but I had different priorities. And so it actually was a really wonderful time. Since I was in school, I felt like I had so much flexibility. And since I had worked, I had like six years of work experience before it came to school, which made me slightly, I thought slightly older than my classmates, but they were like, oh my gosh, you're so old. I was like 30.
Matt 14:31
Yeah. I mean you think about generational things, like my wife, who is, let's see, she's four years older than me. But we talk about like the shows we watched from growing up. It's like no recollection of the shows she watched. She has no recollection because like that four-year gap can make a huge difference. So it is funny how yeah, a six-year gap can make a huge cultural difference.
Pia 14:49
I still remember somebody just bursting out into laughter uncontrollably because I said something about like some song came on and I was like, oh, this was my favorite song in college. And she was like, this was our theme song in middle school.
Matt 15:02
Yeah, those type of things. Yeah.
Pia 15:05
So yeah, I had been working for a while before that. And so law school to me kind of felt like a vacation. I was in school full time. I really had a ton of control over my schedule. You know, I had classes that I needed to be at for maybe what, eight hours a week. And then beyond that, my time was completely my own. So I found it actually to be a really great time to have a baby. And I also think didn't stress out as much as my classmates. I didn't really care if I got an A on the exam or. I did try out for law review, which is like the big prestigious law journal. I did not do that. I did the journal of law and technology instead.
Matt 15:41
Yeah. So you mentioned writing in there. So where did, you know, this other part of you, this writing part of you, come from? Were you doing that when you were younger or where's the writing come in?
Pia 15:51
Oh, as a kid, I always loved writing. I used to write short stories and essays all the time. And I wanted to be a writer, but again, that was one of those things that I was told was not an actual job. I wanted to be a writer and a psychologist. So now that I'm writing for Psychology Today, it's like my childhood dreams are finally coming true. But that's part of it actually, that it did take me a very long time to kind of get around to the idea that, oh, I can do the things I want to do. I don't have to do just the things that I'm expected to do or that are practical. Although there is something to be said for practicality now that I have kids to put through college.
Pia 16:28
But also around the time I turned 40, my older brother, who is very annoying in that way that older brothers are, and like thinks he knows everything and is always making these grand pronouncements about like everyone does this and no one does this. We had this conversation where he said, you know, it's pointless to have a bucket list. No one ever does the things on their bucket list because if they were really so important to you, you would have done them already. And I said, No, that's not true. I mean, you can't do everything at once. The point of a bucket list is that over the course of your life, you want to remember the things that you really care about. And he's like, No, no, if you cared about it, it would be done. And I said, No, I don't think that's true. Like, I think I'm really gonna write my novel one day. And he said, Well, why don't you? And I was like, hmm.
Pia 17:13
And at that time, I had been writing little stories, even little books for my kids. And I was like, Yeah, I'm 40, I'm gonna write my novel. And so I sat down and very quickly realized I had no clue what I was doing. I thought it was just gonna be like a longer version of the stories that I had been writing, but no, it is a completely separate endeavor. So I also realized I wasn't really good at writing anymore. Like in the way that I felt like I was as a kid, I felt like my creativity had been kind of turned off. I was a lawyer, I was a mom, I was making spreadsheets all the time. I felt that creativity was completely dried up. And so I started taking writing classes. There's a local organization called Grub Street, which is excellent for writers. I took an intro class there and then started really pouring myself into writing. Taking more classes, meeting other writers, going to workshops and conferences, of course, writing a lot, continuing to work on my novel, which now I'm eight years in and still is not done after kind of embarrassing to talk about at this point. But people are like, How's the novel going? And I'm like, still going.
Matt 18:20
Yeah. Is it something like you've gotten close to being done and then you've just ripped it up and started fresh? What's the eight years of work on it been?
Pia 18:27
Yeah, actually, I did just that. I spent about three or four years working on a full manuscript, which I thought that that was it. But then when I had people read it, one person in particular was like, I don't like this one character. And when I dug into that, she said, Well, it's like she's in a different book. Everyone else is in this story focused on justice, and this person is in a rom-com. And I was like, Oh, you're right. So that was my moment of ripping it all up and starting over. Not because it was bad necessarily, but it just that wasn't what I had set out to write. It was in the course of learning how to write, I was like, oh, I'm missing these certain elements. I need to have more conflict. I need to have more tension. And so I stuck in these little side stories that took over in a way that I didn't want. So yes, I have started over from a blank page multiple times, actually, but that was the big one where I said, no, no, I'm taking this in a different direction. I feel like the version I have now is the one, but it still needs a lot of work.
Matt 19:33
Gotcha. Getting there. Yeah. Nice. Well, you mentioned the word conflict in there. So do you want to talk about another part of you that is negotiation, mediation work? How did that come up for you? And what does that mean to you?
Pia 19:45
Yeah. So when I went to law school, it was actually very similar to how I decided to study computer science in undergrad. I was like, this is something I don't know anything about. I'm probably gonna be bad at it, but it seems important to learn. So let me try. So in law school, I was like, I need to learn negotiation. And I did not think I was capable of that at all. I was, yeah, just really fearful, didn't ever want to cause any argument, or even to the point where like I hate mayonnaise. And if I ordered a sandwich and I was like, no mayo, but then they slathered it with mayo anyway, I would just be like, okay, thank you.
Matt 20:26
As a fellow people pleaser, I understand that predicament. Yeah.
Pia 20:30
Yeah. So I was really like, this is not something I am capable of doing, but let me go and learn and see what I can pick up. And maybe I can get decent enough at it to actually be able to do this job. And that, and also I joined the mediation program where first I was trained and certified as a mediator. And then we would actually go out and mediate in local small claims courts and later in housing court. And both of those experiences really were transformative for me. You know, I was like, oh, these are things you can learn. These are skills. It's not just that you are this confident, extroverted person who can ask for what you want or you're not. There are actual things that you can do that feel comfortable for you, ways that you can speak up and ways that you can say no.
Pia 21:16
And when I teach negotiation classes sometimes, and one of the things I do is have a whole chart of different ways to say no. And I have everyone say each one of them out loud. Often I'll teach online, and so I'll have everyone mute themselves and physically say each one of those no's and think about, you know, which ones feel comfortable and good to you, and which ones feel really uncomfortable. Like this is not me, I cannot say this. And then telling people, you don't have to use those ones that make you feel bad, but lean into the ones that make you feel good. Practice using them. Actually develop the muscle memory of saying those words so that when you need them, you'll have them.
Matt 21:55
Is there one that like people kind of glom to who are the ones who are avoidant of saying no?
Pia 22:00
It's very individual. And often it'll be something that's not on my list, but it gets people thinking about, oh, how am I comfortable saying no? Yeah, I mean, in fact, I even include things that are really indirect, like, hmm, or like, I'm not sure. And that can be totally valid too. You know, you're still saying I have reservations here, in a way that other people can then work with. But anyway, yeah, so those experiences doing negotiation and mediation in law school. With mediation too, a lot of those skills are about really deep listening and asking good questions. And that, you know, when we went to mediate in small claims court, a lot of the small claims cases are collections, people collecting their debt. You wouldn't think they would lend themselves to mediation. And I was really kind of amazed every time that there was always more to it.
Pia 22:47
Both people would come in saying that they have been grievously wronged and it doesn't matter if they're the plaintiff or the defendant. And even when it was just a case of like you didn't pay your bill, so often there was some aspect where the one person would be like, I'm a small business owner. Why are you doing this to me? You're making me chase you around, and I don't understand why you're putting me through this. And the other person often would be like, I'm so ashamed. Why didn't you call me? And they'd say, I know I should have. I wanted to. There are so many emotions and weird motivations that you would not expect underlying all of these decisions that seem very straightforward and very rational. So that's something that really has stuck with me throughout my legal career and definitely in the coaching and teaching negotiation that I do now.
Matt 23:35
Yeah. And is there any like one case or one situation that you could really see how your role was really important in that work?
Pia 23:42
I mean, just every time you really listen to someone and they just calm down immediately. You know, you can see them physically, like their shoulders relaxed, and maybe they stopped talking a mile a minute. They stop repeating themselves because they finally feel like someone heard them. And in mediation, there were a lot of cases that didn't actually settle. They ended up going back to court. But even in those cases, they went back and they were able to tell their story in a way that wasn't, I'm the victim, why am I here? Of course I'm right. It was more like, this is what happened. Here's what happened from my perspective. And they really understood now that there is another human being on the other side.
Pia 24:25
That's something too, and I think that's something that I try to bring into my work in Watertown too, like as a library trustee and facilitating dialogues and things like that. That idea that it's really easy to get caught up in this narrative about this is right and this is wrong, and you know, wrongs are being done to me, and I need to remedy them. There's always a human being on the other side. And especially in a place like Watertown, when we have local disputes and people get mad at each other, even then, people really turn on each other quickly. And I want to always just remind people this is your neighbor, this is someone who's part of your community. They're a person.
Matt 25:04
Let's get into Watertown some. So, what was your first interaction of getting involved with the community?
Pia 25:09
So the Watertown Tab used to be the print newspaper that we got every week.
Matt 25:14
We're so old. What's a newspaper?
Pia 25:17
Actually, I had this idea which I never carried through, but to interview just random people and try to have a column in the Watertown Tab. Here's this member of the community, which is a really small version of what you're doing now. So that's really cool.
Matt 25:30
Yeah, I'm not an original idea here. This is something people like. Yeah.
Pia 25:34
No, but actually doing it is pretty original and great. Anyway, so yeah, we would get the Watertown Tab and there would be announcements of different meetings and things that were happening. So this was really more my husband than me. I grew up in a household where, again, my parents were immigrants. We were really involved in our own immigrant community, but I didn't even know we had local government. It just never occurred to me. Also, where I lived, everything was done on the county level. So I had no clue who was representing us, what they were doing, any of that. On the federal level, I understood, but I didn't even realize there was anything on the local level. But my husband has always been very civically oriented political science major. His mom was a history teacher. Parents were in Rotary. So he kind of grew up with this more civic orientation. And so it was his idea, we should just go to all these meetings. So we went to like a zoning board meeting.
Matt 26:31
Go straight for the popcorn fare there.
Pia 26:34
Yeah, I know. Just whatever it was there. We just started showing up. And the Democratic Town Committee, that was the first thing I think that wasn't like an official town thing where we just sat there and listened. It was a meeting where people were talking to each other. And everyone was just very surprised to see us. We were like decades younger than anyone else in the room. They were like, who are you? Where did you come from? Not in a hostile way, but just surprise. You know, it had been the same crew of people, and then these like 20-something randos show up. Yeah, so we got really involved in democratic politics. That was also, I mean, our country has only gotten more polarized since then, but it was a time where I was really starting to realize, oh, I don't want to be involved in politics, but I think we all have some responsibility here to just try to do what we can to influence what is happening and not just sit there and hope it's okay. So that was something that started both of us getting involved.
Pia 27:26
And then I actually ran for library trustee. I think a lot of people don't actually know this. I'm a library trustee now, but I ran once before, something like 18 years ago. At the time, I really didn't know anybody. I was also knocking on doors. Nobody knew who I was. It was a great way to actually get out and meet people. This time, too, I did a lot of door knocking. You know, it's kind of painful to do, right? To like intrude on somebody and talk about yourself. But it's also kind of great to have an excuse to just walk up to someone's door and say, hi, I'm here. I'm your neighbor. Can we talk? So when people were willing to talk, that's kind of a fun thing, even though it is not something I wish to repeat very often.
Matt 28:08
That same frame of thinking has come up with so many people I've interviewed, Steve included, you know, talking about the going door-to-door experience is really impactful when you look back at it. But it's hard, really hard in the moment.
Pia 28:19
Yeah. But yeah, so I lost that election. I lost to Tim Tracy, who served on the board for a while, and his family is really well known in town. His brother was the town auditor, and Linda Tracy for many, many, many years was like a mainstay of the public schools. Anyway, so no one knew me. I did not get elected. But what did happen is that I had put myself out there and met a lot of people, and I got recruited to be on the board of the Watertown Community Foundation. Because they said, Oh, like here's somebody who has shown that they're interested in civic engagement, somebody maybe who wasn't on our radar before. Great, let's bring her in. Which is something that when I meet other people, especially people who are newer to town and have run for something and are discouraged, I'm like, no, no, this is just the beginning. Like, it doesn't matter that you lost the election. You are now someone who publicly has said, let me help, let me be part of this community. And if you want to help, people will definitely take you up on that.
Matt 29:16
People will always like help. Yes.
Pia 29:17
Yes. So I was on the board of the Watertown Community Foundation and became the co-president along with Thea Sahr, who's another neighbor here. And while I was there, we started Watertown Helps Out, which is still going. That's our yearly day of service where everyone signs up to volunteer around town and around the area.
Matt 29:36
I did an episode on Watertown Helps Out, but I never got the full story of, I guess, the actual origins of it. So what were discussions about bringing Watertown Helps Out to life?
Pia 29:45
So Thea and I, who were co-presidents at the time of the Watertown Community Foundation, we were actually trying to talk to Jeff Bilezikian of the Bilezikian Family Foundation. He is local and his family foundation funds a lot of efforts, not only locally, but all over the place. And so we were talking to him and seeing if he would be willing to consider some kind of multi-year grant to the community foundation. And he said, Well, you know, I don't know. I'm not sure if I just see you guys out there enough. And he talked about on Cape Cod, where he spends a lot of time, how they do things like this day of service. I mean, he talked about a bunch of things, but that was the thing that stuck in both of our heads. And Thea and I talked later and we were like, that's something that we can do here, regardless of whether, you know, he's gonna fund it. I mean, he's right that we are not really out there enough. A lot of people don't know, at the time, that the community foundation exists. They don't really know the work we're doing. This would be a way to not only let people know we're here, but also get everyone involved and invested in a way that doesn't take up a huge amount of their time and resources and feels good and actually contributes.
Pia 30:54
So yeah, we brought the idea to the board. Everyone said yes, let's do it. And Roberta Miller was the person who really spearheaded this. She chaired the committee. I think she actually came up with the name, Watertown Helps Out. We were workshopping a bunch of different names. But yeah, we all worked together that first year to figure out how this is going to work, to contact all the organizations, to get the sign-up working, you know, all the little behind-the-scenes pieces. We had a big celebration. I think that year we did it at the end, but the following year we moved it to like a breakfast thing so everyone would meet and then go out to their destinations. But yeah, so tons of little decisions to make and logistics to figure out. But we pulled it off. We did it, I think we probably started planning in like November, December. And then that May, we had our first Watertown Helps Out. And I'm really pleased that it's continued.
Matt 31:43
Yeah, and it's gotten bigger. It's more than one day now. But yeah, so you were on the Watertown Community Foundation board. How long were you on there for roughly?
Pia 31:50
Um, about five or six years. And then I left that and just needed to take a break because it's a lot of work. Although I have to say, the community foundation does such great work. That was the first time that I was involved in an organization that I didn't feel like, oh gosh, now I know how the sausage is made. You know, like everyone really was working hard to try to identify needs and help people and not a lot of big egos, which I really appreciated.
Pia 32:15
After that, though, I planned to step back from town things for a while and just take care of my kids and do the things I had been neglecting. But then I was asked to be on the Mosesian Center board. So I joined that. And that was a time when they were going through an executive director search. So I ended up heading that up. And then the pandemic hit and everything just went kind of haywire. Yeah. So I was only on the board for a few years there. But when I think about that time, it was mostly that executive director search, which was also a whole other skill set. I realized why people hire consulting firms that do these executive searches and they pay them many thousands of dollars. Like it is really challenging to do that kind of search, which also had to be done by the library around the same time. So the trustees were going through that process at the same time we were doing it on the arts board. Again, I think the pandemic just contributed to a lot of this unsettledness. You know, people were moving and hunkering down and having to quit things that they had been doing.
Matt 33:20
Priority changes and all that stuff. Now, does that, in terms of your involvement, does that take us up to close the current day with getting involved with the library again, or was there something else?
Pia 33:28
Yeah, after leaving the Mosesian board, that's when I became involved with the Periplus Collective, which is a mentoring program for writers of color, that is not Watertown based. That's when I started getting more into my writing practice. And so I was like, this is really the community that I'm looking for right now. And that was also something where, it was the people who were starting it were very established writers. And at first I was thinking about applying. So there's the fellowship, and I was looking at it and saying, like, oh, maybe I'll apply for this fellowship. But then when I looked at the description, because this was a brand new thing that they were just starting, and it said, We're looking for an ombudsperson. And I thought, that is so weird. Why would you start something brand new and the first thing you do is look for an ombudsperson? Most people don't even know what that is.
Matt 34:14
Because they've been to graduate lit classes with critiques and know that environment.
Pia 34:19
Yeah, I think that's a big part of it. Yeah, so I contacted the person who was running this, Vauhini Vara, who is a journalist and novelist and essayist. And I was like, Hi, you don't know me. And, you know, I am just starting to write. I don't have a lot of experience, but I do have experience in mediation, negotiation, dialogue facilitation. I'm an attorney. Why do you want an ombudsperson? And if you're interested in talking to me, let's talk. And she was also like, Why do you want to do this? She said, You know, understand you're not getting paid, right? And I was like, you know, I'm just, I'm interested. Like, I am intrigued by why you want this. And also, it was a great opportunity for me to meet writers. The mentors in this program are writers that I really admire. And in fact, the program now has been running for, this is the sixth year. The fellows in the program are also really amazing writers who some of them have published their work and then come back as mentors. So it is really cool to be part of this emerging writers of color kind of movement where people are doing work that really resonates with me. But anyway.
Matt 35:28
Where is this group based?
Pia 35:30
It's virtual.
Matt 35:31
It's virtual. Okay.
Pia 35:32
And it's completely volunteer run. And it is more like a mutual aid society than like an entity. There's no like legal entity. And for a while, really, it was just me and Vauhini. Nicole Chung is currently the secretary who is also a memoirist and a journalist. But yeah, so I joined as the ombudsperson. And what she told me, we had this conversation, and I said, Why do you want this? She said, Well, in a mentoring program, there's a lot of potential for unhealthy dynamics and for people exploiting each other. And I want to make sure that doesn't happen. And I was really surprised and interested that that was something that she had thought about right at the beginning before anyone had even come on board. And I thought, yeah, I can do that, I can try. And I love taking on something new that I've never done before and learning how to do it. And so I started reaching out to other ombudspeople and saying, what do you do? How did you learn how to do it?
Matt 36:25
What is an ombudsperson? How would you define that?
Pia 36:28
So I would say it's somebody who helps resolve conflict. And hopefully in a non-judgmental and non-partisan way. It's a little different in each organization. In Periplus itself, what I tell people is if you're struggling with some kind of interpersonal issue, it doesn't matter whether it's very serious or if in fact, at the moment when you feel really in your own head about it, when you feel like you're driving yourself crazy, thinking like, am I reasonable? Is this right? Am I misinterpreting? That's when you can call me. We'll talk about it. I will help you figure out what to do. I won't tell you what to do. And this is actually the same thing I do in my negotiation coaching practice. It's really all about just trying to draw the person out and ask them questions. I mean, probably much like podcasting too, where you're not trying to lead them, but you are trying to just uncover things that sound kind of interesting. Or if someone says something like, Of course I knew I couldn't do that. That's always, you know, that gets my radar up. And I'm like, Well, why couldn't you?
Matt 37:31
Right. Right.
Pia 37:32
And so just helping people delve into those areas that they may be skipping over without realizing it. And then the ombudsperson role is also more intrapersonal. So helping resolve conflicts between people, very often that is something where one person, actually where both people are like, this person doesn't respect me, you know, I can't do this anymore. And again, it's just this process of getting them to break that down a little bit, understand where the other person may be coming from, get them to see each other as complex people because it's so easy to just reduce someone else to like the person who is causing my problem.
Matt 38:07
Right. Yeah. Is there one specific story in there that was a meaningful one or a successful one or one that changed your opinion on how you go about your role?
Pia 38:18
I'm not sure I have a good answer, but I will say that the most common thing that happens every single year is that there are mentor-fellow pairs where one person kind of disappears. And often it is, you don't know why, but it's usually something unexpected, something that just happened in their life and really caused a huge disruption. In those cases, in a way, it's kind of the same thing over and over where one person will feel really terrible that the other person disappeared on them. And then if I can track that person down, they also feel terrible, but didn't know how to handle it. But I'm also always surprised at how completely different each situation is. There's always a different reason. People always handle it different ways. Often it really depends on their past and how they have been treated before and whether they have experienced this kind of thing.
Pia 39:06
Like one thing I've noticed more in recent years is people saying, you know, I'm not going to deal with toxic people. So I'm, you know, this relationship is over. And I'm like, oh, but okay, but that's a drastic step to take. And I'm really trying to encourage people within Periplus, since I have some influence there. I can't do this in the world. But I do really try to say, don't jump straight there. Let's go through a process first. Let's think about what could be happening. Let's talk to both of you and try to figure things out. Let's just keep an open mind about what might happen instead of jumping straight to a solution, which is either like we go back to exactly the way things were or we end this completely. Which again, I think applies to so many things.
Matt 39:49
Yeah, it's just another version of that I can't statement.
Pia 39:52
Yeah.
Matt 39:53
Gotcha.
Pia 39:54
Yeah, but it does seem like a trend, this idea that you cut out toxic people and the idea of toxic people. Both of which have a lot of validity, but I think it's kind of going too far where it's not weakness and it's not self-harm to consider that someone else has a different viewpoint and that their situation may be different than the way you're perceiving it.
Matt 40:16
Yeah. Do you have a, I mean, we this could be in a whole hours-long conversation, but do you have any strategy tips for getting someone to agree to that kind of conversation? I mean, obviously everyone is different, but like you said, just in the world, people don't want to hear the opposite side. They just shut that out. And I'm also someone who is very strong in the we should hear both sides camp. So are there some basic strategies that people could implement in any part of the world, in their lives in terms of that?
Pia 40:41
Yeah, I think one thing is actually using a go-between. I mean, I have mediation experience and as an ombudsperson, it's a very similar role. So maybe that's just my tendency. But it is very hard for two people to hear each other when they're locked in this conflict. And you can't really expect, you can't just say to them, oh, listen to each other, you know, this is your friend, right? Like it's not gonna work. But if you can get someone that they respect and that they trust to talk to them, I think that's, that's the thing. Like getting closer to where they are, starting from there and then helping them broaden out instead of just confronting them with the opposite perspective. So you can do that with someone like a mediator or a facilitator whose explicit role it is to come into the situation and talk to people and say, what do you think is happening? What do you think is happening? How can we put these together? I find that really useful because everyone has agreed that that's the process, that's what's happening. But you know, you can do it on a smaller scale, like in your family.
Matt 41:39
That was going to be my next question like what about family members who are on different sides of the political spectrum? And it used to be they could sit at the same table. Now it's maybe not so much, you know.
Pia 41:48
Yeah, with politics, that is really, really tough. And I am, I'm not gonna counsel anybody on whether or how to get along with your family members on politics. I have not figured that out at all. But I'm thinking more issues that come up where it's like, oh, you always do this. And like saying this person doesn't respect me is such a common thing in your personal life and your work life. That's often where people go when they're upset about something and when they're having a conflict. This person does not value me. This person doesn't respect me. And so anything you can do to break that down.
Pia 42:21
So first thing I said was maybe you can get someone else involved. But another thing you can do on your own is try to zoom out and bring it up a level to the common goal that you both care about or the common value that you both share. You know, if you're arguing about the family reunion and whether you should play pickleball or go on a cruise, I don't know. But you know, even little things can blow up, right? And they can turn into, well, you never let me have what I want and like you always get your way, and mom always liked you better, et cetera.
Matt 42:49
It's a vector for the deeper stuff.
Pia 42:51
Right. So if you can zoom out of that smaller argument and say, what do we both want? We want time together with our family. We want harmony, we want to enjoy ourselves, we want to have memories. So let's not make it about pickleball versus cruise. It's about how do we best achieve our shared goal of having a harmonious and happy reunion. And again, same thing at work, right? It's like if you and your colleague are arguing about the best way to do something, it really helps to say, okay, we both need this project to get done. And we both care a lot about the deadline. And so let's focus on how we're gonna meet the deadline. And each time you get bogged down in that smaller argument or the side argument, you can say, okay, hold on. Is this moving us toward getting this done on deadline? No? Okay, let's go back to that. So just refocusing on that shared vision or goal is really helpful.
Matt 43:43
Gotcha. Yeah. Again, we could go down that for a long time. So yeah, to move, start moving towards the end here. You came back to the library trustee many years later, and you won this time and got in. So, what was that process like and why did you want to get involved again?
Pia 43:59
So the process was more involved than I expected. Both times I have run for library trustee, it's been a contested election, which is not that common. I mean, most places don't even elect their library trustees. And it's usually not something that people are fighting over. So I just got two election cycles where people were very interested. The reason I decided to go back and do it, I had been very involved in the community for years as a board member of various organizations. And I had made a conscious decision to kind of step away for a bit and focus on other communities. And I wanted to come back. I felt ready to contribute back to Watertown again and to be more local. I also had a kid who was about to go off to college, and so I had some free time. I mean, I have more projects to fill up my time than I have time. But, you know, I had convinced myself, like, oh, it'll be no problem.
Pia 44:51
Also, my neighbor, Rosemary Su, was trustee and she was stepping all off the board. And, you know, times are increasingly polarized. We've been seeing more things like efforts at book banning and protests at libraries and some communities defunding their libraries. And in general, libraries and schools being characterized as sites of indoctrination when actually it's the opposite. You know, they're the things that are preventing you from being indoctrinated by showing a really, really wide range of viewpoints that you have access to. So she was stepping off the board, and it was important to her to make sure someone who shared her values got on the board. And so she came and talked to me and asked if I would be interested. And I was. I mean, for the same reasons, I felt like this was something that I could do that felt concrete and that would be useful and use my skills.
Pia 45:44
You know, when everything, it feels like the world is ending, it's really tough to know what you can do. But one thing I love about Watertown is that it really feels like everyone is out there doing their little piece. And so you just need to do your little piece, and maybe it'll be okay. So that's what I felt like running for library trustee, that this can be my little piece. I care a lot about the library. I know a lot about running organizations, about legal issues, intellectual property, technology, like a lot of stuff that's relevant. And of course, I just am at the library constantly and just have a deep appreciation for libraries. Like whenever I visit a new town, I always go to the public library there. So yeah, I mean, that was what drove me to run.
Pia 46:26
The actual election process was way more consuming than I expected. There were multiple debates and things like that, which I found kind of funny. People are like, what would you change? And I'm like, I don't want to change. I just want to, you know, help keep the library doing what it's doing, which I feel like is supporting the community really well. But also, it just felt weird. I was like, I need to learn a lot before I can even think about that question. Yeah, and then I have this past year on the library board, I've learned so much about the inner workings of libraries and the library system. And I already knew too that librarians in public libraries really have a difficult job. You know, not only are they running the library, which itself is a big job, but dealing with members of the public. Everybody is walking through that door. Everyone feels entitled to your time and attention, which I mean, they are in a way.
Matt 47:18
They probably see the widest range of people in the community than any other organization, maybe. Yeah, I've had social workers saying, like, librarians should have social worker certificates, because that's basically what they are. Being a librarian.
Pia 47:33
So hopefully most of their interactions with people are very, you know, heartwarming and delightful, but definitely I mean, on a daily basis, they get harassed, they get abused, they endure a lot and have to deal with it in really gracious ways that still make everyone feel welcome. So yeah, again, I already had a lot of respect for librarians, but I really see what they're doing now.
Matt 47:52
Yeah. And what is a, for people who don't know, what does a trustee do? What is the trustee's role?
Pia 47:57
So the trustee role is more of an oversight role for the library. The library director supervises the staff, and they are the ones really doing the day-to-day operations of the library, the programming, the collections, all of that. So the trustee role is more to say, what's the budget for the library? Are we staying within that? Are we using it responsibly? Are we meeting the needs of the community? Is there anything new that we should focus on, or, you know, things that people need that we're not doing that we could provide? And just, you know, is everyone, is everything okay? You know, we're at the community level and at the city government level, saying we're here to make sure that the library is running the way that the city needs it to, and that it continues to be effective and sustainable, and that we're a place to go if the director has issues.
Pia 48:45
We also do performance evaluations of the director. So it's sort of like a checks and balances kind of thing where the director will come to us and ask questions, you know, do you think this is appropriate for the community? This is what we're thinking. And we will go to her and ask questions like, do we have a plan if this emergency happens? Like one example is this past year, the community fridge came to the library, which is, I think, a really great combination of providing all kinds of resources for people, providing knowledge, providing physical food and people that they can talk to and you know, bathrooms and all kinds of things. But that was the kind of decision where the trustees weighed in, obviously the director and the staff had a lot to say. So it just makes sure that the library and the community are working together.
Matt 49:30
Yeah. Well, we've talked about a lot of stuff here. Is there anything else that you'd like to get out there and just say to the Watertown community before we wrap it up?
Pia 49:39
Nope.
Matt 49:41
Great. Well, if people want to talk to you and find out more about you, where should they go? How should they reach out? All that stuff.
Pia 49:48
I'm often at the library. Feel free to say hello to me there. I do have a website, PiaOwens.com. It's very old school. It's like lots of text that I wrote myself and many things to click on, very few images. If you really would like to know about what I do and what I care about, everything is pretty much linked from there. And I do have a Substack, PiaOwens.Substack.com, called Let's Have It Out, which is monthly tips on negotiation and conflict resolution. And then I've got my Psychology Today column, Getting Comfortable with Conflict, which you can subscribe to if you want those articles in your inbox.
Matt 50:22
Great. I'll put stuff in the show notes for that. Thanks for sitting down, welcoming me into your home. Thanks. Goodbye, listeners.
Matt 50:29
So that's it for my conversation with Pia. You can go over to PiaOwens.com and I'll put links in the show notes for the other things that she mentioned. If you want to hear more episodes of the podcast, you can head on over to LittleLocalConversations.com. There you can find all the episodes, upcoming events. Got a couple coming up in September. New Creative Chats with Zachariah Hickman, aka Watertown tuba guy. And I have a new Watertown's Open event about activating local independent retailers in Watertown. Those are both coming up in September. So again, check out the website, LittleLocalConversations.com. There you can sign up for my newsletter as well, keep up to date on everything going on with the podcast. And if you'd like to help support the podcast, keep these conversations going, there is a button in the menu on the website that says support local conversation. There you can become a Little Local Friend and again help keep these conversations going. And if you just think someone else in town might enjoy this conversation, share the episode.
Matt 51:23
Alright, and I want to give a few shoutouts here to wrap things up. I want to give a thank you to the Watertown Cultural Council who have given me a grant this year to help support the podcast. So I want to give them the appropriate credit, which is, this program is supported in part by a grant from the Watertown Cultural Council, a local agency, which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency. You can find out more about them at WatertownCulturalCouncil.org and MassCulturalCouncil.org. And a couple more shoutouts to promotional partners. First, the Watertown Business Coalition. Their motto is Community is Our Business. Find out more about them and their events at WatertownBusinessCoalition.com. And lastly, Watertown News, which is a Watertown focused online newspaper. It's a great place to keep up to date with everything going on in the city. Check that out at WatertownMANews.com. So that's it. Until next time, take care.
